Chandler Parsons, Gordon Hayward, and the shelf life of fan sympathy

No one wants to get injured. No pro athlete wants to collect checks for sitting in physical therapy instead of running down the court. No NBA player wants to wear a suit instead of a jersey on game night. Injuries are an unfortunate burden many players and most teams deal with in any given year. As we learned six minutes into the 2017-18 regular season, when Gordon Hayward’s ankle snapped in his Celtics debut, catastrophic injuries happen.

The traditional responses to such a serious injury are empathy from fellow players and sympathy from the fandom. This is what Hayward experienced. Other players — those who have experienced catastrophic leg injuries, and those who have not — poured empathy all over Hayward’s wound.

We also saw enormous sympathy from the Celtics faithful. When the team shared a video message from Hayward in his hospital bed before Boston’s home opener on Wednesday, the crowd gushed in appreciation. The fans understood that Hayward wanted nothing more than to hear his name called by the public address announcer, that he wished he could rip off his warm-ups and take the floor with his professional brethren. But he could not.

None of that was surprising. This is how normal people act. When someone you like (for whatever reason) experiences misfortune, you sympathize.

This makes what’s happened to Chandler Parsons all the more interesting.

Fans in Memphis booed Parsons when he missed free throws in the Grizzlies’ season premiere on Wednesday. When he made one, the crowd gave him a standing ovation that seemed largely sarcastic. Of course, there were fans who tried to cheer over the boos and those who cheered him louder after the make in legitimate encouragement. But there was a distinct, palpable negative energy around the episode.

It was palpable enough that Marc Gasol chided fans in his postgame interview. (Gasol likely remembers when the Memphis crowd turned on his brother, Pau, in the waning days of that era.) The scorn was real enough that Parsons fired back, too, saying he’ll treat home games like road games from now on.

Parsons signed a mammoth deal with the Grizzlies in 2016, coming off various knee injuries, including a catastrophic blowout a few years back in Dallas. He fought meniscus pain all through his debut season in Memphis, and was wholly ineffective when he managed to get on the court. No one ever suggested that Parsons was being lazy in rehab, or that he was loafing it in practice. His performance last season always looked like a guy who was actively trying to help his team but physically unable to do so.

At some point in Parsons’ injury journey, fans were sympathetic toward his plight. Apparently, for some fans, that sympathy had a shelf life.

When do injured players flip from characters we universally feel bad for to characters some write off as annoyances? How does the process of losing sympathy for someone suffering at the hands of fate work? Parsons’ salary certainly has something to do with it — no one would boo a minimum-contract player who lost his athleticism. (A minimum-contract player would have been cut a long time ago.) Perhaps Parsons’ public image — a playboy who dates models and actresses, someone who partied with Mark Cuban — mixed with his lack of production creates a toxic stew for some of the Memphis faithful. Of course, this is not exclusive to Memphis: fans everywhere have scorned injured stars. The logic is often as mysterious as it is here.

Hayward has universal sympathy right now, as he lies in a hospital bed waiting for a surgeon to fuse his bone and for a physical therapist to set him on a path back to stardom. What if the bone doesn’t heal just right and he struggles to get back next season? What if he’s a much lesser player after this injury, and his contract turns into an albatross for the contending Celtics? Will the fans cheer then, or will he get the Chandler Parsons treatment?

We can hope sympathy would survive, but if we’re being honest, we know it won’t. Not for everyone.