Why the Jazz Matter to Me

The Utah Jazz are looking primed to sweep the Houston Rockets in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, and I've been rapturously watching every second of every game and then relentlessly searching out every word that has been printed about the Jazz the day after the game. But then again, I've been doing that for every Jazz game for the past five years.

Lately I've been trying to put my finger on the reason why the Jazz matter so much to me. Why it is so deeply satisfying to me when they win and why it is so gut-wrenching when they lose? Why should a basketball team matter at all to anyone? I recently found an article published in The New Yorker in 1975 in which sportswriter Roger Angell considered the very same question (in his case he was thinking about Carlton Fisk's famous home run in the 1975 World Series), and I think his answer cuts right to the heart of the issue:

It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

I really care about the Utah Jazz. My love goes way back to when I was a little kid and Stockton and Malone were two of my biggest heroes. I watched all the games and I collected basketball cards like nobody's business (I still have them in a box at my parents house - here's hoping those fifteen-year-old cards are worth a small fortune now). But when I was a teenager I became disinterested in the Jazz because that's what was cool to do as a teenager: cultivating disinterest in things. But in 2003, when Stockton retired and Malone ran off to L.A. chasing a championship ring, I became deeply nostalgic and my love for the Utah Jazz reawakened. Without Stockton-to-Malone the Jazz were supposed to fall to the very bottom of the NBA. But they had a tough team full of no-names like Matt Harpring, Raja Bell, and Andrei Kirilenko who played their hearts out and surprised everyone by coming within one win of making the playoffs. Watching that team somehow claw their way to a winning record, I fell in love with the Jazz all over again.

I've gotten really invested in this group of players. I marveled at Kirilenko becoming an all-around disruptive force to opposing teams and cheered when he made the All-Star team. I was overjoyed when the Jazz pulled the off-season coup of snaring Boozer and Okur. I was in agony when Boozer got injured and sat out almost two full seasons and we missed the playoffs both years. But then I watched Deron William's first game as a rookie and when he hit a half-court shot to beat the buzzer I knew he would be incredibly special. Last season's march to the Western Conference Finals took everybody by surprise, and I felt an enormous amount of pride at watching my boys step up and defy everyone's expectations. This season I attended Kyle Korver's first game with the Jazz on New Year's Eve and everyone in the building collectively sensed that we had found the missing piece that would push us over the top.

In their most recent victory over the Rockets, Korver threw up a rushed shot that hit the side of the backboard, but Kirilenko got the rebound and tossed it back to Korver who threw up a one-handed prayer to beat the shot clock. Swish. It gave the Jazz a five point lead with 20 seconds left in the game and proved to be the dagger that killed the Rockets. I went nuts. Watch:




To me, that improbable series of events had "Team of Destiny" written all over it. These guys are special. Williams, Booz, Memo, Millsap, Harp, AK, Brewer, Korver - I love them all. They may not go all the way this year, but with their core of great young players they have the potential to be championship contenders for many years to come.

Just like Angell said, it may seem silly for to be so emotionally invested something as trivial and random as the flight of a ball, but caring so much about it is exactly what gives me so much joy. The Jazz are a constant in my life - I loved them when I was a kid, I love them now, and I hope that I still love them and still go nuts when my boys are up 2-0 over the Houston Rockets in the 2058 NBA Playoffs.

P.S. - I think the Jazz are definitely the favorites to win it all in 2058. Place your bets now.