My Psychosis of Seeing the King in Purple and Gold

GOING REGAL The King taking his talents to the West Coast with purple and gold

LAST MONDAY WAS SUPPOSED TO be a walk. Early on I had my usual routine of preparing for a day’s work. So after taking a bath and having a cup of coffee, I find myself scrolling on some updates on my Twitter account. I was constantly checking on it a day before because I couldn’t wait to see any movements from the NBA’s free agency, which was recently opened. And, as it turned out, the greatest basketball player of this generation has just agreed to sign on a new team for a whopping $153.3 million in 4 years. 

But several weeks ago, this player has just lost his worst Finals series so far. His team got swept out of this Bay Area super team. Yet he’s been compared to a host of great players already, particularly this old Bull in the 90s, who had won championships after championships like there’s no tomorrow. 

This current player, however, is quite different. He’s been to every NBA Finals for almost a decade now, winning at least 3 of them. And during the course of his career, he had broken records that none of those before him and even today are capable of doing so. He has this high basketball IQ, no doubt, as exemplified with his 4 regular season MVPs, and he can dominate the game in an instant, a 6’8”, 250 lb. basketball specimen, who can actually play on all positions if he willed to. 

By the looks of it, he seemed like the “Greatest of All Time” (G.O.A.T). You can always argue that after 15 years since he joined the league straight out of high school that he had already secured his position as one of the greats, if not the greatest, to have ever played the game, a generational player who could command an attention on and off the court, and with great ease. 

Now, he’s donning the purple and gold. And for those students of the game, that says a lot about his legacy going further in a team that has this winning culture. From the Logo to that sky hook to the Black Mamba, he’s now a part of a storied franchise that knows how to win and win big. It may be a long shot for him now to be included in this illustrious lineup, considering the quality of teammates he currently has, but he’s just a few phone calls away (through free agency) from getting his first ring as a member of the purple and gold caravan. 

But isn’t that unfair? His new team has been a fixture in the Finals for so many years (it was only recently that this team has made some noise for all the bad reasons). He may look good in a purple and gold outfit because, well, he’s The King, he’ll look regal on it. His presence, however, will all the more bury the league as one-sided, big market-happy and downright entrepreneurial. 

He’s now taking his talents to the West Coast, and that means, the other conference will now settle as a milking cow to the ultra-competitive Western joint, where 4 of the last 5 MVPs (with the exemption of him, of course) are in the conference. That has to have some changes in the next 3 years. I hope so. 

As much as I would like to see a more dynamic league; that, however, has to be shelved for a while, until such time these so-called super teams disintegrate in a good way. He may be solidifying his case as the King of the (flat) basketball world for all to see, just marvel at the effect of this purple and gold thing would do to his already larger-than-life persona, but this signing is at best socio-political. 

And that is seismic in nature, as one sports analyst would put it, and that is problematic for me. That has some serious effect on my psyche that might pose an equally serious threat to my #Banner18.

A lot is at stake in here. My green is a mere championship removed from the purple and gold, and if he can equal that win total or maybe even cranking up two more within a span of four years, that could seriously send a rush of blood to my head. I’m just hoping that Father Time catches up on him, so his new team remains underwater to that green armada, the one I’m rooting for somewhere in the eastern seaboard. Imagine if he can pull that off. That would cure me of watching the games.