A funny thing about fandom is that it’s both what binds people to a sport and what immediately sets their experiences apart from one another, even those who root for the same side. Emotions can get weird fast, although sometimes it takes a superstar spurning his own franchise to reveal an even broader spectrum.
The in-game part is generally the most straightforward. The ball and players move around the floor in evidently good or bad ways, all color-coordinated for more intuitive viewing, and the mind and heart react accordingly. There’s a time and score to keep things as literal as possible as one goes down and the other up, and everything is very good or bad, but mostly binary.