Reminiscing on throwback hoops
Steven Adams in his rookie teenage era. Photo: Kevin Stent/Sunday Star Times
We’re all familiar with the following sight. That classic group of dudes who seem to gather at any social event with 70% of their thoughts clouded with Sports Centre talking points and YouTube highlight reels, and the other 30% dedicated to maintaining the indistinct cap and branded shorts combo as if it’s a uniform.
To fill a break in the conversation, one fella will pipe up with a now retired athlete’s name – nothing more, nothing less. In those two words, as blunt as they are, a moment of reminiscence is ignited within the rest of the guys. As the collective trip down memory lane settles, the silence is once again broken by another name drop from across the table. These back and forth rallies of sports nostalgia can last minutes… hours… shit, they can fill an entire week’s worth of discussion. Regardless of the time, place, or context, these lads are always nearby hosting their own throwback ESPN segment. I know this because I’m one of those guys.
I feel like this sort of conversation is especially common with basketball fans and over the years, Christchurch has grown into quite the hoops loving city. The early 2010s are the prime hotspot of my hoops nostalgia. I was introduced to basketball through the emergence of Steven Adams onto the world stage in 2012 and the widespread popularity and success of the Kevin Garnett; Boston Celtics era before they slammed the reset button, bringing us our lord and saviour, Marcus Smart.
As a result of being a relative latecomer to the scene, I became a basketball historian of sorts right off the bat. The first lesson I learnt in playing catch up was that the appreciation for the league of days past rivals and even surmounts the NBA we have today. Nostalgia is imbued in basketball fandom from the ground up. Fans love the vintage aesthetics of former eras, comparing greats to one another, and simply just talking about players that made them fall in love with the game.
With ever-increasing season-to-season player movement, the rate at which the NBA narrative shifts into new eras has been on the rise. Cultivated by an entire pandemic, the 2020 season stands out as an era some fans are beginning to reminisce on. I think it’s fair to say that there’s a general nostalgia for the bubble, despite it just being three years since we were removed from it. This is proof that there isn’t a limit to how much time needs to pass for something to become nostalgic.
When it comes to sports nostalgia, it’s not just an emotive response to the event itself but also an emotive response to the socialisation inherently linked to it and the group identity gained. Tangentially expanding on this, I recently came across a short film clip based around the idea that we all share and experience the same sky, which is comforting in its own cutesy way. This notion can be cleanly applied to media consumption and sports entertainment. For example, when meeting another NBA nerd, both individuals can relate with one another over an experience indirectly shared through broadcast TV/social media.
From 2014 to 2017, I got my basketball fix from the NBA-endorsed show “The Starters”. One of my favourite segments was when they’d show a modern equivalent for a throwback player. For example, Kenneth Faried to Shawn Kemp. So, in the spirit of rattling off a couple names, why not do a 2023 edition to get that 2010s nostalgia brewing once again.
Let’s start with Faried since he’s the most interesting case on my list. After a breakout performance at the 2014 world cup, the aptly named Manimal’s career took a downward spiral. Positionally undersized and lacking in defensive discipline, Faried made a career out of creating athletic advantages and capitalising on hustle plays. Unfortunately for him, the NBA’s ideal model power forward transcended his skillset and he was eventually phased out of the league. For this very reason, it’s difficult to find a suitable modern day comparison. Chimezie Metu comes to mind in terms of getting close to Faried’s athletic pop and knack for hitting the offensive boards but, outdoes him in the height department while also not matching his raw production. The reality is that few players meet the physical profile and skillset of Faried, which bears testament to the lack of a market for his playstyle.
Monta Ellis – The Mississippi Bullet – was a dynamic scoring threat and one of my favourite guards to watch as I became further invested in basketball. I imagine he would’ve been a higher volume jump shooter had he entered the league in the mid-2010s. When I think of Ellis, the first things that come to my mind are speed, agility, and funky movement patterns. Today, Kings star De’Aaron Fox fits the bill pretty well. Fox is more of a natural one than Ellis but both share a handful of scoring and athletic traits that resonate with one another.
