What's up with fans being fans of players first, franchises second?

im young, i just started watching nba few years ago and im not from usa
i can see myself cheering for the clippers in years to come if they dont screw up the team
if not, i will continue being fan of young players and watch the game for fun, unlike soccer where my week is fu*ked up if barca lose ( thanks god it doesnt happen often)

[QUOTE=alenleomessi]im young, i just started watching nba few years ago and im not from usa
i can see myself cheering for the clippers in years to come if they dont screw up the team[/QUOTE]Please don't let Donald Tokowitz rain on your parade. He will ruin the Clippers' current potential (and his own long term profitability), with his own short term selfishness and short term greed. Please continue to love the game even after that piece of Scum squanders everything Blake Griffin has gifted to him.

[QUOTE=Harion]ehh? the sport is international. not everyone lives in the US. so naturally, ppl living outside the US will have no "home team" to support. making these fans "player fans" first before "team fans."

i've been a kings fan, blazers, suns, cavs, and now miami fan.[/QUOTE]
Not everyone.
For example I support the Knicks and I will support them no matter who plays for them.I also know a few people like me.
But I also know a lot of people who are "players fans" and they cheer either for the strongest or for the team with their favorite player.

i'm from australia yet i dont support the bucks but i do like bogut as a player

I've become a players fan when my favorite team disappeared (The Seattle Sonics). Since then, there's no team that I like more than the others :(

[QUOTE=QuebecBaller]I've become a players fan when my favorite team disappeared (The Seattle Sonics). Since then, there's no team that I like more than the others :([/QUOTE]

Ditto. Seattle's demise has turned me into a player fan.

I'm a fan of players, not teams. I watch the NBA to see good or great players do their thing. If the top 30 players went to Europe, I'd watch less NBA and more Euroball.

I don't like to waste my time watching a crappy franchise struggle just because they happen to be nearby.

I don't have a "favorite" player that I follow and root for. I have several players that I support. I generally cheer for the more entertaining player or team. The NBA is supposed to be entertainment and that's what I focus on - being entertained.

Like the others have said, since the demise of the Sonics, I have become more of a players fan.

But I might very well become a fan of the team if the player retires with that team (not being a journeyman).

I guarantee there are more posters here who are fans of teams than of players. It's just due to the heavy amount of player VS player comparison threads and posts that skews the perspective.

im a lakers fan 1st. player fan 2nd. but kobe is my favorite player. er well was idk lately ive been sick of watching him play. But he will likely be my favorite player till the day he retires

Being a fan of players as opposed to teams, I'm guilty as charged. Probably has to do with my nomadic life growing up, and my family being immigrants (which means I had to develop a love for the game by myself). I enjoy the game because of the great players, not because I happen to be born in a city, and that city has a basketball team I absolutely must root for. I never understood that logic, but that's the convention. Right now I live in LA, and while I did root for the Lakers when Magic played, I stopped rooting for them since 1991.

However, I'm not a fan of a player to the logic you lay out, to the exclusion of the player's team or to the detriment of any other player of the same position. That's infantile reasoning 99% of fans are crippled with. Now, to your questions:

[QUOTE=NuggetsFan]- What do you do when said player get's hurt or retires? Just pick a new one? [/quote]
I actually have several favorite players. I follow their teams and I learn how they are great or weak in different areas, how they can help or hurt their teams, etc., etc.

[quote]- If he get's traded or signs elsewhere is it just as simple as picking a new favorite player and becoming a fan of the team he plays on?. [/quote]
I started following the NBA seriously in 1991. By then I chose Clyde Drexler as my #1 favorite player, and Hakeem Olajuwon as #2. I didn't know who to root for in 1994, when the Rockets beat the Blazers in the 1st round. Once the Rockets traded for Clyde, I was in 7th heaven. Probably similar to what a fan of the Houston Rockets would feel like. But once Clyde retired, & Hakeem declined and was traded (?) I stopped following the Rockets. By then I had a new favorite player: Tim Duncan and eventually by 2003, Ginobili. The Spurs have been my favorite team by default, but once Duncan retires and Ginobili leaves, they're just another team.

[quote]- What made you decide to do it?[/quote]
The fact that the game is made great by great players, not by some random team you're assigned to by birth. Having a personal choice makes your favorite player all the more meaningful than rooting for some team by tradition and by fate. To me, at least. :violin:
[quote]- Are you loyal to that player no matter what? Like that StroShow guy. Or do you wait for a good player, that's legit?[/QUOTE]
I'm more of a great player fan. If that player declines suddenly, then he's just another player in my eyes collecting a check. :sleeping


Don't blame you for not understanding it. But because you are not able to conceive of a different way of growing up and enjoying the game, you cannot claim yours to be the correct one. Loyalty is overrated, and simply for fools, IMO. :hammerhead:

[QUOTE=nashwade]i think it goes something like this... you can either like Star Wars and watch every Star Wars movie or you can like Carrie Fisher and watch all her movies (in which case you will not bother with Epi 1-3)

you can't say which one is right or wrong[/QUOTE]
I was going to use the movie analogy as well. I'm not a fan of basketball for the sake of loyalty, so I don't need to be a fan of a specific team, per se. That said, I just [i]happen[/i] to have grown up with the Detroit Pistons, so I'm a huge Pistons fan. I don't need them, but it's a ton of fun following them, feeling enriched by their success and feeling down when they fail.

Conversely, I've also been fans of individual players. Even if the Pistons inexplicably moved to Montana and I cut all ties, I'd still be able to find joy in NBA basketball. I was a huge David Robinson fan in the 90's and subsequently, I was a Spurs fan. When he retired though, I sort of lost interest in San Antonio.

