Laker fan asking legit question

Oui.

Da.

Ja.

Yep-a-doozers.

You betcha, bunky.

Absotively.

Posolutely.

Uh-huh.

Aye-aye, captain.

Affirmative.

Roger.

Certainly.

Definitely.

Without question.

Yes.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Think about it. You hate Isaiah because you had a good team, and he beat you. You hate the Jazz because you had a good team, and they beat you. You hate the Celtics because they beat your team in the Finals in recent history. (I’m going out on a limb and guessing your dislike for the C’s is not because of Magic/Bird from back in the day.)

So, yes, we hate the Lakers, because in 2001-2002 we had a very good team – statistically speaking the best team in the league that year – and the Lakers beat us. Yes, there was high drama. It probably is the most exciting postseason series that I have ever watched, in any sport. But the fact remains that all you remember from that series is the sweetness of victory, and all we remember is the bitterness of defeat.

Sure, there are other reasons. We resent the air of entitlement and superiority exuded by may of the Lakers and their fans. We feel that we are far more passionate about our one team than Laker fans are. And if we’re really, really honest with ourselves, we resent the ‘hicktown’ label so often misapplied to Sacramento, most often by our fellow Californians from the south.

But when it all coes down to it – we hate the Lakers because they beat our team. We bleed royal purple, and that defeat spilled a lot of purple blood in the streets of Sacramento.

We will never forget.

We hate the Lakers. We hate Kobe. We hate Phil. We hate your annoying bandwagon fans. We hate the look, sound and feel of your arena. We hate that you get star calls from the refs that cost us games. We hate that Pau Gasol was gifted to you. We hate that you call the color you wear purple, because we wear purple, and while ours is regal and majestic, yours gives the color purple a bad name.

We hate Laker fans who come onto our blog and gloat after the refs put a bow on a game and put it under the tree for you. We relished the day that Derek Fisher wept because they didn’t make the playoffs. We found unmitigated satisfaction in seeing Kenny Smith show Kobe in a fishing hat.

There is nothing good I can say about the Lakers except that someday Kobe will retire and you guys will be mediocre one year until the league fixes the lottery and gives you a #1 pick for all of your suffering.

Hate is not a strong enough word. Try detest. Abhor. Wish a pox on. Vomit at the very mention of.

Any of those will do.

F#ck Kobe Bryant.
F#ck Shaquille O’Neal
F#ck Phil Jackson
F#ck Rick Fox (twice)
F#ck Sasha Vujacic
F#ck Robert Horry
F#ck Derek Fisher
F#ck Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney and Ted Bernhardt – I’m still waiting for them to have their jerseys retired at Staples.
F#ck Every Laker fan who comes to Arco Arena, wears his hat sideways and stands up and cheers with his arms out and his back to the floor whenever Kobe scores a basket.
Oh, and F#ck Jack Nicholson, Dyan Cannon, and that silver haired douchebag wearing the snakeskin boots.

Who’d I miss?

Bitterness is different than sour grapes
The Lakers are the champions and have the best player on the planet on their team. The winningest coach. One of the League’s top payrolls. It is natural to dislike them. Like the New York Yankees. The Dallas Cowboys. They give frontrunners the bad name they have earned. The Lakers have had more than their share of luck and it has been tainted with signs of favoritism too difficult to ignore.

The Lakers are the major attraction in the second largest US City with no NFL team to compete and a flaccid MLB (and NHL) franchise around so the every move of the team is chronicled and regaled like folk lore to the masses. The fans of the Lakers are obnoxious and the team has shown the propensity to be both poor losers (see Xmas day massacre this year) and poor winners (see the downtown LA June 2008, 2003, 2002,2001), Shaq’s bad mouthing the Kings, Phil Jackson’s bad mouthing the Kings.

If you listen to sports talk radio in LA you have heard the callers whine about every lose and every win less than 20 points, like they deserve to win every game and win by a lot. They have that awful "look at me" attitude and dress it up with smirks and sneers. The Laker fans portray a love that is as superficial as a Hollywood starlet smile on a TV advertisement (or DNC) and moan their pleasure with all of the sincerity of a porn star "orgasm". The Lakers fans seem not to understand the game of basketball – their allegience is to the event and the show not to the contest and the play. Laker fans go the game to have their pictures taken and to text their comrades. Yes, they are obnoxious.

To be fair, star treatment is hard to swallow when you are on the wrong end of the whistle. When your team wins a game but they only have highlights of the Lakers and how they lost the game. It is about respect. You get what you give, and the Lakers players and fans act like cads. We NBA fans all enjoyed the clutch play of Jerry West, the magic of Magic, and wonder of ShowTime. Somewhere along the line, with Shaq and Kobe an air of petulence crept in. I think it was fertilized by Phil who perfected the gloat (much like Red Auerbach and his "in your face" cigar). The Lakers relish this disrespect and yet seem surprised by the angry response it illicts and ESPN promotes.You can’t have it both ways. That is called bitterness. And the Lakers deserve every bit of it.

Shockingly, no. There are seemingly endless things that I hate about the Lakers, including several players and most fans, often for the same reason.

As many of you know, I have lived in SoCal (OC to be more accurate) for about 6 years now. Most of my best friends down here are Laker fans, and I probably watch at least 20 games per season. The problem with the Lakers is all of the things they have come to embody and to a point symbolize.

