(Editor’s Note: Today’s article continues our 2017 NBA Playoffs basketball coverage called 40 Nights of Hate, as the next two months of our lives will be devoted to the greatest postseason basketball tournament known to mankind. Some of our arguments will be rational, many others will be irrational. To hate is to love, as the basketball gods toy with our lives like James Harden does oafish 7-footers on switched pick-and-rolls. Enjoy our 40 Nights of Hate coverage, or despise it. Either is acceptable.)
There are quite a few running jokes amongst the TSFJ family. A favorite of mine is the fact that recent pickup Logan Murdock is so young, we're not sure he is a legal adult. However, though he talks about things and people like shopping for trousers at Zaza and someone named D.R.A.M., he is not dismissed by the older delegation strictly for the sake of age.
What if I told you: there are people who were born yesterday?
Older people—professional basketball players, in this case—enjoy minimizing the current generation's greatness because they believe their time was somehow better than this time. They can't process why there are so many threes taken, why there are no more "playoff fouls" and generally believe the younger generation is softening by the draft class. The lawn they wish 20-somethings would stay off is painted with a free throw line and restricted area, and the older hoopers are trying to box out the progression of the game.
There are basketball analysts and former players who express not "getting" today's NBA. What they also don't get is that the further time moves away from their playing days, the less their opinion impacts any possible change. Furthermore, nothing should stay the same. And if the older generation feels this one needs more direction, then why aren't there more former players helping to direct?
"First of all, back in my day..." (Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
The difference between these mentally geriatric wet blankets and coaches is that coaches actually choose to attempt to guide players and their individual abilities. Most of us who watch without any other impact are merely reacting to what we see without being actively involved in the game in some capacity. There are some people who would rather have things stay the same, even though they were once a part of a generation who wanted—nah, demanded—things to change.
As we get older, we are not meant to understand those after us. Also, it is our responsibility as the people who were adults first to take our knowledge and construct an environment that makes it easier to succeed. Sure, teenagers and young adults have little understanding of how difficult the world can be. But we were once them, with our killer crossovers and hesitation jumpers, and the veterans before us still sought to guide us, even as we did weird things like wear t-shirts to our knees.
If you get the entirety of the joke in this picture, we are kinfolk.
I know I'm saying this as a newly-minted 30-year-old, but let the youth be youthful.