Similarly, I had a ton of fun watching Vince Carter play. I was a fan of his because he was exciting and entertaining. I was a fan of LeBron James because there was an intriguing storyline of a hometown kid steamrolling the league seemingly on his own. That's really the long and short of it. I don't really see how people could go wrong either way (fans of teams or individuals - or both). For me, it's about fun and entertainment; they both come via home team success and individual favorite player accomplishments.

[QUOTE=Gotterdammerung]Being a fan of players as opposed to teams, I'm guilty as charged. Probably has to do with my nomadic life growing up, and my family being immigrants (which means I had to develop a love for the game by myself). I enjoy the game because of the great players, not because I happen to be born in a city, and that city has a basketball team I absolutely must root for. I never understood that logic, but that's the convention. Right now I live in LA, and while I did root for the Lakers when Magic played, I stopped rooting for them since 1991.

However, I'm not a fan of a player to the logic you lay out, to the exclusion of the player's team or to the detriment of any other player of the same position. That's infantile reasoning 99% of fans are crippled with. Now, to your questions:


I actually have several favorite players. I follow their teams and I learn how they are great or weak in different areas, how they can help or hurt their teams, etc., etc.


I started following the NBA seriously in 1991. By then I chose Clyde Drexler as my #1 favorite player, and Hakeem Olajuwon as #2. I didn't know who to root for in 1994, when the Rockets beat the Blazers in the 1st round. Once the Rockets traded for Clyde, I was in 7th heaven. Probably similar to what a fan of the Houston Rockets would feel like. But once Clyde retired, & Hakeem declined and was traded (?) I stopped following the Rockets. By then I had a new favorite player: Tim Duncan and eventually by 2003, Ginobili. The Spurs have been my favorite team by default, but once Duncan retires and Ginobili leaves, they're just another team.


The fact that the game is made great by great players, not by some random team you're assigned to by birth. Having a personal choice makes your favorite player all the more meaningful than rooting for some team by tradition and by fate. To me, at least. :violin:

I'm more of a great player fan. If that player declines suddenly, then he's just another player in my eyes collecting a check. :sleeping


Don't blame you for not understanding it. But because you are not able to conceive of a different way of growing up and enjoying the game, you cannot claim yours to be the correct one. Loyalty is overrated, and simply for fools, IMO. :hammerhead:[/QUOTE]

No offense dude but you'll never know how it feels for your team to win a championship, or even just do well. You just float around to whichever team or player is hot right now or you like, obviously picking the good ones and leaving those that don't perform. If you don't suffer with a team and have a bond with fellow fans you'll never know what that really feels like to finally make it. And representing a local team is representing you're area and pride in general. Anyone can just pick the best teams and have their teams win that way. You only really experience the payoff if you go through every high and low with them. I wouldn't of even said anything but you're talking down to us like you're way is so much better and we don't understand. I think you don't get it.

[QUOTE=InfiniteBaskets]I guarantee there are more posters here who are fans of teams than of players. It's just due to the heavy amount of player VS player comparison threads and posts that skews the perspective.[/QUOTE]This.

I'm a Spurs fan before anything else, but I never really had to experience big players moving and the franchise changing drastically, since the Spurs have kept the same core forever now. I don't know what shits gonna be like in a few years though. I'm trying to imagine myself watching a Spurs game with Timmy, Manu and Pop all retired, and Tony probably traded. Seems like some Twilight zone shit man. The hell? Who's gonna be o the ****ing team? :oldlol:

[QUOTE=brandowas]No offense dude but you'll never know how it feels for your team to win a championship, or even just do well. You just float around to whichever team or player is hot right now or you like, obviously picking the good ones and leaving those that don't perform. If you don't suffer with a team and have a bond with fellow fans you'll never know what that really feels like to finally make it. [/QUOTE]
Actually this is incorrect.

I suffered the highs and the lows of following the Rockets for about 5 years, from 1993 to 1998. I followed them during Hakeem's prime, and by extension the success/failure of the team. I went through the same ribbing and boasting vs friends who were fans of other teams, rivals of the Rockets, and when they won the title, it was the happiest I've ever been. Sure, I had zero ties to the city, but you gotta take my history in account. A frigging vagabond, with no basketball city until i moved to LA and Magic immediately retires. Yeah right. Gonna follow a suck-ass team who can't play.

On the other hand, you're partially right. I don't have that fan syndrome anymore. It doesn't hurt as much when the Spurs lose. At the same time, when they win, it doesn't hit home as much. That's fine with me, because I enjoy the game more than my own identity, or ego that happens to be linked to some random team of the city/area I happen to be born in. I know more about the game than almost every other Lakers fan I meet, and I don't suffer from their homerism.

There's another reason: gambling. Bottom line, you can't bet on your favorite team, but thanks to fans from LA, the Vegas line of every LA sports team is inflated and easy pickings. :oldlol:

Sorry if that comes off as condescending, which wasn't my intention, but just my personal view and a clear example of a different way of enjoying the game.

[quote]And representing a local team is representing you're area and pride in general. Anyone can just pick the best teams and have their teams win that way. You only really experience the payoff if you go through every high and low with them. I wouldn't of even said anything but you're talking down to us like you're way is so much better and we don't understand. I think you don't get it.[/QUOTE]
Actually I did get it. Then I stopped playing the game and graduated from the merry go around. There's a new ride called bumper cars - you can even change cars on your next ride! :hammerhead:

Basically: players are free agents. Fans can be, too, but I guess a long history of tradition and comfortable convention are roadblocks for most of us to get this. :confusedshrug: