Six months ago, we penned a Brew Hoop mixtape that mostly lamented the Bucks’ season as it stood. Failure to meet expectations, injuries, losses. Bad losses. Lows and woes. You get the picture.
Now, with the season over and a surprise new champion—from the Eastern Conference no less—we should be eagerly awaiting this coming week’s draft. After all, we the Bucks have a top 10 draft pick for the first time in a decade. And it’s in a stacked draft!
Instead, we are stuck in a holding pattern, flying loops
in the sky, holding onto every soundbite, every sentence, wondering what the landing strip is and when—and where—we’ll arrive. Will we, won’t we…? Will we, won’t we…?
And as I sit here on my exercise bike at 6:14pm in the grey of winter’s dusk—refreshing page after page, re-reading news articles about news articles about hearsay, scrolling for something more—Ryan Bingham’s “Twist the Knife” plays on loop in the background. Or is it just in my head?
Either way, I know I deserve more. I know we—Bucks fans—deserve more: the joy of hope, of fantasy, of direction. We deserve to know the path forward. Because NBA fandom isn’t just about enjoying the winning. Sure, that’s the pinnacle. But too many people care and too many teams lose for that to be realistic every year.
No, NBA fandom is about enjoying the lows too. It’s about falling in love with potential. It’s about defending the reverse-eating cam and hypothetical scenarios in which time doesn’t matter. It’s about community and loyalty and arguing over the fifteenth man on the roster. But until we get a resolution, that all ceases to exist. Our fandom is suspended.
And so after I turn off my phone in a few hours’ time, and kiss my kids goodnight, I’ll sleep restlessly once more.
Hope that the morning can untwist the knife.
