Cigamodnalro wrote:I agree...Raj, we'll miss you, but you'll be back. I've spent time away from this forum before, and even then, I found it very difficult to avoid checking box-scores at the very least. I'd zone off in class, and find myself suddenly on hoopshype scouring for any Magic news I could find. I'd be backpacking somewhere across the world, come across an internet cafe, and find that I couldn't not apportion a significant period of my 15 available minutes to catching up on what I had missed.
I haven't lived in Orlando for a few years now. I am in graduate school at Indiana--basketball country--and still I've found ways to follow my team. In approximately five months, I will be moving to Chicago, where I will presumably live for the rest of my life. I will attend Bulls games, I am sure. And still I will be an Orlando Magic fan. I watched Nick Anderson steal the ball, and miss the free throws. I was in the stands when Darrell intercepted the inbound pass and dribbled cross-court for the win. I watched Monty Williams miss a jump shot that would have put Heart-and-Hustle in the 8 seed, and received letters from my dad at summer camp detailing the Horace-for-Maggette swap. I watched T-Mac go off on the Bucks in an electric playoff series (we lost), read obsessively about the Steve Francis blockbuster while visiting potential colleges, and did more scouting than Otis Smith's entire fleet of scouts leading up to each draft. I debated Dwight vs. Okafor for hours with anyone who would listen, and have grown with my team. I was there smiling, surrounded by violent LeBron fans, when we dismantled the Cavaliers, and was high-fiving complete strangers in a crowded bar during our Finals victory against LA. Many of my strongest friendships have been forged by talk of basketball, and in every conversation I can't not rep my team. I am a Magic fan. And Raj, I've seen you post long enough to know that you've been bitten too. You can move to the edge of Canada and you can change your avatar, but I'd be shocked if, late at night, the mouse doesn't guide your hand back to where you belong, and that's right where you've been for the better of two decades now. Raj, as is the case with JJ Redick...I don't care what the front of your jersey says...you are Magic for life.
