An Open Letter to the Basketball Gods

Dear Basketball Jesus,

I just want to take a minute to thank you for all you’ve done for us hoop heads this summer. I mean, you used your oversized, Dr. J-esque hands to touch the basketball world in a spectacular way. You and the other basketball gods gathered at center court of the Pearly Gate Arena and decided to open the windows of blessings to shower us all exceedingly, abundantly, and above all that we could ask or think. Starting way back in June when you worked wonders through Brother Kevin Durant that manifested into pure offensive artistry and caused us all to rejoice. But the summer – Basketball Jesus – the summer is when you showed up and showed out.

You see, the talk of super teams ruining the league picked up steam as the Golden State Warriors, equipped with its new weapon of mass destruction mentioned previously in this letter, ran through the Cleveland Cavaliers with a level of ease that was unforeseen. Summer started with a BANG, as summer league brought us inefficient triple-doubles from Lonzo Ball sans Big Baller Brand sneakers. You didn’t see that as enough though, Basketball Jesus. One day you decided that our basketball lives would be made significantly more interesting when the Pacers inexplicably traded Paul George to the Oklahoma City Thunder for a sharing sized bag of M&M’s and a year worth of free car washes. How? How, Basketball Jesus, did you pull off such an amazing thing such as pairing the fire and ice combination of George and Westbrook out of thin air?

The blessings continued when you saw fit to break up the very personification of underachievement known as the Los Angeles Clippers and sent CP3 swangin’ on fo’s down to H-Town to pat the rock with James Harden. Now, those two may end up fighting over the ball like Carlton and Will Smith on that Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode, but this is intriguing if nothing else. If the Rockets add Melo to the roster, that will be quite the spectrum on TV.

I just have one request, Basketball Jesus: PLEASE…PLEASE send Hoodie Melo if he goes. No one needs Knicks Melo on their team. Not even the Knicks. Hoodie Melo, though, is a completely different beast. Hoodie Melo is the NWO version of Hulk Hogan and Sting. Yeah, they were great in their shinier days, but the dark, cynical “hoodie” versions are better; MUCH better at the current juncture. Thank you for that, Basketball Jesus.

You’ve bestowed upon us great tithings this summer, and we are grateful. You took the cake earlier this week though. Just too much. We knew Kyrie was tired of being the forced baby bro to LeBron. We knew that he wanted to be traded in lieu of LeBron hitting the road to another team next summer and making weird weight room videos in another location other than Cleveland. We knew, Basketball Jesus, that Kyrie looked around at the Cavs and Cleveland minus Lebron and thought, ‘Man, hell nah. Not again. Not me (excuse my language, Basketball Jesus – I needed it for accuracy).’ What we didn’t know, is that Kyrie would be traded to the only Eastern Conference team that even came close to the Cavs this past season. We did not know, Basketball Jesus, that he would be staring across the court at LeBron in heated battles this season. We also didn’t know that IT, the Celtics only true star, would have to uproot his throne in Boston. He was a Celtic. He played for them through extreme tragedy and made the otherwise underwhelming Boston squad watchable. Now, he’s gone and a new rivalry has emerged. A Hatfield and McCoy have swapped places. A blood and a crip have traded rags. That’s what this trade has done.

Basketball Jesus, you have created a way out of no way, and we thank you. Thank you for making this summer full of basketball. Thank you for making this draft class so exciting. Thanks for allowing the Mayweather-McGregor “fight” to be pushed off the headlines for a few hours and turn our attention toward this wondrous game. We owe you. We owe you big. Hopefully, our eyes being glued to television sets will be devotion enough to repay what you’ve done and bring us another summer like the one we had this year. Sorry if that’s being greedy.

Amen.

**Note** This is Example 4/5 of our coiski 101: How to Effectively Write Descriptive Articles lesson.