Comparative Reality
Start with the most popular debate: Who is the best player in the NBA right now? I'm guessing (quite confidently) that 98% of all responses to this question will name one of 4 or 5 players during any given year. These days, however, the debate usually whittles down to two candidates: Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Suspending, for a moment, the truth that it is logically impossible to declare a single best player without a consensus on the measured values that constitute "better," we now look at the argument for either player. LeBron James is a stat machine. He leads the league in scoring and on any given night, he can get 7 rebounds and 8 assists. This shows that he is a great player AND a team leader. Part of this is owed to his size; he is probably the most intimidating player at his position and this allows him to get to almost anywhere on the court that he pleases. More to his credit, his team has the best record in the current regular season. Kobe Bryant, by comparison, is just as good of a scorer, if not better. He doesn't always show his scoring touch, as evidenced by his lower statistical average, but he is more skilled (meaning: he has a greater repertoire of moves) and has many more high-scoring, record-setting games than James does (including an 81-point game which stands as the second-highest total ever). Kobe Bryant is also more "clutch" than James, which means that he is more reliable when the game is on the line and the clock is running out. Also, one thing that Kobe has that LeBron does not is a championship ring; four of them, in fact.
You can argue with my above assertions of "skilled" and "clutch" but there are plenty of undeniable numbers to count for either to be considered the best. In any case, no matter what sports bar you walk into (outside of Los Angeles and Cleveland), the debate rages on. People simply value different evidences over others. For myself, I look at the stunning ability for Kobe to score in the most absurd of situations, as well as a history of success at the most important times (see above). A LeBron fan may simply see a man who can do whatever he wants on the court and declare his argument a winner. Alas, it is my own opinion that the argument for LeBron James is nothing but a simple judgment based off of obvious factors, whereas the argument for Kobe is analogous to his game; nuanced and refined. These approaches shape our reality when we watch a game and when we argue in bars... and when we debate healthcare reform. It is not hard to see how our personal biases come into play in other areas of life.
Nostalgic Reality
Kobe Bryant will probably never escape the shadow of Michael Jordan. He plays the same position that MJ did and has the same insanely competitive drive propelling him forward. Let's get away from numbers for a while and talk about favoritism that extends beyond the game. Michael Jordan is seen as a fierce warrior who took over a game when he was needed most. Kobe Bryant is seen by his detractors as a whiny, overpaid ball-hog. These two separate judgments are, to my observation, based off of the same behavior. How can this be? Both men were/are outstanding basketball players. Both men cheated on their wives. Both men made public statements denouncing their teammates (Jordan, actually, has a much larger portfolio of teammate-bashing quotes than Bryant). Both men had ungodly training routines and dedication. Both men played through grievous injuries and sickness. Why, then, is Kobe Bryant such a runt while Jordan is an enduring basketball deity?
Nostalgia. Everyone is a sucker for the good old days. It is simply a matter of incident that Jordan is the predecessor and Bryant follows in his path. We see this in so many other areas, like music and politics, where history is looked back on with a whimsical sigh, while modernity is scrutinized harshly. Says an ardent Kobe hater, "Jordan is an originator. Kobe is an imitator. HUGE difference. One is knocking down doors and the other is walking through those same doors." While I am a huge fan of Kobe, and would usually be quick to point out the many ways in which the two are different, this quote is quite true in a sense. If you understand the sugarcoating that memories receive each time we recall them, you'll understand why the current can never be as great as the past. We paint our memories a lot prettier than our current reality. To hell with nostalgia.
Moral Reality
Without a doubt, the single greatest mistake in Kobe's public life would be having sex with that hotel employee in Colorado. She would go on to accuse him of rape, summoning up a legal and media hurricane that would impact his personal and professional life for years afterward. Even after the girl refused to testify, thus dropping the case, Kobe's image had been irreparably damaged. Now, fans like myself are forced to endure "rapist" comments from others who would much rather use morality as a keystone for debate than the actual subject at hand. All other points are immaterial in the face of a single moral transgression. Nothing the man can do will ever be justified because of this. It reminds me of a joke:
A young man is walking down by the docks one day and decides to stop by a bar and have a beer. He walks into a bar, and sees a grizzled old fisherman crying into his beer. Curious, the young man sits down and says, “Hey old timer, why the long face?”
