A piece like this generally appears in this space around this time every year. Just as the seasons change in farming from the harvest to the plough and sower as the cycle begins again. Flat racing blessedly gives way to the proper stuff (jumps), soccer and rugby make their grand entrances and, of most relevance to what you will read hereafter, American sports become part of the staple diet required to negotiate the tricky wintry months.
NBA and NFL to be exact. The baseball Rubicon has not been crossed. If you are in any way a long term devotee of content here you will know the fondness for basketball in this seat goes back a long way. To the days when the Irish Cup in the fast paced five-a-side fare was considered a big enough deal for the semi finals and finals thereof to be broadcast on RTE towards the end of January over the course of a weekend. Firstly from Neptune Stadium in Cork and then the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght.
When it’s thought about, wasn’t it a fair accomplishment by Basketball Ireland to secure such a vital piece of infrastructure for the future of their sport when, with the greatest of respect, it would have very much been considered in the bracket of a minority sport. Behind GAA, soccer – which was never in a better shape than was the case at that time – rugby and horseracing.
For whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to curry the same favour now with – like plenty of other events – TG4 Sport coming to the rescue in relation to broadcast coverage of the sport. However, from the time we got ‘all’ the TV channels in at home (other than the two RTE channels), the fondness for basketball was sated to a large degree with mass coverage of the NBA available at the flick of a switch.
More than that, it becomes a vital part of the arsenal, not only in dealing with the dangers of the wintry months but also insomnia which is a year round conundrum. Which is why, yes, the start of the new NBA season has been ticked off by the day with a countdown timer since basically the end of September.
When it does come around though, it’s a bit like trying to keep a handle on the comings and goings at the soccer clubs on transfer deadline day. Except it’s a lot more manic, there are a lot more moves taking place and it doesn’t appear to be half as well covered. Comparative, say, to Jim White when he was with Sky Sports before surprisingly downgrading his career and going to TalkSport.
Thus, when the action on the hard court does return, it can take up to a few weeks to figure out exactly who has gone where. Or at least it normally would. This year, however, there were – for this writer at least – two occurrences which jumped off the notional page immediately. The fact that LeBron James and his son Bronny (LeBron Jnr officially) are now lining out as the teammates with the LA Lakers and, maybe even more so, the fact that Klay Thompson has left my beloved Golden State Warriors. I honestly thought he or the other Splash Brother – Mr Curry – would never leave the Warriors as long as Steve Kerr remains in situ. But, as Neil Diamond sang, money talks I suppose.
Anyway, while King James and LeBron Jnr lining out together was a historic first in the NBA, in GAA it has become a more common thing. The first such instance I can remember was that of former inter county referee Eugene Murtagh and his son down in Longford. The story only coming to light because – you couldn’t make this up – Murtagh Snr was sent off for, you’ve guessed it, abusing the referee!
Very close to home, Dunboyne had a very special case of the occurrence when former Meath and current Antrim manager Andy McEntee lined out, aged 49, at midfield on our second team along with his son Shane.
There is one father/son combination I would love to see lining out in our colours but I’m not sure even my powers of persuasion could work in the particular case.
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