Lead In The Pipes

Let’s check those commen– SWEET POTATOES!!!

But You proved mike Bibby’s point exactly you ranked 23rd in attendance last year and now you average 100% capacity. from 85.9% to100% seems like more people jumping on the bandwagon. Mike Bibby is correct or you would still be averaging 85.9% where did that extra 14.1% come from ohhhh the fans that werent fans last year thats right!!

He’s baaaaaaa-aaaaack!

Look, Captain Comment — here’s the deal. My point in all this, with the numbers and the whatnot, is that the Celtics are no more of a bandwagon team than anyone else in the league. If any NBA team started to suck enough, they’re going to struggle to keep even the 85.9% attendance the Celtics managed to have through one of the worst seasons in recent memory. As an example — an ironic one, considering it was Bibby’s team a few months ago — I gave you the Sacramento Kings, a team that lost even more fans than the Celtics gained from last year to this year. The Kings had a raucous, devoted fan base — and in many respects, still do — but their attendance has suffered in the wake of a rough patch, albeit one that was nowhere near as long and as painful as the Celtics. Now those are some bandwagon fans.

Repeat : Mike Bibby has played for the Grizzlies, the Kings, and the Hawks. And he’s calling Celtics fans “bandwagon fans”. Kettle, meet pot.

Every single team in every single sport that is currently successful has at least some fans who only follow the team when it’s winning. The reason I posted attendance numbers was to show that every characteristic assigned to “bandwagon” teams — and here’s where the ironing is delicious — is significantly greater on the three teams Mike Bibby, the self-appointed authority of bandwagons, himself played for. Hilariously, to top it all off, Hawks fans responded by assembling the world’s most hastily assembled wagon of banding, piled in by the thousands, went bananas for all three games, and gave Atlanta a massive homecourt advantage that would have won them the series had the Hawks themselves not been so pathetically inept on the road.

Looking back on this bizarre series, all I can think is that Bibby’s comments — random and rather unprovoked, other than by a few drunk Massholes the likes of which Bibby’s probably dealt with before hundreds of times — were actually a hint to Atlanta’s populace that it was okay to build a bandwagon of their own. Maybe, just maybe, he was concerned that after nearly a decade of rotting in the lottery, the fine people of Atlanta would forget that it was okay to cheer for the Hawks.

In that case, mission accomplished.

Share This