Ben Collins

After a four month absence, I figured I’d leave you feeling cheated out of a groundbreaking first sentence. I think I accomplished that nicely.

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So I bought a William Shatner album.

I wasn’t supposed to like it. In fact, I didn’t even want to like it. A guy in his mid-fifties rambling bad lyrics originally uttered from someone else’s mouth, entirely wasting the astoundingly beautiful music in the background wasn’t necessarily a hole in my life that I even knew I had, nevermind one that was gaping and needed to be filled.

But I liked it. It worked.

It came at a time where music was entirely overtaking my life. I mean this wholeheartedly, as I began telling anyone that owed me money that all checks can be written as payable to “Mr. Samuel Goody III”. I figured I might as well cut out the middle-man. I’d be lying through my teeth if I said this time of musical infatuation wasn’t also still in the present and the glove compartment of my car isn’t, to this day, literally overflowing with music that I hardly know anything about.

Music is a sedative, much the way basketball was, is, and always will be. In my mind, they’re one-and-the same. They’re my extra life. They’re something to easily and mindlessly fall back on, no matter how harsh the world may be treating you on that particular day.

However, I wouldn’t have been so far into musical overdrive had it not been for basketball. I had thought basketball, for the first time in a long time, let me down.

On draft night, we had acquired the number five pick in the draft. This was dually exciting and daunting for me. I had known this: there was a lot of talent available at that spot (which was a good thing), and most of that talent was at the point guard position (which I later deemed to be a horrendous misfortune). There were three particular point guards – Ben Gordon, Shaun Livingston and Devin Harris – that were to be taken around that range.

And Devin Harris scared me. A lot.

Not because he wasn’t talented. It was almost because he was too talented. He was a Nellie player – fast, experienced, knows how to handle the ball on the fast break. He was a smart, logical, sound basketball player.

Neither of the other two options at point guard, or any other player in the draft, were similar to Harris, with his frenetic, teetering on the borderline of the out of control style of play.

He was a Dallas Maverick-type of player. And that’s what scared me.

“And with the fifth pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, the Dallas Mavericks select Devin Harris from the University of Wisconsin.”

With that, I knew that Steve Nash was gone. He could’ve just dawned a Suns uniform on the spot and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.

Weeks later, it became official. Steve Nash became a Sun. Then, Antoine Walker became a Hawk and Eduardo Najera became a Warrior. I was less apathetic towards the situation and more-or-less utterly disappointed.

Then, acting as any sane, enraged human being would, I took it out on one person and one person alone: Devin Harris. To me, the man could do no right. I decided to attribute everything wrong with this team, and the world, to this man.

We lost a preseason game? It was Devin’s fault. The people on the team are injured? Devin must have maliciously attacked every single player in practice. The common cold? You guessed it, Devin invented it.

It wasn’t Devin. It was his stigma. The nice, young guy just trying to make a living, attempting to take over for an unconquerable old favorite that I was undoubtedly far too accustomed to. He was in a lose-lose situation.

I was finally able to catch a preseason game, if only the last one. This team looked so foreign, on paper. Even while watching the starting lineups, I would feel like I was overlooking the introductions of some Bulgarian racquetball team, laced with Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Finley as to keep enough familiarity so I know I wasn’t comatose.

There I saw Devin Harris for the first time in my life. Well, I saw Devin Harris the player for the first time in my life. This wasn’t Devin Harris, the ghostly spirit of death. This wasn’t a scouting report. This wasn’t a video clip. This was the real deal. This was Devin Harris.

I saw what was essentially a kid running around trying as hard as he ever possibly could.

At the beginning, he missed shot after shot. He made some strange passes. He was way out of control and his shot selection was ludicrous. He wouldn’t give the ball to Dirk. He was too tall. His shoes weren’t the right color. His jersey didn’t fit just right. He was nothing like Steve Nash.

“But he’s really, really good,” I finally realized with a sigh.

I just never gave him a chance. He went on to score eighteen in the only game he started during the entire preseason. Since then, he’s earned the starting job over new star Jason Terry.

This team deserves a chance. Change is impossible to endure. These players are endearing, though – trying to fight the impossible fight to win over fans that have lost the soul of their team. And it’s nearly impossible to think of this team without some of our old players.

Then again, I can barely remember musical innovation before William Shatner.