When J.J. Redick sets up for an outside shot, especially if he's missed his last two or three, I find myself practically begging for the ball to please, please, please go in.
Funny, because he's nowhere near my favorite player or the Orlando Magic's best. He's been benched for most of the NBA playoffs, in fact, because most of those shots I pleaded with to go in didn't. So, what's going on? Well, on one level, I don't ROOT for J.J. Redick, Basketball player; I ROOT for J.J. Redick, American-born white guy. I just want one of them, one of us, to make a respectable showing in a black-dominated sport.
I bet you do, too.
It's there in that extra level of glee about the success of Florida Gator quarterback Tim Tebow. It's the reason commentators turn great white players like Tebow into instant legends, and average ones like former Buc Mike Alstott into stars. It explains franchise-supported nicknames like "the A-train" (Who else got a stadium-generated sound effect?), and that term reserved especially for hustling white guys: "fan favorite."
Every once in a while someone will even talk about this out loud.
Larry Bird, a few years ago, pointed out that most NBA fans are white, and "if you had a couple of white (stars) in there, you might get them a little excited."
He was blasted, of course. Which is too bad because what Bird said, that we tend to identify with members of our own race, is natural.
I'd even say it's harmless, except that if you ROOT too hard for white players, you automatically slight more deserving black ones, and maybe even whole sports.
Yes, I'm willing to accept stars like LeBron James. He is the very best, after all, and on some level we're all middle school kids for whom that means he's also the most popular - and therefore gets the endorsement contract for Vitamin Water. But you wonder what kind of cultural phenomenon he would be if he were white.
And you wonder why, according to a recent Harris Poll, only 4 percent of Americans called Basketball their favorite sport, compared to 15 percent for baseball (baseball!?) and 30 percent for football.
What if Basketball had a Tom Brady, a Peyton Manning or, best of all, another Bird?
I bring this up because I hardly ever hear anything about the Magic around here, hardly ever see a T-shirt or a cap, even though Brooksville is roughly the same distance from Orlando as it is St. Petersburg, and though the Magic's run to the finals has been at least as inspirational as the much-hyped Rays' World Series appearance was last year. (And, with the Magic down 2-0, seems to be heading to the same, sad end.)
The playoffs have offered James and Dwight Howard, beautiful teamwork, games decided in the last second. In my mind, it's the best sporting event going.
In the crucial final minutes of Sunday's game, Redick was playing for reasons I could never explain and, for the most part, miserably.
And I was begging that someone would, please, get him off the floor.
