Decide whether you want to back Michael Jordan or LeBron James as the GOAT, and then only accept information that supports your stance and ridicule anyone with a differing opinions.

*It's Jordan by the way

A channel like Thinking Basketball will help you ease into being a fan of the game itself at a higher level. It will make it more exciting to be a fan of any team, as you’ll be able to break down what’s happening. It is normally such a blur to the untrained eye, whereby you end up ball watching instead, while most of the game actually happens off ball.

I use https://www.basketball-reference.com/to look at stats. Really useful for comparing players/teams/eras etc.

Fantasy basketball is another good way to learn a little bit more about individual players and keeps you current on who is trending. Lots of sites have free leagues

I’d say start with picking a team and go from there. You don’t really need to watch old games and such; it’s not like a tv show haha, no need to catch up on previous seasons. But YouTube has everything to get you started!

I’d look up fun content like Kobe’s old Detail show or breakdowns like that if you’re interested in the actual game. 30 for 30 documentaries can really highlight some great history like you mentioned.

And of course, get yourself a ball and go out to hit some shots. Even just on your own. Nothing better than the personal connection to the game to appreciate what these guys are doing

1. Find a friend who loves basketball

2. Find out what team he or she supports

3. Become fan of the rival team

4. Done - you will endlessly trash talk with your friends and fall in love with basketball in no time

Pick a handful of teams just based on first impressions, which usually come from players that you like for their skill and/or personality. Watch a few games for each team when the season starts (or games from last season if you have access to them) and you should click with a team pretty quickly.

Consider paying for the NBA streaming service, it lets you watch as much basketball as you want. I think you can sign up by the month if you just want to use it to get up to speed and that'll give you access to all of last season's games as well as a bunch of much older ones.