Who Are We Really Rooting For?
The Only Constant is Change
The personnel changes this NBA season have been, in a word, crazy. As has been well documented the Luka Dončić trade was one of the most shocking in league history (though it wasn’t the first bad trade).
Then, last week the Grizzlies fired Taylor Jenkins, the winningest head coach in franchise history. Not to be outdone, yesterday, with three games to play in the regular season, the Nuggets fired Michael Malone in what may be the most shocking firing in league history.1 Emergency pods everywhere!
Malone was the fourth-longest tenured coach in the league, posted a 471-328 record (59% winning percentage), and was just two years removed from a championship, the first in Nuggets history. As a Nuggets fan, this stings. Malone was a constant on the sidelines for a decade. Through thick and thin, you could count on him being there. And now he’s … just gone?
But he’s not a rarity. After Michael Malone's firing, four of the last six coaches to win the NBA Finals are no longer with their team. And it leaves Steve Kerr (11 years with the Warriors), Erik Spoelstra (17 with the Heat), and Gregg Popovich (28 with the Spurs) as the only coaches who have served in their position for more than five years.
In addition to letting go of Malone, owner Josh Kroenke also announced the team will part ways with General Manager Calvin Booth once his contract is up at the end of the season. Next year the Nuggets will join 14 other teams (half the league) in having a GM with less than 5 years experience with their team.
Meanwhile, Boston and Minnesota just announced major changes as well, to ownership, as Bill Chisholm agreed to buy the Celtics and Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore are set to take ownership of the Timberwolves. The Mavericks, Suns, and Hornets all recently changed hands as well.2
And of course, we know players move around like hot potatoes. While a lot of this is due to player preference in the LeBron-induced player empowerment era, if the Luka trade taught us anything it’s that no player is safe from the trading block.
Coaches get fired, players, even the best ones, get traded or leave in free agency, and billionaire owners sell to even more billions-billionaires. These twists and turns make me wonder, as a lifelong fan of a team, what am I really rooting for?
Mascots.
Yes, mascots are the only true staple in the NBA. The average mascot has been around for 30 years, and even the newest additions (Chuck the Condor for the Clippers and Franklin the Dog for the 76ers) have been around nearly twice as long as the average GM, and four times as long as the average coach.
Bango the Buck has been court-side in Milwaukee since 1977, just one year after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar last played there. The Spurs’ Coyote, Suns’ Gorilla3, Hawks’ Hawk, Hornets’ Hornet, and Heat’s Heat(?) have all been around since before Steph Curry was born.
So, when you’re rooting for your team, what you’re really rooting for is a guy in a sweaty, likely furry and anthropomorphic suit doing flips through the air during timeouts and trying to sink blindfolded half-court shots at halftime.
Wait!
The Warriors, Lakers, Knicks, and Nets don’t have a mascot. So who do those fans root for? Well, the Warriors have an anomaly, the longest tenured, most loved player in the league in Steph Curry, so that’s easy. The Lakers have the longest tenured ownership group in the Busses. I guess that works? The Knicks have James Dolan as their constant (“Yayyyy” say Knick fans everywhere, completely ironically). And the Nets … I got nothing.4 Maybe check out the other basketball team in Brooklyn. I hear they’re pretty good.
Malone tied Hubie Brown for most games into a season before his dismissal. But Brown’s Hawks were just 31-48, while Malone had the Nuggets at 47-32.
There may be some buyer’s remorse based on all three of those teams’ performances this season.
If you’re trying to figure it out, there’s really no reason the Phoenix Suns have a gorilla mascot.
First-year coach. Average player tenure is less than two years. New ownership group six years ago. Even moved stadiums and changed names within the last 15 years.