Basketball’s Joy Is Often The Journey

Dec 25, 2014; Honolulu, HI, USA; The George Washington players celebrates after defeating Wichita State 60-54 to win the Diamond Head Classic at the Stan Sheriff Center. Mandatory Credit: Marco Garcia-USA TODAY Sports

Can you be considered the best if you never fulfilled the pinnacle of your profession? Is happiness dependent on having reached the peak of perception? For some, it certainly seems to be. And yet, it will always be an arbitrary answer we receive as a result of reflection. In the basketball, the joy is often in the journey.

John Stockton and Karl Malone are on most top five lists at their positions, but few outside Utah fandom would consider them the best at the power forward or point guard positions. When Jazz fan jumps into the fray of a debate on the topic it often comes with the caveat of “pure.”

Players like Tim Duncan and Magic Johnson redefined what it was to play in the front and backcourt. And depending on era, both would be pigeonholed into different positional categories based on when they played, had they done so at a different time.

Today’s debates on message boards and social media at times devolve into discussion about how Russell Westbrook “isn’t a true point guard,” and yet he’s a lot closer to the classic definition of the position than Magic Johnson is — a man who once started an NBA Finals game at center.

The game evolves, players redefine greatness in a number of ways. The same player may play as many as three different positions on a team today depending on a variety of factors from scheme to matchup to injury to coaching. Rare is the one who can play all five positions on demand, and there may be only two who have done so successfully at the highest level. I crowd sourced, fishing for some fodder.

Responses came back largely as you’d expect them to, a line drawn between Utah Jazz fans and basketball fan at large.

All of the respondents — and there were several more — are intelligent basketball fans whom I’ve interacted with for years, in some cases, and all brought cogent, thoughtful discourse to the discussion. It’s one of the enjoyable parts of the sports journey made possible by it’s participants and their fans. Rob sums up my feelings perfectly:

Does John Stockton agonize over not having five championship rings? Or even one? He certainly doesn’t seem to.

For his part, Karl Malone is a jovial, happy family man these days, who still gets a huge, silly smile when reluctantly cornered by adoring fans. And he happily poked fun at himself too.

With eyes for the prize, it’s easy to forget that there is so much joy in the basketball journey. Isiah Thomas is still bitter, and he has hardware.

Robert cuts to the chase. Nailed it. Hell, you almost ruined this piece by stealing my thunder, Chelsey!

But it’s a good point. Some people love to compare players through eras. It’s fun to think about what Wilt Chamberlain may have been able to do today when he wouldn’t be a tree among saplings of the sport. Others can’t stand player comparisons.

I used to hate trade talk, if it involved Utah Jazz players. Others thrive on it, live for it every year, finding a thrill in playing GM. For me, if a player was a Jazz player I loved them almost unconditionally. Once a Jazzman, always a Jazzman, with a couple of exceptions, namely guys who tried to blow up the locker room thereby nearly sabotaging the team.

If you played for the Utah Jazz, chances are I followed your career wherever it took you beyond Utah, rooting for you to succeed. Players that have played for the Millers in Utah almost unanimously speak fondly of their time here, of lessons learned about the game and life, of friends made for a lifetime.

Some things transcend “ringz.”

Who wants to be the miserable curmudgeon that can’t go gracefully, yelling at the kids cutting across his lawn, “Don’t you know who I am?!” screaming about how he won five rings, counting them down on his gnarled hand?

The art of the journey is not always painted by masters, but men. Men who left behind too many masterpieces to count. We as fans are privileged to admire their many works, discussing them late into the night, in a long line, at a party and even with perfect strangers who sometimes become new friends.