Brandon Ingram (3) is playing like a superstar for his team and as the wins pile up, so does the joy that the team displays.John E. Sokolowski/Reuters
For some time now, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment’s teams have operated on the treat-‘em-mean-to-keep-‘em-keen model.
The clubs don’t win, but they also aren’t much fun to be around. The players can’t hide how much they resent having to explain themselves to their customers. Once a season ends, they are visibly delighted to leave the place where they are so loved.
It was a resilient business practice until the Toronto Blue Jays ruined it. Now all of a sudden, people want joyful and good.
The Leafs’ reaction to their new job description was to stop showing up for work, but the Toronto Raptors have adapted their habits. Not so long ago – like, two weeks – this was a blandly likeable outfit that sort of just existed on the edges of the sports conversation. Not good, not bad, not anything.
Then they tried something new – winning. Winning solves every single thing. If you’re ugly and you win, you aren’t ugly any more. You’re interesting looking.
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The Raptors came into Monday night’s game against Cleveland having won seven in a row. Over the weekend, the streak tipped from an interesting anomaly to the new expectation. The Raptors are good again.
They also won again, 110-99. Their secret? They hired a superstar (Brandon Ingram) and he is playing like a superstar. However much they want to convince you otherwise, sports is not complicated.
This team is one Ingram sprained ankle from being mediocre again, but they are also fun. They like each other, and the crowd, and playing here. That stuff can be faked, but not this well.
Now that the Raptors are good, the obvious next question is ‘How good?’
Toronto Raptors forward Scottie Barnes (4) celebrates his team’s 110-99 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday. The Raptors have won eight in a row and are second in the NBA’s Eastern Conference.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Well, they’re about this good. You can’t see my hands because I don’t know, and nobody else does either. They’re good enough to qualify straight up for the playoffs. They might be good enough to win a round or two.
But that’s getting way ahead of ourselves. Right now is a good moment to reflect on how little this town expects of its sports clubs, and how easily teams agreed to fulfill that expectation.
The worse they were, the more frustrated the fans grew. The more frustrated the support became, the less interested they were in showing any sort of contrition.
Think of last year’s Leafs’ locker clear-out. Nobody bothered with any apologies or displays of angst. Why bother? You hate us, we hate you and we’ll be in touch soon with the annual jacking of ticket prices.
Think of the Leafs right now – blank looks, empty quotes, zero ideas. There is a world in which this tailspin could be turned into great theatre. But no. The Leafs can’t even collapse in an interesting way.
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If you don’t need your team to be good, they won’t be. If you put up with it, they’ll end up blaming you for their failures.
Until this year, that was the Jays and the Raptors. It’s been the Leafs for ages, and they’re getting worse.
Sports teams love talking about expectations, but never from the perspective of their patrons. They want to win for themselves, and not for you – except that that is their job. It’d be like the clowns at the circus coming out after the show and saying, ‘Sure, you didn’t laugh. But we thought it was funny. That’s what really matters.’
Who wants to watch a bunch of rich narcissists having the same on-the-job meltdown year after year? Toronto, apparently. This city doesn’t love its teams. It’s in a weird S&M relationship with them. It’s not always clear who’s who.
You can’t always win, but you can always be fun to be around. That is as much a professional athlete’s job as putting the puck in the net.
Maybe it’s occurring to a few pros that you can do this work one of two ways. You can think of it as a cross you haul around, pestered by reporters, leered at by strangers, getting dunked on online. If you want this to be awful, it will be. You can decide that your only joy in it will be success – whether that’s your own or the team’s.
Or you can approach this work like it’s a lottery you hit daily, every day, until one day your personal lottery is cancelled. Regardless of what it says in the standings, you are winning.
You don’t need to be happy to win, but it’s probably more fun. For you, as well as everyone who pays you so much to play make believe.