An unlikely literary crossover
If the constant news cycle has taught us anything, it’s that next reigns supreme. What will next year bring? Which player(s) will boom? Which will bust? We fascinate ourselves with the unknown; live for what may be. Want it all. Now.
Shakespeare spoke to this notion some 400 years ago; his eponymous tragic hero, Macbeth, enthralled by prophecies’ promises. But it’s what happens later that we must heed. Castle seized upon, wife dead, his own death a nearing formality, he soliloquises about the meaninglessness of it all:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
After three first-round exits, an asset cupboard left bare, and Dame tearing his Achilles, it’s hard not to see parallels (especially if Giannis’ crown celebration is as entrenched in your memory as it is mine). Alas, it sure seems the Bucks’ candle is all but out. Inherent within this, of course, is the discarding of the present. Joy is fleeting, glory ephemeral. But if we live only for what’s next, we may find that nothing ever truly arrives.
It is for this reason that I implore you all to meditate on the moment. Take pause. Leave, for a short while, the stress of free agency, the will-he-or-won’t-he Giannis angst, the worry of 2025–26. Of next. In its place, inhale, hold the oxygen in your lungs, and breathe in the best of this last hour upon the stage. What do you see?
Me?
- A distant field, cows grazing, cotton caressing leather. A Dairy Bird’s rising.
Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images
- A trash can ablaze, a phoenix emerging, pouncing on errant passes, finishing above the rim.
Photo by Layne Murdoch Jr./NBAE via Getty Images
- A Flubber-laden physical specimen with ballet dancer’s feet, corralling guards and boards.
Photo by Stephen Gosling/NBAE via Getty Images
Will Green, Porter, and Sims continue their Bucks ascension? Will they grow into core pieces of tomorrow? If they’ve already brightened the present, does it even matter? Tomorrow will come and it will bring the highs and (more likely) the lows of Bucks fandom. For now, how long can you hold your breath?