The Perils of Altruism
And just like that the Jazz's season is over. Not with a bang but a whimper, as the cliche goes.
Which is perfectly fine. The Jazz beat a Nuggets team they should not have beaten and lost to a Lakers team they should have lost to.
Game 4 still stings. Mostly because the result was not commensurate with the effort.
The Jazz were swept, but not in the same way the Hawks were swept. A few calls and/or rolls go the other way and the entire complexion of the series changes.
What hurts most is the negative light Jazz fans have been portrayed in by the media. It is bad enough that Marv Albert couldn't keep the names of Jazz players straight or correctly call Laker fouls. Or that Craig Sager shoved the Salt Lake Tribune headline of "All Hope Is Lost" into the face of every single Jazz player. But instead of highlighting some of the best fans in Utah, TNT focused on the worst by wasting airtime on the continuing Derek Fisher controversy.
Breaking news! Some sports fans are assholes. Yes, even those in Utah.
And yet TNT was not alone.
Yahoo! Sports headlined an article on the topic. "The Jazz fans booed him strongly when he was introduced, chanted 'Fisher sucks!' during the game and cited his daughter during their trash talk." Notice how the sentence glosses over the difference between acceptable playoff behavior and downright nasty taunting. A common trend in such articles.
The L.A. Times devoted an editorial to the "hypocrisy" of family value Jazz fans (seemingly conflating all of Utah with Mormons) booing the man who gave up $8 million for his daughter. "Ironically, Sunday is the third anniversary of one of the most emotional moments Utah Jazz franchise history. It was when Derek Fisher, after spending the day holding Tatum's hand during cancer treatment, showed up in the third quarter of a playoff game against the Golden State Warriors and led the Jazz to a victory. Fans here have apparently forgotten that moment. They won't forget this one."
The L.A. Times has it completely backwards.
Jazz fans boo and taunt Derek Fisher because they remember that moment.
The intense animosity that Jazz fans harbor for Fisher comes from three overlapping instances of cognitive dissonance.
First, most people believe that good things should happen to good people - karmic retribution in a secular or religious sense. Yet, despite Larry H. Miller altruistically releasing Fisher from his contract, the Jazz have been punished by three consecutive season enders at the hands of the Lakers. Do people therefore believe that we live in an amoral vacuum? No. They rationalize the situation by believing that the naive, small-town [and dare I say, Mormon?] Jazz organization was conned by the big-city swindler Derek Fisher.
Second, Fisher is in the twilight [Mark: maybe we should drop this word more often to increase random Google searches?] of his career. A quick search for Fisher gets the following headlines from earlier this year: "If Fisher fails, Lakers could get filleted" and "Derek Fisher is clanking the Lakers title hopes away." It is one thing to lose to Kobe (who gets what he wants and doesn't take no for an answer) or Gasol whose size advantage makes Boozer a liability. But the Fisher vs. D. Will matchup is the one advantage that the Jazz are supposed to have over the Lakers. Yet, Fisher consistently sabotages Williams's gameplay. And looking back on Game 3, it is Fisher's "veteran moves" that closed the refrigerator door on the series. The ludicrously deep 3. The moving screen that set up Kobe's 3. And the slap across Boozer's arm that caused Carlos to lose control of the ball. These sorts of plays only magnify the bitterness and add fuel to the fire that Fisher is using his knowledge of the Jazz system against them.
Finally, Jazz fans love Derek Fisher precisely because of that shot against the Golden State Warriors and that he left his contract to seek better treatment for his daughter. Unfortunately, most Jazz fans believe that good people whom we love should not hurt us. Derek Fisher continually hurts us in the playoffs, therefore the logic of cognitive dissonance dictates that he must not be a good person and bad people lie.
Not that any of this excuses the behavior of certain Jazz fans. But after three painful losses it should come as no surprise that people will come up with untenable rationalizations when cause is not always commensurate with effect.
Which is perfectly fine. The Jazz beat a Nuggets team they should not have beaten and lost to a Lakers team they should have lost to.
