Is it acceptable for a true Rockets fan to root for Dallas?

Out of bounds VS The Decision




Thats all I have to say

 

When the Rockets are out, you can root for whoever* you want. I used to hate the Mavepricks a bit, but mainly because of Mark Cuban and some fans. Not because of their players or a rivalry or anything. But today, most of that hate has either turned into pity for the city (I'm a poet), or respect and admiration for Dirk.

Bottomline is I think it's perfectly acceptable to root for them. Especially since it would give the NBA a bit more parity for them to win a title since they have none.

*Except the Jazzholes or the Fakers.

 

I completely agree, with one exception, Utah.

 

The more I think about this the more passionate I get about it.

Dirk Nowitski is playing his ass off with no all-stars around him. He is over-performing from the underdog position. How do you not root for that? I mean, as a lover of the game, how do you not root for that?

And who could prefer the anointed champions that tried to take the easy train to Ringville, who are hanging in but ultimately underperforming and disappointing.

Isn't this what being a sports fan is all about? It's a cliche because it's true. Everybody loves a good underdog story, everybody loves it when hard work wins out over stacking the deck, and everybody loves to watch the kind of incredible basketball this series has been.

Can anyone deny that whoever wins this series is a great, great team, deserving of great respect, and that whoever loses it is a great team too? I don't understand hating teams for being great.

But Dirk Nowitski is like Yao to me in his work ethic. Like Elie in his toughness. Like Olajuwon with his seemingly inexhaustible offensive arsenal.

The Heat are like the Bulls or the Lakers or the Celtics in their dominant eras. It's great, I think, to have one team in the league that is regarded to be better than any other team, to be unbeatable.

But the point of having an unbeatable team is to beat that team. When that happens, man, how can you not root for that?

 

at the moment im not rooting for any team. I dont like both and i only watch cuz the games are always so tight.

 

**** no.

Dallas sucks and will always suck.


All this sudden Dirk love makes me puke.

 

I LOVE dirk. Now puke!!

 

Yes, absolutely yes.

At the end of the day it comes down to this...

People who take the easy road to a solution (the big 3 of Miami) cannot get away with winning. It would change the landscape of sports forever. That is what we are cheering about. It isn't Dallas. It's the preservation that a championship must be earned for the sake of competition.

 

So you must have hated the last three champions, right? Because Boston was the original Big 3, and the Lakers were gift wrapped championships with the Kwame for Gasol farce.

 

That big 3 was old, aging veterans with their last shot at a title; like Hakeem, Drexler and Barkley in 1996. However, if Dream and Clyde took a paycut in 1994 and joined Barkley in Phoenix, I would have a serious issue with that. As for the Lakers...Kobe, Gasol and Artest is not a "big 3". (But to technically answer your question, yes, I hated the Lakers winning it the last two years, but not for the big 3 reason )

 

I don't know where people got the idea it had to be a "big 3" to be dominant/tampering. All "big 3" means is that you have to fill out the rest of your roster with scrubs, so it's supposed to even out. If anything, you should be pissed at Miami for having Haslem take a big pay cut to stay, since everyone else on the roster is paid roughly what they're worth (yeah, the "big 3" are slighty off max but it's not that big of a cut).

Anyway, Boston most certainly did the same thing; KG averaged 22/13/4 and Ray averaged 26/5/4 the year before. It's not like we're talking '09 and '10 Shaq jumping from team to team in a last ditch chance to get a ring here.

And the Lakers got a near 20/10 guy for free, which is worse than anything Boston or Miami did.

Point is, to compete with this kind of tampering, other teams have to play dirty themselves.

 

Point is, Lebron and Bosh did it by choice.

If superteams were created because the teams themselves had good management that led to the creation of those teams, it is hardly determental to the player's character. Garnett was more than willing to stick in with Minnesota for the rest of his prime because there's a code that it's the sort of way it has to be done. Garnett didn't make "The Decision" and announced he was going to Boston. Ditto for Gasol and Ray Allen. ( I have no idea why you call the Lakers a Big 3 btw ).

