U Weekly. Serving The Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio

My first NBA game

Or, how I learned to quit worrying and love the Lebrons

By Michael Amann

The Cleveland Cavaliers are a difficult team on which to have solid position if you hail from Cincinnati. As we have no professional basketball team, Porkopolis sports fans are forced to choose between rooting for a Cleveland team or not caring at all about the NBA. I considered myself in the latter category for years. With each passing season however, I find it harder and harder to maintain indifference towards Ohio's only big-time basketball program. The draw was such that this past weekend I embarked on a road trip to see this vexing team in person.

The venue was the Conseco Fieldhouse, home to the illustrious Indiana Pacers. Disheartened Indiana fans could purchase a massive amount of Colts memorabilia and attire from a large heated booth set up outside the arena. They might very well have, as there were as many Colts jerseys as Pacers attire in the stands. The entire city was antsy for next week's Super Bowl and found themselves hard-pressed to care about a team with such a divergent track record and no Payton Manning. The Pacers are a truly awful basketball team, owning a record of 16-30 at the start of the game. Their fans shared their team's lack of enthusiasm for the game. The Fieldhouse was not at capacity, even with a solid compliment of Cavalier fans and locals coming to gawk at the King. One fan in front of me found it endlessly hilarious to bash the Cleveland Browns as his own basketball team fell completely apart and one guy behind me in a plaid shirt and a mustache muttered, "Come on guys make some shots," at the end of the first quarter. That was about it for the fan enthusiasm. Maybe that's why the entire arena got behind the half-time entertainment.

I've never been to a game with as many promotional stunts as last Friday's blowout. The game opened with some vaguely cat-like mascot rappelling into the arena as fireworks went off. The dance team had at least three costume changes for as many center court dance numbers, the sound of T-shirt gunfire was omnipresent, people were jumping on trampolines, and I think I'm one of the few people in attendance who didn't get AAAAA FREEEEEEE PIZZZZZZAAAAA. The only thing I actually enjoyed (besides the mascot plowing into the backboard) was the show before the second half.

The act was a truly awesome lady on a unicycle with a cartoonish high seat. Dressed in East Asian garb, the lady would stack these bowls on her feet and flip them onto her head, all while peddling the giant unicycle. Following each successful flip, she would add another bowl to the stack on her foot and flip all of them on top of the bowls on her head. The crowd was completely absorbed. Shaq's monster dunk and any of Lebron's better moments paled in comparison to the amount of sh-t Pacer and Cav fans alike lost when she flipped five bowls at once onto the already monumental stack balancing on her cranium. Few feats by a human being have ever seen so literally impossible.

The game itself was rather boring. I was thoroughly engrossed through the entire game, as I do love watching basketball live. However, the Pacers were comically inept and gave the Cavs little reason to worry. In spite of the mundane contest, there was no denying the entertainment value of simply watching Lebron. The joke of calling Cleveland "the Lebrons" might be the least accurate it's ever been since 2003. Mo Williams' play has certainly lessened the need for James to be Kingly every game and Shaq provides ample star power in his own right. Without James, the Conseco Fieldhouse would have been grave quiet.

The Colts' beloved Payton Manning seems downright disposable when compared to Lebron James' eminent necessity.

Here is what makes Lebron - and therefore the Cavaliers - so captivating. What he does on a nearly nightly basis is nothing that I or few other mortals can ever even dream of accomplishing. Even in a ho-hum road blowout, for the most of which he didn't even lead in scoring, he threatened a triple-double. Just as I will never be able to balance on a 12-foot unicycle while chucking bowls onto my head, so to can most sports appreciate the impossible ability and skill of King Lebron James.

In some commercial that escapes me, Lebron James declares that kids shouldn't want to grow up to be him, they should want to be better than him. After watching Lebron, kid, you'll have better luck with the unicycle.

Originally Published: February 3, 2010

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