Game 4 still stings. Mostly because the result was not commensurate with the effort.
The Jazz were swept, but not in the same way the Hawks were swept. A few calls and/or rolls go the other way and the entire complexion of the series changes.
What hurts most is the negative light Jazz fans have been portrayed in by the media. It is bad enough that Marv Albert couldn't keep the names of Jazz players straight or correctly call Laker fouls. Or that Craig Sager shoved the Salt Lake Tribune headline of "All Hope Is Lost" into the face of every single Jazz player. But instead of highlighting some of the best fans in Utah, TNT focused on the worst by wasting airtime on the continuing Derek Fisher controversy.
Breaking news! Some sports fans are assholes. Yes, even those in Utah.
And yet TNT was not alone.
Yahoo! Sports headlined an article on the topic. "The Jazz fans booed him strongly when he was introduced, chanted 'Fisher sucks!' during the game and cited his daughter during their trash talk." Notice how the sentence glosses over the difference between acceptable playoff behavior and downright nasty taunting. A common trend in such articles.
The L.A. Times devoted an editorial to the "hypocrisy" of family value Jazz fans (seemingly conflating all of Utah with Mormons) booing the man who gave up $8 million for his daughter. "Ironically, Sunday is the third anniversary of one of the most emotional moments Utah Jazz franchise history. It was when Derek Fisher, after spending the day holding Tatum's hand during cancer treatment, showed up in the third quarter of a playoff game against the Golden State Warriors and led the Jazz to a victory. Fans here have apparently forgotten that moment. They won't forget this one."
The L.A. Times has it completely backwards.
Jazz fans boo and taunt Derek Fisher because they remember that moment.
The intense animosity that Jazz fans harbor for Fisher comes from three overlapping instances of cognitive dissonance.
First, most people believe that good things should happen to good people - karmic retribution in a secular or religious sense. Yet, despite Larry H. Miller altruistically releasing Fisher from his contract, the Jazz have been punished by three consecutive season enders at the hands of the Lakers. Do people therefore believe that we live in an amoral vacuum? No. They rationalize the situation by believing that the naive, small-town [and dare I say, Mormon?] Jazz organization was conned by the big-city swindler Derek Fisher.
Second, Fisher is in the twilight [Mark: maybe we should drop this word more often to increase random Google searches?] of his career. A quick search for Fisher gets the following headlines from earlier this year: "If Fisher fails, Lakers could get filleted" and "Derek Fisher is clanking the Lakers title hopes away." It is one thing to lose to Kobe (who gets what he wants and doesn't take no for an answer) or Gasol whose size advantage makes Boozer a liability. But the Fisher vs. D. Will matchup is the one advantage that the Jazz are supposed to have over the Lakers. Yet, Fisher consistently sabotages Williams's gameplay. And looking back on Game 3, it is Fisher's "veteran moves" that closed the refrigerator door on the series. The ludicrously deep 3. The moving screen that set up Kobe's 3. And the slap across Boozer's arm that caused Carlos to lose control of the ball. These sorts of plays only magnify the bitterness and add fuel to the fire that Fisher is using his knowledge of the Jazz system against them.
Finally, Jazz fans love Derek Fisher precisely because of that shot against the Golden State Warriors and that he left his contract to seek better treatment for his daughter. Unfortunately, most Jazz fans believe that good people whom we love should not hurt us. Derek Fisher continually hurts us in the playoffs, therefore the logic of cognitive dissonance dictates that he must not be a good person and bad people lie.
Not that any of this excuses the behavior of certain Jazz fans. But after three painful losses it should come as no surprise that people will come up with untenable rationalizations when cause is not always commensurate with effect.
posted by d l wright at 5/10/2010 10:50:00 PM
1 Comments:
Agreed. I think the first dagger was the fact that, although his daughter's treatment is in New York, he signed with L.A. by saying that it's easier to find flights...
Also, I took your advice and added a new intro to the Lost entry.
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