Be Mine, NBA

Before this year, I had never really noticed how close the NBA All-Star Game is to Valentine’s Day. I find it a fitting combo since it is a weekend that is all about celebrating the league, the players, and putting away rivalries and taunts to share the love. And amazingly, It seems like the players and I were reading from the same playbook, because this year, for the first time ever, our favorite NBA players have written each other valentines. With unrivaled access, we at MMH are privileged to share with you the completely-real-and-in-no-way-made-up NBA Valentine Exchange.

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Dearest AD, Anthony, the Brow,

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.

Let me count the ways that I love you.
I love your depth and breadth and height.
The way your wingspan covers up high
Like wings spanning the sky
A lurking level of fear
Created by the Defensive Player of the Year
Guarding positions you can switch
Blocking shots with a deft twitch

Since we came together in ‘nineteen
We hung up banner seventeen
Now our offense is halting
But you, I will never find fault in.

Your secret admirer. Heart emoji.
OK, it’s me, LeBron.
(with help from Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Dear Jalen Brunson,

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.

You are not only the champion of Harlem,
But the King of all New York.
No Nets can tangle with your legacy.
A small guard in the biggest city
A closer in the city that never sleeps.
We will lift you up with the love of the city
And you will lead us to heights not seen
Since the times of Ewing or Pearl or Frazier
You have a style all your own,
Which is exactly why you are one of us.

Love,
Every single Knicks fan with help from Langston Hughes

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

To all the Refs who made me cry,

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I know I’m not imagining this instead
Please please call a foul!
I could have convinced you if I had only bled

—Your betrayed love, Luka Dončić
(with help from Sylvia Plath)

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Dear Giannis,

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

I want to have a love sprung in June.
The thought makes me want to sing
We’ve had a sloppy love affair
But we can still win that ring.

O my freakish friend
Will you help me lift that trophy perhaps
I will shoot from so far away
So you ignore my defensive lapse.

You’ve been carrying us all
On your broad shoulders and your traps
I’ve turned to poetry to beseech you
In case you don’t like my raps.

—It’s Admirer Time
(with a sample from Robert Burns)

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Dear Embiid, I had a terrible thought,

Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
I know ‘tis not possible.
I wrote that out of sadness.
I miss you, big guy
I wrote that in my madness.

We were on a roll
We had a chance to win it all
You were throwing up 30-10s
Before that Kuminga fall.

Please get well soon my friend
We have Hield here now
But he can’t guard Porzingis or Bam
Much less Jokic or the Brow

—Your secret admirer, to the Max
(With the aid of Emily Dickinson)

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

My lovely Jokić,

I love your hands:
They are big hands, firm hands, gentle hands;
Hair grows on the back near the wrist . . . .
I have seen the nails broken and stained
From hard work.
And yet, when you touch me,
I grow small . . . . . . . and quiet . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . And happy . . . . . . . .

Your hands have made passes
Unfathomable craftsmanship
Your hands have made shots
Unfathomable softness.

The defense shrinks in fear of your hands.
Your teammates’ spirits gallop forth
With the strength of the horses
Your hands have broken.

When you hold the ball up high
I know not what outcome will unfold,
I will be small and quiet in the corner.
Or maybe I will cut
If you pass to me….
….I am happy….

—Your Admirer Kentavious Caldwell Pope
(with help from Angelina Weld Grimké

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Dear James Harden

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Not many point guards
are as good as you.

—Kawhi

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Wow. I can really truly feel the love floating up and off the screen! I appreciate the stars for their vulnerability and I’m glad it paid off with a fun All-Star weekend!