The old man looks at him and points out the window, “See that dock out there? I built that dock with my own two hands, plank by plank, nail by nail, but do they call me Simon the dockbuilder? No, no."
The old man continued, “And see that ship out there? I’ve been fishing these waters for going on thirty-five years, but do they call me Simon the fisherman? No, no.”
The old man starts to cry again, “But you fuck one goat…”
Alas, it is easy for people to process information if they can whittle down concepts to a single piece of data. Part of it is intellectual laziness and another part is the relish of a judging loophole that allows someone to conclude a matter to their own satisfaction while wasting as little energy as possible. Unfortunately, reality will always be subjective to those people, as they make no effort to see otherwise.
Self-Affirming Reality
To me, being a sports fan is a combination of living vicariously and seeking self-affirmation. Fans have a number of reasons for rooting for their teams, but the reasons always reflect the type of person that the fan would like to be seen as. Rooting for a perennial champion could mean that the fan wants to embody the prestige of a winner. Rooting for a home team (as the Lakers are to me) or an alma mater usually comes with some sort of default territorial allegiances. Fans of an underdog usually relish their role as loyal supporters in the face of intimidating adversity. Fans who put player allegiances ahead of teams claim an affinity with their favorite star. Part of the fun of sports is choosing a team and then, in the end, being right. Following not only games but news, rumors, analysis and fantasy sports helps a fan feel an even deeper bond with their picked ponies, allowing even more bragging rights and satisfaction.
Self-affirmation is incredibly important to the human psyche. Most of our conscious mental processes are spent contextualizing information (that is, explaining) and then justifying it within our world view. We see our ideas as possessions and so we want the very best. Thus, we are prepared to go to great mental lengths to see our ideas in the best light we can manage. While a championship is the pinnacle of vicarious accomplishment, fans of teams who place second or lower usually find a positive light to see their effort in. There's always next year, right? So it goes with any other conviction we hold; in the absence of hard evidence, we create secondary justifications to put our minds at ease.
Observed Reality
I've been in this situation and maybe you have, too: You're watching a game with friends and you happen to have different team allegiances (some friends!). A player makes a drive to the basket, is stripped of the ball and you yell out, "That was a foul!" (Or, "That was a strike!" Or, "Flag!" Or what have you.) Of course, everyone else is shaking their head and giving you the "poor chap, someone should put him out of his misery" look. When, upon viewing the slow-motion replay, you discover that it wasn't actually a foul, you're usually left recalling the image you had in your head and wondering why it was so different the second time around. It isn't that you are watching two different games, it is just a simple fact about our visual compensatory functions within our brain. The human eye is far from perfect and it is up to our brain to fill in the details that our manual vision fails to perceive. Indeed, anyone claiming the eye as one of god's great accomplishments is surely misinformed about its plentiful shortcomings. You're not always seeing what you think you're seeing.
It doesn't take much effort to find a parallel of this subjectivity in other arenas. I even had a whole blog post about this last month. Indeed, seeing is JUST believing. In order for something to qualify as actual reality, it must be correlated by independent sources. In this case, that source is the referee (or umpire, or linesman).
Perspective Reality
Sports are to war as porn is to sex. This partly explains the attraction many of us have to them. Some of us want to be the strategical general. Some of us want to be the heroic soldier. Our outlook on the game reflects our aspirations as we notice the details that are most important to us. Let's not forget that every situation reveals different information depending on the way you look at it. For every sport, there are enough intricacies to enrapture an avid fan. Two friends of mine, one an ex-professional pitcher in baseball and the other a "professional" fan of baseball, seem to constantly teach each other new factoids as they exchange their knowledge of the game from their unique points of view. Individually, you'd think these guys knew all there is to know about baseball, but it's quite magical when you get them together. In this way, sports can teach us about the fault of perspective that we run into everywhere else we look. A single point of view is not nearly enough to really know something.
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