Verbatim, an email to a dear friend (a U of A lifer):
So, after the game was already over, waiting on the festivities, because the Warriors had won the Championship, I read this article about Andre Igoudala.
I loved the article. It expressed so much about what I thought and felt about basketball, as much as you do not really grasp that, you certainly have more then a glimpse of how much it means to me. In it's way, the article is quite the tribute to University of Arizona basketball. Maybe you'd read it before trying to understand the rest of this.
The Warriors won the final game, and the championship. I'm pleased. Steve Kerr won his first championship as a coach, his sixth NBA championship ring. Steph Curry, son of an NBA all-time great, MVP of the Warriors outstanding regular season, had a great game. Not quite outscoring LeBron James, the incredibly gifted one man band who fronts the Cleveland Cavaliers, but putting up really good numbers. You know, points scored, especially, but some other stuff too, the kind the statisticians measure.
So, during the after game ceremonies, when it came time to award the Most Valuable Player trophy, in that silent place in my heart where I know how it always goes, how it always plays to the media darlings, how folks who see beyond their own aggrandizement are seldom rewarded, how team players lose out to gifted, but selfish p(ersons), well, . . . .
And then there was the announcement. The Most Valuable Player of this year's NBA playoff was. wait for it, Andre Igoudala! The sixth man. The eleven year veteran. A guy in the autumn of his career. The teammate of Steph Curry, who is arguably the best player in the NBA, LeBron James opinion notwithstanding.
When Coach Kerr got his obligatory national teevee moment the first name out of his mouth was Andre's. When Andre got his moment in the spotlight he said "Steph Curry is who I want to be when I grow up."
The word Coach Kerr, and Steph, and all the teevee talking heads kept using was "sacrifice." Before this season Andre Igoudala had never not started a game he played in in the NBA. This year he rarely started a game. He sacrificed. His numbers, scoring, rebounding, assists, steals, that kind of thing, the weapons his agent would have carried into contract negotiations to make both of them more money, Andre accepted their diminishment willingly, for the good of the team.
He coulda been a bigger star, gotten a bigger contract, put more money in the bank. Andre Igoudala had a bigger idea.
That he was rewarded with the Most Valuable Player in the Championship Series trophy is incredibly sweet music in my heart.
I didn't, as is sometimes my wont, cry but I did shake my fist in the air, again and again, shouting "Yes!," and "Yes!" and "Yes!" again. Somehow, in a way that's not easy to put into few words, I felt validated. And renewed. Most of all, hopeful.
Might this catch on? Did Andre feel the Bern?
Is Gordon Gecko finally dead?
Hopeful. Yes, hopeful.