BBall Paul Has Turned Me Into a Soccer Parent

Watch your back if you keep trying to stop my perfect son from shining, Nick Nurse.

Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

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I've loved Sixers beyond reason before. Plenty of 'em. I mourned the Landry Shamet trade like I was in season five of Six Feet Under and swore vengeance against the Nerlens Noel trade like I was in a Death Wish sequel. I started the most serious relationship of my life a couple months after Evan Turner's Sixers tenure began in 2010 (Happy Valentine's Day Lis!); I'm not sure which of the two I expended more emotional energy on over the next three years. I don't think I would literally die for Joel Embiid, but if only one of us could be healthy for the next four and a half months, I'd be chill about staying bedridden through my 38th birthday in June. This is the name of the game with sports fandom -- it makes stans and haters out of all of us, in ways we'd probably never tolerate from ourselves or anyone else in any other facet of life. 

All that said, I'm at a point in my relationship with BBall Paul that I've never gotten to with any other player before.

I've been fond of our BBall basically since he started getting funky, freaky minutes with the team about three years ago, though it probably wasn't until closer to the first round against the Heat in 2022 that I knew it would be a love for life. I spent the majority of a train ride from Milwaukee to New York last July refreshing Twitter every five seconds to see if Daryl Morey was gonna match the term sheet he signed in Utah -- the train ultimately got shut down in Albany due to inclement weather; if they had let Paul walk it would've gotten derailed by my blinding rage a couple states earlier. But this year, things have gone to a new level between me and BBall: I've gotten more affectionate towards and protective of him, but most often that manifests in me getting much nastier towards all whom I deem a hinderance or threat to him -- occasionally his competition, often his teammates, usually his coach. 

In all other words, I've become a soccer parent for Paul -- LaVar BBall, if you prefer -- lavishing unconditional support and love upon him while I make life absolute hell for everyone else. 

This became particularly clear to me following Saturday's game against the Wizards, which I did not watch until the following Sunday morning. As the fourth quarter passed the halfway point, and particularly as the Deni Avdija-led Wizards began scoring at will at the net, I scanned the players on the Wells Fargo Center court and wondered aloud: Where's BBall? Paul had checked out with about nine minutes to go in the quarter, but with no Embiid and no Mo Bamba on the night, I felt sure they would check him back in as soon as possible. He had played well, 12 and 7 on 6-8 shooting and a +6 in his 22 minutes, and only had three fouls on the night. WHERE'S BBALL? Every time there was a timeout, a foul, an out-of-bounds call, I looked over to the scorers' bench and expected to see him there, ready to check back in for the stretch run. But he never came: The Sixers closed the game out with KJ Martin and Tobias Harris up front, and BBall ended playing 22 minutes in a game where he was the only active center on the roster. WHERE'S BBALL??!?!?!? I was now yelling like D'Angelo Barksdale. 

My first instinct was that he must have gotten hurt -- I was watching the away broadcast on mute, and FF'ing through the non-game action, so I very easily could've missed it if he'd tweaked an ankle or something and gone back to the locker room. I searched Twitter for updates. To my relief, there appeared to be nothing about BBall being injured. But to my absolute horror, there was nothing about BBall, period. No local reporters cornering Nick Nurse about why Paul was snubbed down the stretch, no Sixers Twitter loonies deriding our fool-acting coach as "Doc Nurse," no one even remarking in any way upon the fact that BBalll played well in a game where he was the beginning and end of the Sixers' "C" depth chart and still ended up sitting for more than half the game. I demanded answers but received few, and none satisfying. I don't even think Spike and Mike talked about it that much on the pod. Had the whole world gone insane? Was SATAN now controlling THE UNIVERSE????

I was able to (briefly, marginally) calm myself over the next 24 hours: Nurse was just trying some things, they won the game anyway, just have another pizza roll and stop ruining the Super Bowl for everyone else already. But against Cleveland on Monday, more of the same: Worse, arguably, as Mo Bamba -- back in the lineup, and getting crunch-time minutes over BBall -- was playing some absolutely miserable defensive basketball in a game the shorthanded Sixers were somehow on the verge of stealing from the hated Cleveland Cavaliers. Going with KJ Martin over BBall felt like misguided experimentalism, but this was straight-up malpractice. When Paul was reinserted for the final possession and stuffed longtime Sixers foe Donovan Mitchell on the potential game-tying drive, I was less pumped about Officer Donovan getting denied than our own coach. IN YOUR FUCKING FACE NICK NURSE. SIT BBALL DOWN THE STRETCH HOW ABOUT YOU TAKE SEVERAL SEATS YOURSELF BUD. FUCKING BAND PROBABLY FUCKING SUCKS TOO, JAMES DOLAN-ASS. 

This is, somewhat frighteningly, where I'm at right now. Nick Nurse has been a pretty good coach by most measures this year but I'm turning into a single-issue voter against him. Meanwhile, I've tried to engage others in my Bball-related outrage -- FOTB Jason Lipshutz, The Danny -- and I can clearly sense their growing hesitation to cosign my increasingly unhinged lunacy. And I get it, because I am no longer willing to hear any criticism of Paul's shortcomings. He fouled someone without the ball 20 feet from the basket? Well excuse BBall for actually trying to play some team defense. He missed an open three in the corner? Uhhhh have you seen his G-League numbers from deep? He air-balled a floater from literally six feet away? Awwww that's just BBall being BBall, isn't he adorable? I am no longer interested in having to defend my beautiful, perfect son: Every decision he makes is the correct one and should be encouraged as such.

But like... he has actually been pretty good the last week, right?? I mean, in three games since the trade deadline, BBall Paul is averaging 12 and 9 on 63% shooting with a steal and a block. It feels like he's getting stronger around the rim, smarter. He's got a nice chemistry going with Buddy Hield, a budding pick-and-roll partnership that for whatever reason he's never really been able to build with Tyrese Maxey. He's returning to his old energy on the boards and on defense -- I think he even heard Spike criticizing his screen-setting after the Washington game, because he was laying concrete at the top of the key against Cleveland. I feel strongly that by most objective metrics, BBall has been earning more minutes with his play, not fewer. 

Of course, it's hard for anyone to diagnose exactly *how* insane they're going in the moment. And I am very much at the point now where I'm willing to come down out of the stands in the middle of the game and get in the coach's face in front of all the other parents about why my son isn't getting the looks he deserves over all these other pants-pissing little punks. I hope for both of our sakes that while Embiid is out and the Sixers have no other credible options for big minutes at center, he shows a little more trust in our BBall, who does wild shit sometimes, but does more often play good solid basketball, and has a multi-year track record now of basically being a helpful player. Give him some minutes down the stretch, Nick Nurse, and let Paul finish what he starts. Or, y'know, risk getting this Gatorade bottle and tray of orange slices upside your head.