After work this evening, I went over to my folks’ house and joined them to watch a few NBA games.

My parents are religious fans of the San Antonio Spurs, and my mom adopted that team as her favorite team years and tears ago. It took a visit several years ago to AT&T Center in San Antonio, to watch a Spurs game, for my dad to finally get all on board the Spurs train with her. Now that there is a thing as an NBA Season Pass, the Spurs are a regular feature in their weekly evening plans. And with one of my mom’s favorite former Spurs now tearing it up with the Chicago Bulls (“Hey, mom- you need to check this guys out!”), they are often tasked with watching two games a night.

So, to celebrate my Mom’s dedication to the game, tonight’s “Seven Things” is a summary of her NBA allegiances over the years.

These are seven NBA teams that my mom has followed over the years, for one reason or another (which means because one player, or maybe two, on that team caught her attention).

1. Los Angeles Lakers

My mom was an early fan of this team because of… Lew Alcindor. In time, one of our local college stars ended up on the Showtime Kareem Abdul-Jabaar squads of the late 1980’s, and how could you not like those teams, with Worthy, Magic, Scott, Green, Rambis, etc…

2. Chicago Bulls

In the era of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, if you liked basketball, you had to track those from the mid-80’s into the mid-90’s, so she did.

3. Sacramento Kings

At some point after the Lakers, in the late 1990s, her attention dialed in a little more to NBA hoops, and she adopted the Kings. I just remember Peja Stojacovic, Chris Webber, Jason Williams, Terkoglu and Vladi as regular members on that team for a few years, and she followed them.

4. Utah Jazz

This was the period of John Stockton and Karl Malone doing their damage to opponents night in and night out in the early 2000’s.

5. San Antonio Spurs

In 1997, a 21 year-old first round draft pick power forward/center from Wake Forest began his career with the Spurs. And my mom saw Tim Duncan begin to play in his rookie season, and her heart was committed- to Duncan as a player, and by extension, to the Spurs as a team. After Tim wrapped up his 19- career with the Spurs in 2016- well, Mom was all settled in with Pop and the Spurs.

6. Indiana Pacers

My mom is devoted to a handful of players who usually came up as a Spur, and then for some reason, were traded away, to her dismay and despondency. One of these players was George Hill, a 26th pick in the 2008 draft by the Spurs. George was with the Spurs for three seasons before being traded to the Pacers, and the shocking move of Hill, one of her favorite players ever, drove her to also watch Indiana Pacer games from time to time while he was a player for them (for five seasons).

7. Chicago Bulls

This recent reconnect with the Bulls is all a product of the San Antonio Spurs trading Kawhi Leanord to the Toronto Raptors in 2018 for perhaps that teams’ most beloved and dedicated star, DeMar DeRozan, who was sent to San Antonio without prior consultation by the Raptors’ president. DeRozan was a little perturbed early on at how he was shucked from Toronto to the Spurs, but after quietly putting in three years of star play, as a free agent the Spurs let him sign with Chicago which sought his services. Naturally, my mom knows handsome and talented players when she sees them, and with DeRozan joining a team on the rise, where he is playing with Zach Levine and Lonzo Ball- among others, and with the Spurs hanging out as a fairly mediocre team this year, the Bulls have become a team-to-watch in my folks’ household in 2021-2022.