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You know why people like doing mailbags so much these days? Because it’s content without having to really think. The readers come up with the topics and all you have to do is just answer the question. It’s brilliant!
I get a handful of emails each day and I do my best to answer every one of them. Mainly because I still email writers I like with questions and it makes me sad when I don’t get an answer. So I say that in order to say that I apologize to anyone who’s answer I didn’t grab. I received more than I expected and I didn’t think anyone would really be up for a 15,000 word mailbag here. So I’ll file those away for next time.
Anyway, your letters:
Q: Not sure if you can answer this, but I thought I could give it a shot. How do I get my wife to enjoy Thunder games with me? She refuses to watch the games and always tells me she’s not interested when I acquire Thunder tickets. Sigh! Is there any surefire way? I’m trying to ease her into it for next season by talking about it constantly, not sure if it’s working or not. Probably not. Thanks for reading, and more importantly thanks for writing!
– Chuck
DT: This is something I’ve been really lucky that I don’t have to battle. As you all probably know, my wife absolutely LOVES the Thunder and enjoys following the team almost as much as I do. Actually, she may like them more.
The reason why? She loves the players. She doesn’t care so much about basketball per se, but she cares about the team, if that makes sense. So I would pander to that emotion. See if you can get her to connect to KD, Russ and Jeff Green. Have her watch some Broingtons videos. My wife just loves how together they are. The NBA itself isn’t necessarily a ton of fun to someone that doesn’t love basketball. But I’ll go see a movie with Harrison Ford in it even if it’s a chick flick and I know I’ll hate it, just because I’m a fan of his.
I asked Mrs. DT her thoughts on this and here’s what she added: “Well you can start by not talking about it constantly. I’m sure everybody is aware I am married to an NBA writer and basketball is a major topic in our conversations. Talking about it al the time is probably turning her away from the game. I started loving the Thunder because of my love for Oklahoma. The way we acquired the team was less than ideal and I hated hearing people talk about my home state the way they did. I decided I didn’t really care about the Thunder, I cared about making them succeed. If they succeeded, Oklahoma succeeded. The only way I thought I could help was to go to the games and support them.
I actually didn’t care for the players at first (I’m supposed to cheer on a Longhorn? Umm, no.) until Royce started a Twitter account for Daily Thunder. He would tell me about the things KD, Russ, and Uncle Jeff would say to each other and I soon realized it was like listening to Royce’s friends having a conversation. I think that’s one of the reasons he loves them all so much too (no homo). I started reading what they were saying to each other and soon fell in love with the players. Then Broingtons came to us like a gift from God and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Also, tell your wife this: the great part about the NBA is the time. It is almost always over in 2 hours-ish. That is a short amount of time compared to your trips to the mall.” Read more…
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