Re: GAME THREAD: BLAZERS @ PELICANS - DECEMBER 20, 2014 - SATURDAY, 4:00 PM (PST), CS
Repped! Well said. A lot of Olshey,, Batum, Stotts, LA detractors are absent during the team's success. I call those folks fragmented fans. They dissect the team and never understand that the team is one unit that functions as a whole. Lamarcus has said again and again that Nico is the X factor ..who better to judge the guy than the captain of the team?
You're more generous than me. I don't even call then fans, because they don't meet the definition of the word. Fan is short for fanatic, which according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary means:
"marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion"
To me, the handful of negative Nancys that frequent this board behave in the exact opposite manner:
"marked by excessive pessimism and often intense critical derision"
It would be 100% accurate to call them anti-fans, because they are the opposite of fans. Some of them are so vested in their negativity they can't wait for this team, our players, our coach or our GM to fail, just so they can jump in, and validate their negativity by saying, "see, I told you so."
But, I'll be generous and call then "followers", which is also accurate in that they follow the team, even if it is for negative reasons.
Some people may feel sorry for them, since they get no joy from the team winning and can't seem to enjoy our recent success. I say fuck 'em. It's their choice. They choose to constantly look for the negative. Even last season when the team was off to a 22-4 start, there was one poster that kept insisting the team was average at best, would finish .500 and miss the playoffs. Then, when we made the play-offs, he was 100% certain we would never get past the first round. Now that the team is off to another great start, he limits his posting almost exclusively to the OT section where there is a lot more negativity to be found. Good.
I'm all for dissenting opinions, when they make sense and are backed up with rational thought, but I have no patience for anyone driven by constant irrational pessimism. Why the constant needs to shit on this team, players, coach and GM? I just don't get it. Last year was the 6th best season in the history of the franchise. This year may be even better. Why not chose to enjoy that? It's not really that hard to like this team. In fact, I find it impossible not to like them. They play great on the court and are a great group of guys off the court, too. They are so easy to cheer for. They always play hard and they play team basketball. For any fan of the game of basketball, they are a joy to watch.
BNM