Home Is Where the Fantasy Hoops Group Chat Is
Writer: Kasey Anderson
Illustrator: Andrew Gragg
“I agreed to join you all on the condition I get to draft Damian Lillard every year.”
That is how I introduced myself to a group of strangers — or rather, a group of people I admired a great deal, to whom I was a stranger.
A few weeks prior to the start of the 2019-2020 NBA season I had been asked by a writer friend — someone I’d bonded with over sneakers, hoops, and records, during an evening in they spent in Portland the previous winter — if I wanted to join their fantasy basketball league. I hadn’t been part of a fantasy basketball league for years, having given it up ostensibly because I had a wife and a full-time job, and a record I was working on but, in truth, I gave up fantasy basketball because I consistently forgot to set my lineups, accepted any trade offered to me, subsequently came in last every year, and am an emotional toddler and sore loser. At any rate, I accepted the invitation. Along with the fantasy league, I joined a group chat consisting of the league’s other participants: a dozen or so writers, poets, editors, and teachers I had never met but with whose work I was already quite familiar. For the first time in years, I found myself in a social situation that made me nervous.
“I’m a charming enough guy, and an arrogant enough guy to know that saying “I’m a charming enough guy” makes me an arrogant guy.”
I’m a charming enough guy, and an arrogant enough guy to know that saying “I’m a charming enough guy” makes me an arrogant guy. My wife used to call me a “professional friend-maker” and while I think she was doing so derisively, it’s honestly a pretty apt description of my current job (Director of Development and Community Engagement at a nonprofit) and my previous profession (musician and consumer of Class A Drugs). Accurate though that description may be, entering an entirely new social circle via fantasy league and group chat was new territory for me, and I can admit now with only mild embarrassment I came on pretty strong. I frequently name-dropped a couple of Public Figures I had long ago dated and mentioned musician friends (in my defense, always within the context of conversation), and chimed in even when the discussion didn’t concern me in any way. It was not the most graceful of entrances (think Kramer entering Jerry’s apartment). However, as the first few months of the season passed, and as it became abundantly clear to all that I knew enough about hoops to hold my own in conversation but was no threat to win the league (I was an all-too-eager trade partner often to my own team’s detriment; still am), I fell into rhythm with the others and felt more myself; more at ease within the dynamic of the group.
“Sometimes that meant someone very directly asking the group how each of us were holding up and if there was anything anyone needed. More often though, the check-ins came by way of casual conversation.”
When the world closed down in the spring of 2020 (every first-person essay you read for the next two decades is going to contain some variation of that sentence, just letting you know), and the NBA subsequently suspended play, the chat could have easily wound down or sputtered out and we all could have retreated back to our lives, maybe making a plan to check back in when the next season started. Instead, in the absence of basketball, the group chat became more active. At some point each day, we would find ways to check in with each other. Sometimes that meant someone very directly asking the group how each of us were holding up and if there was anything anyone needed. More often though, the check-ins came by way of casual conversation. A song recommendation sparked a day-long discussion about bands, which generated an exchange of playlists. A comment on any given day’s Big News Event might spur an anecdote about someone’s undergrad years, which might contain an absurd/incredible personal reveal, which would in turn cause a chain-reaction of anecdotes and reveals. We started exchanging recipes, sharing whatever information might be available about the ongoing pandemic (always a challenge given the inconsistency of the messaging from day one), and offered support to one another as each of us struggled with the isolation and uncertainty we were facing.
Of course, life went on. There were engagements, breakups, deaths (my father), births (my daughter, born in November of 2020, was neither the first Chat Baby nor is she the most recent); books were written and published, acquired and sold; albums were recorded, mixed, abandoned, re-recorded and re-mixed; people relocated and then relocated again; and so on. To write it out that way seems reductive for any number of reasons, not the least of which is: over the course of the last few years, the people in that group chat, many of whom I have to this day not met in person, have become some of my dearest friends — people with whom I have shared things I would not feel safe or comfortable sharing with anyone else. I don’t know if things would have gone that way had it not been for the pandemic, but I can’t imagine things not being that way now.
It is no exaggeration or hyperbole to say that numerous times over the last three years, that group chat has been the safest, warmest place I could find in the world.
This is no great revelation. Over the last few years, most people who are actively online have been moreso, so there’s more interaction in those spaces, and as a result, we’re forming and strengthening bonds with people in ways we might not have ten years ago, or in my case, even just a few years ago. It’s not especially uncommon. Two of my dearest friends from Portland (who have since relocated to New York) are people I know from a community of Blazers fans on Twitter. Many of the people I turn to most when I encounter a challenge in my recovery (I’m ten years sober), I met through online support meetings when the pandemic made in-person meetings a near impossibility for many of us (in a further intertwining of friendships that exist primarily within my phone, one of those Recovery Friends also happens to be a Fantasy Hoops Group Chat Friend).
As Twitter teeters on the brink of collapse (although not really? Tough to tell given how prone to melodrama many of us seem to be whenever we log on to that website), and Instagram has become a repository for targeted ads and TikTok recaps, we may be nearing another shift in the way we build and sustain communities, and I understand why that mere thought of that is overwhelming, but people are resilient and adaptable in ways we don’t often realize until we’re forced to. (Whether we should have to be so resilient and adaptable is another conversation.)
“It feels a little weird to put it like that but I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.”
Whatever the world looks like in six months, or a year, or a decade, right now there are a handful of people I speak to every single day: my wife, my daughter, my mother, my dog (dogs are people), and a few people I met just a few years ago, when I barged into their group chat and insisted on lifetime draft rights to Damian Lillard. It feels a little weird to put it like that but I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.
Postscript: As of this writing, I am currently ranked second in this season’s fantasy league standings. though admittedly it is early, and have only made two ill-advised trades. As promised (demanded?), I have drafted or traded for Dame every season, and this season is no different. This year, though, like my beloved Blazers, I’ve also pinned my hopes on Anfernee Simons and Shaedon Sharpe. If I’m being honest, it’s probably not the best fantasy basketball strategy and not a great Actual Basketball strategy, either. I guess we’ll see!