If the number one rule in fantasy football is "don't draft a kicker early," then number two is "nobody cares about your fantasy team."
I find that to be a bit harsh, but either way, indulge me for a second as I briefly share how my seasons went:
League 1: Absolutely loaded team goes 13-1 in the regular season. My long-awaited title hopes fizzle in the playoffs as I not only score 50 points below my average, I also lose the "bronze medal" game the next week.
League 2: Not as dominant, but still the top seed after a 10-3 season. Again, 0-2 in the playoffs.
League 3: In my oldest league, the days of back-to-back titles are a distant memory after a fourth straight year lost to brutal bad luck, this year to schedule. Despite having the 4th best team by a couple measures, I finish near the bottom.
As I watched promising seasons circle down the drain, I consoled myself, as I usually do when things don't go my way in life, with the simple question: "What could I have done different?"
Beyond the extremely obvious (like "drafted Patrick Mahomes"), digging into the numbers showed me I couldn't do much except hope to finally be the one who gets the lucky breaks next time around.
At some point during this reflecting, it hit me that this...forced patience, shall we call it, felt familiar to the experience of being a Rafael Nadal fan, one that I hadn't really been able to describe before, and maybe not even cognizant of.
If Roger Federer fans have gotten to enjoy the career of "the golden boy," the favorite son of the tennis community, and #NoleFam have embraced Novak Djokovic's tenacity in the role of "the outsider" or "the party crasher" with their spreadsheets at the ready, then the spot Nadal fans know is the feeling of the chase.
What makes that chase particularly ever-present is the combination of the Slam count and Nadal's injuries, getting close enough to sniff it, then receding, usually through no fault of his own.
Coming off the second longest layoff of his career, the cycle has come full circle yet again at the start of a season, three Slams behind Federer, close but not yet in striking distance, and eliciting vague platitudes from countless pundits like "Nadal's health is a question mark this fortnight."
And Melbourne has been the site of his unluckiest breaks, enduring some sort of physical problem most years since winning the 2009 title in legendary fashion, with some half-joking he sold all future fortune in Australia to secure that single title.
Like my fantasy seasons, I think all most Nadal fans want (as well as Rafa himself) is not so much the titles themselves, but the opportunity to go for a true run at the record again, the chance to write the ending to his own story, whenever that end may be.
That sounds like a first-world problem given the career-altering surgeries for Juan Martin del Potro, or the impending retirement of Andy Murray, but those players, as great as they are, did not have the limitless ceiling on their careers like Nadal (or Federer, or Djokovic), the uncapped imagination on what they can achieve.
It's often been said that Nadal isn't the best #1, but he is the best #2 there's ever been. Agree with that sentiment or not, it is the position, both figuratively and literally, from which he's played much of his career and finds himself in today, considered a clear tier below Djokovic at this moment without a ton of evidence as to why, other than missed time.
So here's hoping that win or lose, the Tennis Gods merely allow Rafa a reprieve from his bad luck, and the freedom to truly have his own say regarding these macro-level questions over the next two weeks in Rod Laver Arena.