I HAVEN’t watched a full basketball game since Robert Jaworski played his last. Or maybe it was the one where Michael Jordan made his second three-peat-clinching performance that established the basketball legend as the undisputed GOAT.

But after that game from ages ago, all the team sport I ever followed since is football.

Yesterday at the office, I tried to reconnect with the long-lost basketball fan in me by watching Game 7 of the NBA’s Western Conference Finals. I only managed five minutes. At the end of the third quarter, I got hungry and decided that lunch was more crucial.

Don’t get me wrong — basketball is an exciting game, but as much as I tried to get in the game that has driven the entire Filipino populace nuts, I just couldn’t feel the vibe.

Gone were the days when I worshipped Ginebra and the Chicago Bulls.

Yesterday’s Game 7, no matter how dear to basketball fans, gamblers and bandwagoners alike, just seemed so alien to me. This man’s love for basketball is permanently gone, as permanent as Michael Jordan’s Greatest of All Time status.

And then I figured out why. Some may find me guilty of comparing apples to oranges, but I realized I am now so attuned to watching football that basketball just no longer is the exhilirating sport I used to know.

I now find basketball too slow. Sure, there were the occasional fast break plays in yesterday’s match, but that’s it. I guess modern football’s high-octane running game that happens in a much bigger field of play just appeals more to me as a spectator.

Every time I watch a football match, I find myself holding my breath seeing the players burn the pitch with their speed continually for 90 minutes with no timeouts except for the half-time breather.

And yet a common misconception among Filipino basketball fans about football is that it is slow, if not uneventful. Well how football is perceived here is not surprising since many Filipinos — adults and kids alike — are convinced that basketball is the most popular sport in the world. Seriously.

Apart from speed and skill, there are too many reasons it’s football for me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t discuss basketball ever. There’s always Jaworski and Jordan for some small basketball talk.