An Open Letter To Dario Saric

January 20th, 2018. Sixers vs Bucks. Philadelphia. The Eagles were about to win their first Super Bowl. The Sixers were about to make the playoffs for the first time since the Process began. The kinetic energy in Philadelphia was so strong you could almost feel it, a jittery buzz under Broad Street fueling the city like a generator.

I was fifteen at the time, and it was my first Sixers game since I watched Jrue Holiday and the gang beat the New Jersey Nets at their last-ever home game almost seven years earlier. I didn’t know what to expect, but as a music journalist and an indiehead with a raging individuality complex, falling in love with the NBA came completely out of nowhere. Of course, with my raging individuality complex and all, I fell in love with basketball in the most predictably me way ever. In classic Lili fashion, I immediately became a fan of the quirkiest, goofiest basketball player I could find.

And that, my friends, is why this is an open letter to Dario Saric.

Hi, Dario. I know you’re probably never going to read this, considering you’re busy recovering and watching your teammates steamroll through the Finals, but you’re my favorite NBA player. I feel like that’s something you might not hear very often, especially from random American teenagers, but I’m in your corner, and I’ve been there for four seasons now.

When I first got into basketball, I was a high school sophomore, and you were in your second season in the NBA. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. After a tumultuous time in middle school, I decided to switch schools and start attending an all-girls Catholic school with an average graduating class size of 40 kids. It was uncharacteristic, sure, but I was fourteen years old and up for the challenge. As I followed the Sixers during the 2017-18 season the next year, I was uncertain about if I even wanted to stay at my high school — I was having a hard time making friends and things just seemed better elsewhere or back in my old school district. Your story of coming over from the Euroleague and having to adjust to a whole new life in the NBA struck a chord, and I latched on like a koala to a eucalyptus tree. I didn’t know it at the time, but the day you finally came over was the day of my 9th grade overnight retreat. I was scared, alone, and excited, and I can’t help but imagine that you were, too.

From there, I was ride-or-die.

I spent all of sophomore year blitzing between sweet sixteens and school field trips, catching Sixers games on TV after school when I could get a break from history homework as my mom cooked dinner. I snuck off from my family at a Sixers game and nervously bought a shirtsey with your name on the back at the merch shop. I posted crying cat memes on Twitter whenever you caused a turnover or missed an open shot. I cringed at the confetti game vs the Celtics. I lived in Japan for a month and woke up every morning to trade rumors. I begged the Sixers not to trade you on every single 7 AM subway ride to school. It was 2018, after all, and Philly sports had been revitalized by a certain backup quarterback and his squad. You had made it to the playoffs for the first time, and given Philadelphia basketball its first taste of what could be in nearly a decade. The whole city was all-in, but I don’t think everyone stayed.

The Eagles sucked the next season, so I should have seen it coming. I cried at a school dance the night you got traded to Minnesota. I don’t think there’s a video of me sobbing my makeup off as I did the Cha Cha Slide, but I sure as hell wish there was. After a lot of tears and a few late nights of questioning my allegiance to the Philadelphia Seventy Sixers, I followed you to Minnesota. I couldn’t figure out how to watch the games, but I religiously refreshed my Twitter explore page and Bleacher Report tabs every single night. Philadelphia may have forgotten about you, but I refused to leave you behind.

Junior year came and went. I started getting help for my anxiety. You couldn’t make the starting roster in Minnesota. My prom date flirted with my best friend all night. You missed the playoffs. I bought a plushie shark at IKEA that summer and I named it Dario Sharkic, because you love sharks, and, well, the pun just seemed too perfect to pass up on. Somehow, this eighteen dollar piece of fabric and fluff was a complete and total game-changer. I decided to create a Twitter account themed around the plushie to keep up with NBA news over the 2019 offseason and started interacting with journalists and content creators. Over that summer, I started writing about sports, and I learned that there was absolutely an audience for my writing. It just wasn’t where I ever thought it would be. But as my grandma always says, sometimes the thing you need to find is in the last place you’d look.

By the time my senior year rolled around, you were a Phoenix Sun and my life had hit a low point. I had cut myself off from my only friends the same week you beat the Sixers and ended their 5-0 streak to start the 2019-20 season. When I couldn’t sleep without melatonin and prayers, I found comfort in the fact that you were playing your heart out in the fourth quarter of a game that was on way too late for me to watch. On a school trip to Florida where every night ended with a panic attack, I watched you drop 24 on the Blazers, twice. Things were 99% terrible. Keeping up with your career was the only thing that made me feel better. I kept my head up, and February 2020 was a good month for both of us -- you started to find your role on the Suns and a home in Phoenix as I ran around Washington, D.C. with my high school Model United Nations team and decided that I never wanted to go home.

And then, the world ended.

