You want to see yourself as the best version of what you can become in life, and for a lot of us to get through the day, our brain will tell ourselves that we are 5% more attractive when looking into the mirror than we really are.
From the lies of our own bathroom mirror, what we see on the court in the NBA game is real. You can take away the flopping and the boob-jobs courtside, and the rest is real. How we individually see the game can vary, but we can agree that some of the best players in the NBA are the best and the worst are the worst.