When I watch footage of NBA players from before my time, I find that it becomes kinda clinical.
I already know the results, and how the players’ careers turned out, and the following players who were influenced by them, and so. The elements of surprise and of context are missing.
The times and society and the tech used to watch are all changed, and there’s no way I can watch old basketball without those filters interfering. It becomes easy to dismiss the past, partly because the imagery just doesn’t look as crisp as it did when I was growing up.
I’m grateful most of the games I watched came before the internet precisely because there was the same element of surprise involved. Now with the volume of things I’ve read and watched over the years, the experience isn’t nearly the same whenever I come across a game I haven’t watched.
Old NBA film is somewhat comparable to UFO or Bigfoot footage.
People even moved in different ways, and that’s before you get to styles of hair and dress and speech.
On some level all of that affects how I view, and I see the same reaction in younger fans toward the 1980s-90s ball I grew up with. “look how trash that camera quality was” for example.
It kind of doesn’t matter how much video you watch, because of the distance between then and now.
I know some of us are exceptions. But even being aware of it, being clear-headed and objective is not easy.
“Just watch the game,” you might be thinking. “Enjoy the sports. Don’t get invested.” Sounds like someone who is half-dead in his brain. Just sit there with a joint and a beer and drool your way to the final buzzer? No, thanks. I like being in my right mind.
For those of us in our right mind, there’s no way we can shut it down and “just watch.” Passive observers are the ones who always get deceived.
If you want to play “what you see is what you get,” your vision is probably blurry.
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