I do not have a problem with Miami's management; they did what they had to do to increase value of their team. But I have a problem with Lebron and Bosh leaving situations where they could've been earning their championships, and doing things the easy way *by choice*.

 

LeBron and Bosh wouldn't have been earning championships if they stayed because their teams were awful and weren't going to win championships. And if they win this year, they will have earned them by being key contributors. Championships are not won by a single person, no matter how much the media wants to make it as such. Even if the Mavs win this year, it will not be because of Dirk-- it'll be the entire team effort (and if you argue otherwise, explain why the Mavs have fizzled the last few years... Dirk is the same guy).

It's the same logic Kobe used when, frustrated with three years of early exits, he demanded a trade and said "At this point I'll go play on Pluto." Then Laker management gift wrapped him a top bigman so he stayed. If Cleveland had landed a Gasol, or Toronto had landed a Wade, then maybe these guys wouldn't have acted the same way.

I never called the Lakers a "big 3". I don't think it matters. They have a very talented squad that was built partly on a very suspect trade. I think that is relevant to the discussion.

 

MFW you know 10 years into the future.
MFW Lebron was 25 years old and still entering his prime

i have no face for that.

 

Sports is not about winning a championship; it's about doing so to the best of your ability. It's about legacy. If two of the greatest rival players at their prime ( key point ) joined forces willingly, it would mean they took the easy way out. A championship means nothing if Lebron, Wade, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony signed together as free agents and won 82-0/16-0. It's not about winning a championship. They would be insulting the game of basketball. Everyone deep inside, knows how to respect the game. When we are playing pickup ball in our neighborhood, we force the two best players to be team captains. We do not let them be on the same team. It's more than winning and losing...it's about being the best and earning it. Team Captain A should face Team Captain B.

That being said, if forces beyond their circumstances puts them together, then they are free from criticism. If Chicago was stupid enough to trade Jordan in his prime to Boston, and then the Celtics got Magic from a trade, and the year was 1988, the super hypothetical Celtics would be free from criticism. However, if Jordan held a press conference as a free agent and willingly took his talents to Cape Cod, then I would feel that Jordan is a loser. He does not challange himself.

 

At first I saw this poll result and thought, I don't know if I can take all this Maverdicks(sp?) love anymore. Then I realized something...

Both this poll and the [NBA] Finals: Who are you rooting for* thread are distorted (and possibly biased) because the latter two choices split the vote of true rockets fans, making it look like were a bunch of Maverhick lovers.

* http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=204950

 

Maybe in peewee league, but on any professional level sports is about winning. Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

It's difficult for us to cheer for the Mavs as Rocketsfans, not because of our geographic location.

Your allegiance goes to Dallas because you find Heat fans more annoying than Mavs fans? Classy.

 

What's the value in winning if you're just joining all the competition and kicking everyone else's ass? What's there to gain in a victory like that? Your championship would be meaningless in history. Your legacy would be meaningless in history. What does that say about you as an athlete? That you did all you could to win or that you took the easiest route to win?

That philosophy may apply to real life business and real life war, but it certainly has no sense in sports. Sports is fabricated and man-made because it's supposed to symbolize competition.

 

Sports is about doing anything within the rules to win. The whole point of the rules is to provide balance. And that is exactly what has happened with the Heat. Because of the salary cap, they have sacrificed depth at the bottom for talent at the top. This is the same thing many teams have had to go through, historically (eg, the Kobe/Shaq Lakers when they were the top two players in the league but had a bench full of scrubs).

It is ridiculous to have separate standards for teams built through drafts and trades than for those built through free-agency. Making sports-- an inherently cutthroat business-- rely on the "honor code" is absurd. Instead, the balance is provided through the rules, which apply no matter how a team is constructed.

As a fan, I would have LOVED it if LeBron and/or Wade and/or Bosh came to my team, even though it may have upset the competitive balance. Let the other teams worry about that. No team is going to go 82-0 because no players are going to accept that kind of salary cuts to give the team the balance they need. The closest thing to an unfair free agency was when Shaq left Orlando in his prime, because wherever he went was going to instantly become a contender.