Chuck Klosterman talks about Gregg Popovich sitting out his San Antonio stars and the meaning of sports

In a previous post I offered some sports-themed existential questions as posed by by Comedians Pete Holmes and Dov Davidoff. Grantland writer Chuck Klosterman answers some of those questions as he weighs in on the Stern/Popovich brouhaha.

Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich takes a stand

'Are You Not Entertained?' by Chuck Klosterman
Last week, the Miami Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs 105-100 in a nationally televised game that people argued over more than they watched. It spawned one of those temporary controversies we need in order to sustain a 24-hour news cycle... I suspect those minor issues were mostly being analyzed as a way to avoid the deeper question this conflict demands, simply because the answer is too big to reasonably confront. The question is this: What are we really doing here?
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Now, I don't mean, "What are we really doing here on Earth?" What I'm asking is, "When a dilapidated version of the Spurs plays the Heat in late November, what is actually at stake?" I'm wondering about the central purpose of pro sports, and how much of that purpose is directly tied to entertainment. It's a complicated question that keeps folding back upon itself...
For sports to matter at all, they have to matter more than that; they have to offer more cultural weight than merely deciding if Team A is better than Team B. If they don't, we're collectively making a terrible investment of our time, money, and emotion...