The pandemic took everything from me — my friends, my hope for the future, the end of high school, and the beginning of college, just to name a few. Unknowingly, I turned to basketball to cope. It turned from an interest to an obsession, and I turned from a fan to a stan. I spent hours every day online, watching old highlights and interviews on YouTube, defending you on Twitter until four in the morning like my life depended on it, and most importantly, writing about how I thought you deserved better. In an article for HeadFake Hoops that I wrote in June of last year, I said:

“You want to root for Dario. You want to cheer him on, no matter what city he’s in, because in a way, there’s something in his story that resonates with all of us. You’re not always going to get into that dream job. You’ll probably get snubbed for that award you’ve been seeking since your freshman year of high school. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’ve been through hell and back with no reward, no celebration at the end of it all, no recognition. You might believe that there are “good old days” to get back to, but all of the people and places aren’t exactly what they used to be, and you can’t recapture them.”

I don’t really think that was about you, Dario. I’m pretty sure that was just about me. My two great skills in life are writing and deflecting, and that’s exactly what I spent the pandemic doing. I was trying to cope with something unprecedented — a smack to the face right after I’d experienced a glimmer of the light at the end of the tunnel. I graduated from high school in ten minutes at a drive-by ceremony and barely even cared -- the Suns had posted a video of you warming up at practice that day, after all, so I had more important things to worry about. Instead of contemplating my own happiness, I wondered if you were happy in Phoenix. Instead of trying to reconnect with my friends when COVID restrictions lightened up, I imagined you playing Spikeball with your teammates in the Bubble. While I was stuck at home over the summer with a dislocated kneecap, I listened to Marc Zumoff struggle not to scream “YES!!!” every time you nailed a three against the Sixers. Instead of imagining my own future in college, I counted down to free agency like it was Christmas. Honestly, living vicariously through an NBA player wasn’t the worst way to spend the pandemic. It kept me motivated to keep going, and to be completely fair, it was fun. However, this coping mechanism couldn’t last forever. It quickly became unhealthy. I had panic attacks when you got injured. I kept myself up at night during the offseason wondering if you’d get cut and go back to the Euroleague. It was anxiety-inducing. The only thing that could make me happy was turning into a stressor faster than I could even register.

The day you re-signed with the Suns, I signed the lease on my first-ever apartment. You were out for the preseason while my mind was scattered and scared with thoughts of not being able to handle living on my own or getting so homesick I’d have to leave D.C. before the end of the semester. I went to my first college party a week after you came back from COVID and an ankle injury. While you were in a slump in late March, I cried in my bathroom every night without my roommate even having a clue. I was terrified of the future -- having to go back to suburban New Jersey for the summer without experiencing anything that college had to offer. I scootered home in the April rain from awkward first dates to watch you drop awkward statlines. Washington D.C. became my home as you finally started to shine on the Suns. In a way, when you’re up, I’m up, and when you’re down, I’m down. At least it feels like it. We’re in it together, I think, or at least it comforts me to believe that.

There are ups and downs in life and in basketball. Big ones. I think you’d know better than anyone. There are times when you have to become a Sixth Man Of The Year candidate in the postseason and go 8-0 in the Bubble. There are times where you’re traded by the only city you’ve ever called home. There are times where you’re on top of the world, and others where your life is falling apart. And, of course, there’s a peaceful middle, but that rarely ever comes around. Some days, it feels like revenge -- on my old friend group, on the Sixers front office, on the universe for creating a situation so shitty it cost me a year of my teenage life. Other days, it feels like amends -- reaching out to those who hurt me most, going on long drives with high school frenemies, and playing in the Finals alongside Mikal Bridges and Monty Williams, facing the Bucks instead of that “Sixers team of destiny.”

A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with OCD. It put a lot of things into perspective. The way I stanned you was a diagnosed hyperfixation -- an intense obsession or focus on a specific person or thing. Mine have manifested over the past decade as obsessions with TV shows, book series, bands, and, well… you. I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about that, but I’d be honored to make the list. I started taking meds that would help my anxiety and OCD the day after I got my diagnosis. It’s scary to be told by a medical professional that basically everything you’ve always known as a part of yourself is a symptom of a mental illness and will go away with medication and time, but I was up to the challenge. You dunked on the Lakers twice. Getting better is a process.

June went on. You beat the Nuggets and the Clippers. As my hyperfixation faded, I decided to write this open letter. I looked back at how far I’d come from being a scared high school freshman to getting an OCD diagnosis and getting the help I needed, all with your career as a dazzling backing track. I’m staring down the rest of the summer and my sophomore year of college ahead of me. You’re facing a completely torn ACL while your team fights for the Larry O without you. I think that’s just how things are sometimes. Life can be both amazing and downright horrendous at the same time, and regardless of how you feel, you just have to keep going. There are ups, downs, and championships in this world, and sometimes you find yourself staring down all three at once. NBA careers only last so long, as do school years, summers, and the simple act of being a teenager. Above anything else, you taught me how to make the most of all of it. You taught me confidence and charm in your two seasons in Philadelphia. You showed me that all bad things can be turned into brilliance during your time in Minnesota. In Phoenix, you proved to me that it is absolutely possible to get back up when the universe kicks you while you’re down. And for that, I am unbelievably grateful.

So, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Thank you for inspiring me to become an NBA writer. Thank you for being the Homie, the Euroleague prodigy child who finally came over, the Phoenix Suns ninth man who always steps up to the challenge, and most importantly, my favorite NBA player. Rest up and feel better. I’ll be beyond grateful for you regardless of what the future has in store.

With love, from your biggest fan,

Lili