On Dentmon’s Folly, but J.D’s Sweetness

I had the pleasant experience last week of sitting directly in front of two morons at the UW/ Utah game, a game in which UW went up big, squandered the lead, and then held on late to seal the win. It was hard for me to concentrate on the game though, due to my being distracted by these assclowns who were making a mockery of the proceedings via their very loud and continuous commentary (highlights included, “Our offense hasn’t been as good since Brandon Roy left,” and “when we go big, it’s harder to run and gun”). 

 There was, however, one pearl of wisdom that I gleaned from these two over the course of the game, and that was there was a fascinating dynamic at work concerning UW point guard Justin Dentmon.  Now, Dentmon has turned into somewhat of a lighting rod at UW over the past few seasons has he’s gone from phenom freshman, to average sophomore, to much maligned junior.  Many UW fans are anti-Dentmon and believe it is only a matter of time until current freshman phenom Venoy Overton takes over his role.  On this night, however, Justin Dentmon transcended the game of basketball and became an experiment in advanced social dynamics.  It occurred as follows:    

At one point early in the second half Justin turned the ball over on a play where he made a fairly bad decision and tried to force a pass. From the guy 1 row back, “C’MON DENTMON…… C’MON!!!” Guy then turns to his buddy and goes on a 2 minute tirade.  “Dentmon sucks…Dentmon can’t play ball anymore… Overton should play and Dentmon should sit…” etc.   

A minute or so later (I really have no idea) Justin took the ball and went strong to the hoop, scoring and getting fouled.  Same guy, “YEAH J.D…… HELL YEAH!!!”  He then turns again to his friend, “J.D. came to play tonight.  J.D goes strong to the hoop better than anyone on our team. J.D. is legit.”  Etc. 

This trend continued for the rest of the night.  Everytime the guy made a mistake it was, “DENTMON!!!!” and everytime he made a nice play it was, “YEAH J.D.”  I guarantee that any 7-10 year old that was within 3 rows of this guy left that arena believing that UW had a terrible player named Dentmon, but a stud named “J.D.”   

For the life of me I couldn’t figure this out.  It seemed clear that in this guy’s mind there was a total separation from the concept of what “Dentmon” was as opposed to what “J.D” embodied. He had managed to convince himself that somehow it was ok to be totally against Dentmon even being on the team, while extolling the virtues and value that JD brought to the squad.   While this was happening I repeatedly checked to make sure that it was the same guy talking, and everytime it was (he had a terrible voice that was easy to distinguish).  

Further, the longer it progressed, the more I bought into the concept of the dual human.  I liked being able to cast a disdainful eye at Dentmon, walking around out there with his attitude and poor decisionmaking skills.  At the same time, I loved watching J.D. get to the hoop and help UW seal the deal late in the second half.  It was genius.   I started to imagine Romar sitting there at the end of the bench thinking to himself, “we need a big play, should I put Dentmon out there or J.D?” (obviously J.D.). 

What’s more about the subtle genius at work here is that the dual human theory allows someone to be right all the time.  Whenever anyone bitches about the guy you can always state, “That’s what I’ve been saying for years.”  At the same time, whenever he’s playing well you’ve got that entire arsenal of positive material to draw from to prove you’ve had this guy’s back the whole time.  You are never wrong. 

So while the guy behind remains an idiot and someone whom I’m praying does not have seasons tickets, I will give credit where credit is due, and applaud his advanced thinking on this topic.