Last night the Boston Celtics defeated the lackluster LA Lakers to win their 17th NBA championship and their first in 22 years . Okay, I’m not the most loyal Celtics fan ever. I watched and supported them during a relatively uncelebrated stretch of their existence in the early 2000s, but I bailed soon after General Manager Danny Aigne come on board and dumped my favorite players in the name of his ambiguous plans to “rebuild.” Obviously, last night his plan came to terrific fruition, and I’m woman enough to give him credit where its due. But I’ll still never forgive him for trading Antoine Walker. Twice.
I resumed watching Celtics games this year because they were winning, but bandwagon fans bother me enough that I refuse to consider myself a fan. People who I assumed were fanatical Red Sox fans are suddenly all about the Celtics. And when I say “suddenly,” I mean, like, only in the past month, ever since a trip to the Finals seemed probable. These people aren’t baseball fans or basketball fans or football fans, they’re fans of whoever gives them that adrenalin buzz that goes with vicarious victory.
Five years ago, I tried to counter the rabid MLB talk with NBA talk, and was met with rolled eyes and dismissive comments about poor Paul Pierce, stuck on a team of losers. Now the same people are reliving the glory of last night’s decisive Fourth Quarter. They are so used to talking with each other about baseball that they naturally fall into the rhythm of basketball banter, with a practiced ability to turn information gleaned from newscasters into their own keen observations.
“I didn’t know you were a Celtics fan,” people say when I speak up knowledgably about the Celtics. I didn’t know you were either, I resist the urge to snipe.
“Oh yeah, I was out in the streets of Boston last night, overturning flower pots and setting trashcan fires,” I say jokingly, because as I said, I’m not a Celtics fan. “Huge fan. Huge.”
