To My Tens of Readers, Crying Wolfe is Back

After a 4-month hiatus, basketball and the blog are returning.

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic jumpstarted nationwide closures and new behavioral guidelines, Crying Wolfe has a new post. The very one you are reading. It suggests a cause for celebration, but I’m tired. 

Not an “I have been tired every single day of my life since high school” tired. I feel an exhaustion rooted from restlessness and the inability to reconcile the past few months. Distraught over an ill-informed public malformed by self-indulgent charlatans. 

When it became real — though it should have been much, much sooner — is a moment that’ll be imprinted in my brain for the rest of my life. The NBA shuts down, and Tom Hanks has Coronavirus. Silly, I know. Sports and arts are gifts of a functional society, and Hanks’ and Rudy Gobert’s illnesses demonstrated that at this time, we did not have one. (Any point of Donald Trump’s presidency suggested this reality, but I digress).

It seems the past four months have been a live-action portrayal of the cartoon-dog-sitting-in-fire meme.

Now, the NBA is slated to return July 30 in an isolated bubble at Disney in Orlando, a ridiculous thing to type both four months ago and now. A small bucket of water for the dog engulfed in flames, who most certainly isn't fine despite what it says.

It gets the mind a-racing. The merits of sports' returns are dubious in the wake of an economic reckoning, civil unrest, and the inability to contain the Coronavirus writ large. A reprieve from these societal woes appears to enshroud progress rather than reinforce their significance.

Of course, basketball makes me happy. I love talking about it and writing about it. There is no doubt that it acts as an escape, and an outlet where I actually feel informed about something.

I don't believe there should be an asterisk for this year's champion, if the season can be fully played out. If anything, it was even more difficult to win this year than than in previous seasons.

I want to see if LeBron elevates his resume with a fourth ring ... as a player from the West! Can Giannis Antetokounmpo finally take the Bucks to the promised land? Kawhi Leonard could play spoiler again. Will anyone besides the odds-on favorites propel themselves into the Finals?

In future posts, the nuanced takes will come. I am ecstatic to see how it all plays out. But there isn't just a tinge of guilt for tuning out the world and returning to basketball. There is an underlying queasiness for me about the viability of the NBA bubble both as a logistical operation and as an untimely entree served to the world's worst restaurant.

For sanity's sake, I welcome you, basketball, back with open arms. But being in reverie and ignoring our reality do not have to go hand-in-hand. Basketball should not serve just as your escape. As my online conversation shifts towards the NBA, I hope that we make serious efforts to walk and chew gum at the same time.

And in the meantime, it's more than acceptable to celebrate and plan re-Opening Day parties. So long as masks are required and they are socially distant.