Feeling different this season

[Dahlsim]

...

Might be just old man swearing at the clouds, and I know owners were never loyal, but IMO the NBA needs to look at this whole movement of stars and stars forcing themselves out ( I know Kareem did it too, but it was rare). Or maybe the NBA doesn't care since their whole approach has been to promote a few teams and know that the masses in other cities will show up anyway.  Am I alone or in the minority on this?  

Do most here, and I know many virtually for many years now, still have that strong vested interest in the team?  Younger ones I can understand still rooting strongly but this was mainly to those who followed this team from when Dirk stepped out of a plane with his goofy haircut.

Thanks for sharing.  Appreciate your transparency.   Its a point I have found interesting so My 2 cents. 

You're not just an old man swearing at the clouds.  There are massive cultural changes at play and some of us are old enough to personally observe it over several decades as opposed to primarily reading about it.  My point being, the clouds are real whether you choose to swear at them or not. 

Objectively there are large societal changes happening in the U.S. (of course that impacts the world) and the NBA along with the entertainment complex in general are very actively involved in it.  In other words its not just about basketball, some very real and major upheaval is going on.   

The NBA player empowerment movement is itself a slice of the massively changing cultural environment so I'll confine my comment to that here. 

 the masses in other cities will show up anyway.  Am I alone or in the minority on this?  

The element that I find gets lost in the whole player empowerment movement is the fact that the empowerment shift is not just about a power struggle between the players and the owners.  
What is generally missed is the way that the NBA cities and the fans of the teams representing those cities are affected. 
Essentially when players gain power to do things like choose their own teams and cities or even break their NBA contract terms under the CBA they don't take power away from owners only, they take power away from NBA fans and cities.  Those fans and cities may be non-parties directly to the contracts but they are certainly indirectly impacted.  

So when a player who gets tens and hundreds of millions of dollars ultimately sourced from NBA fans and cities decides to spurn one city and choose another based on his own personal whims, the rejected cities basically can do practically nothing about it.  Its as though they are not a party to it at all even though they are both financially and emotionally impacted.  

If it were the owners only involved the city and fans could try to apply real pressure and negotiate with them e.g. around their stadium, taxes etc.  Since its a player and their own desires that dictate the power the fans and cities represented are reduced to ridiculous actions like taking out billboards literally begging the player to please, please, pretty please stay with our city.  
So player empowerment has not only weakened owners it has also weakened the power of NBA cities and fans.   The selected destination cities and their team fans are the winners, to the rest of fans and cities player empowerment says "Let them eat cake." 

Younger ones I can understand still rooting strongly

Thanks to the bigger cultural shifts, we as fans, as a whole have willingly given up power and influence. The narrative is that its only a struggle between players vs owners and of course who cares about billionaire owners?  
Fortunately for the NBA there have still been top NBA stars like Dirk, Duncan and now we seen Giannis that essentially are loyal guys who have some natural appreciation for the fans that appreciate them and ultimately pay them and empower them.  

For every Lebron, AD, Harden out there loading up with their own Super Pickup team under player empowerment there's an NBA star that chooses to stick with their fans and cities.  Of course the NBA empowered that by things like Max contracts to team's drafted players under the CBA but hey it has worked. 

Giannis for example took the big money of course but he also said "this is my city". 
After the Bucks championship he said that he felt so much better staying and winning with Milwaukee. 
According to him its easy to go a Super Team and win a cheapened ring. Of course not any player could do even that but be we know what he means.   

Guys like that in the Dirk mold keep me at least somewhat interested despite my issues with the league or teams I follow.  Here's hoping the Mavs give us something other than the Uniforms worth staying engaged.