Daily News | Tyrese Maxey, Kevin Durant, and the thing we forget when we talk about sports
Even though the idea of trading for Durant turned out to be smoke and probably was smoke all along, there was a discussion to be had about how far the Sixers ought to go, given the makeup of their roster, to try to win a championship right now. But the debate, from talk-radio studios to Twitter, from barrooms to blogs, wasn’t really about that. It was about. Which, on the surface, would seem as one-sided as a debate gets. One is an excellent, still-improving player who is just 21 years old.
That dynamic, that loyalty to a lesser player, speaks to an element that often gets overlooked when we talk about sports: the connection that fans feel between themselves and certain athletes. It has taken Maxey just two years, since the Sixers drafted him in 2020, to forge that kind of bond. In Philadelphia, there’s a fine line between appreciating the fan base and pandering to it. Nick Sirianni and Bryce Harper sometimes cross it.
Fans eat this stuff up, and it’s hard to blame them. Did Phillies devotees fill the park every summer night from 2007 to 2011 because those clubs won five consecutive National League East titles and a World Series? Will Eagles fans always cherish that 2017-18 Super Bowl run? Of course. But those teams’ most beloved members — Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Jason Kelce, Nick Foles, Brandon Graham — all came up as pups here.