Why does rooting for the Spurs seem like rooting for youth and hope and for the fact that good things can happen?

If optimism, hard work and a refusal to accept conventional thinking works for this group what's our excuse?

Banging this post out in ten minutes before I head home to watch Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Sorry for the departure from usual programming and the typos. :-)

I’ve been cheering for the San Antonio Spurs for a while now, but I’ve never wanted a team to win a series more than I wanted them to win the last round against the Oklahoma City Thunder. I was literally standing watching the game with my son from my living room.

There’s a number of reasons, if you follow basketball, to root for the Spurs.

• It’s a remarkable organization run by an incredible leader, Gregg Popovich, who has the uncanny ability to groom people even as he sticks to his principles (14+ assistant coaches/staff have gone on to be head coaches) and treats people with so much respect (players consistently get emotional when asked about their relationship with him) - an incredible example for anyone trying to lead an organization to success and with empathy.

• this season they’ve put together a young team (the second youngest average age in NBA history to play the final) that plays a fun brand of basketball.

• but one of the main reasons is Victor Wembanyama - a once-in-lifetime player if there every was one - just 22 years old but with maturity, character and leadership well beyond his years and as superlative as his physical abilities (video from when my son and I went to watch him live in his rookie year 3 years ago

  attached :-)).

But the main reason I think was rooting for this Spurs team so much is that even though I wanted them to win, I really thought they’d eventually lose.

Convention tells you they were too young, up against too strong and too organized a team in the Thunder and just that eventually this kind of team wouldn’t be able to stand up to the adversity - cos these kinds of teams never do. It’s not just that they’re underdogs - they’re too raw and me hoping for them to win is just too much.

Over the years, I’ve often rooted for many teams that I expect will lose - and then watched them do just that. Each time, this feeling of “Well, it was a nice dream. You can go back to reality now.”

In this series and especially Game 7, there were times when the Thunder had a run and took the lead my head went, “That was fun Satyajeet, but they’re going to lose now because they’re not ready and good unexpected things just don’t happen in the world right now.”

…but they didn’t. They fought back every single time and eventually prevailed - going to the Finals.

I said to someone visiting our house that day, “Sometimes I just need a reminder that good things can still happen.”

The example holds well beyond basketball and this team - courage, determination, optimism can make incredible things happen and we should ignore conventional thinking. Great happiness and exceptional results often lie at the end of it.

So, if you needed a pick me up - there’s a giant 7 foot 5 inches one leading a bunch of happy 20yos - playing in a bit.