Before I begin my rant, let me be fair and talk about all the things Laker I dont have a problem with:
I love Magic. I loved his game as a child, I love the courage and bravery in which he has handled living with HIV, and I am amazed with his loyalty to the community he grew up in.
I have no bad words for Shaq. I know I am in the great minority here, but he was one of my ATF players in college, and watching him destroy everyone while at Orlando was amazing. He is probably the most amazing physical specimen I have even seen; the footwork that he had early in his career was amazing.
I also have a TON a respect for Phil. Does he drive me nuts, HELL YES. Does his ability to manipulate referees and even more so the league bother me, of course. But he is a coach, and his job is to help his team win, period. And he is a damn good coach. He can be disliked for many reasons, but he is a top 5 all time coach.
Derek Fisher. The man left guaranteed money in order to make sure his daughter could get the cancer treatment she needed. Lest we not forget, when he walked away from the Jazz, for less money to sign with the Lakers, the Jazz were not only a better team, but they had a much brighter future. Does Fisher flop, like a cheap hooker. But so did Vlade, so we’re cool. He’s just a stand up guy that has his priorities in check. I have no beef with you Derek.

Now, the rest of the story.

Magic’s Lakers have nothing in common with the current team beyond the names on their jerseys. Magic’s Lakers played hard, but never acted with a sense of entitlement. Magic didnt deserve to win, he wanted to win. That is my number one problem with the Lakers, and even more so with Laker fans. They feel entitled to win close games, they are entitled to getting the right calls, they are entitled to be champions. It is not enough to have one of the best players in the NBA, he MUST be MVP. The fans MUST chant MVP at every opportunity.

The problem borders on being an epidemic. Not only do Laker fans feel entitled to championships, but so do the players. Does any team argue more foul calls? Do the role players on any other teams act so garishly (cough, Sasha, cough). Put these players on any other team, and their worth will not change, but their attitude sure will.

As I hinted above, I have many friends that are Laker fans. One fan in particular, I will call him MM, is a true Laker fan. But beyond that, he is a fan of basketball. He grew up in LA, went to college in LA, and now lives in OC. Is he a Laker fan, to say the least. His number one complaint about the team, is the fans. And its not one of those, “yah some of our fans are obnoxious” things. It drives him crazy. He feels like the casual Laker fan is so bad for the teams reputation, that he wishes they werent fans at all. The car flags, the constant bandwagoning, those annoying M-V-P chants and the blind refusal to admit when a call unfairly goes their way all contribute to the problem. I’ll quickly admit when a call goes our way, or when we get away with a travel, why do Laker fans have such a hard time.

People always want examples to prove a point, so here is my most recent one.

I had dinner with one of my best friends Sunday night. While being a great friend, he is a bad Laker fan. I probably watch 5 or more Lakers games a year with him, but we never discuss basketball. Why? Because there is no point. My wife is always surprised we dont talk basketball, since we are both such big fans. I explained to her that to her that it would be like arguing with a 16 year old about music. I may argue Pearl Jam to be far superior to N’SYNC (sp?), but they would argue the other way. They would talk about album sales, and grammy awards, while I would try to argue based upon quality. There just isnt a way to convince one side the other is right.
Back to my story, so at dinner Sunday night, the previous Kings @ Lakers game came up. My friend began to talk about how great Kobe’s shot (and Kobe in gerenal) was, to which I couldn’t argue. However, the part that stuck out, was when he said, “the best part is when your little PG got jeeked and then flopped to try and draw a foul.” I hadnt even brought up the push-off, but he felt so sure that not only was their no push off, but that Sergio had tried to flop that he wanted to talk about it. Did I jump in an argue, tell him he was being crazy? No, I didnt. Its not worth my time. Remember, N’SYNC sold more records.

Is some of the league, and nation, wide hated of the Lakers unfair. Maybe, but I will argue most is not. The Lakers have had SO MUCH handed to them. The egregious calls of 2002, Gasol being given to them few years ago, and Kobe getting every “star” call night in and night out. Is it the Lakers (and their fans) fault that their team gets those calls, of course not. But the current culture within and around the organization acts as if those calls and breaks are deserved.

In closing; I dislike and dont respect most Laker fans. I cheer against and openly disdai a few current Laker players. But the only thing about the Lakers I ahte, is their sense of entitlement.

I love the Kings. I love how hard we have to work to get better. I love how the town rallies around its palyers. I love how much we all love the players in our past; Webber, Vlade, Christie, Peja, Bibby, White Chocolate, Pollard, Mitch Richmond. I love that when our retired or traded players come back to town, we welcome them, and show them respect. We have no players that came only to win a championship and left or retired. We have players that came and fought with us to become better. We did not stand and cheer for our team, would stood and cheered with our team. We may not have all the Grammy’s, but 10 was one fucking good album.

The one beautiful thing about our otherwise tragic history with the Lakers is knowing that when we finally do get to the top, when we are Champions, we will have something that the Lakers and their fans can never have. Sure, they have many Championships, but they have never, will never, can never have what a Championship will mean for our franchise, for our city, and for Kings fans around the world. Even the "good" Laker fans, the old-timers, the ones who hate Vujacic, make no apologies for Kobe, and are embarrassed by other Laker fans, could never comprehend our joy, just as they could never comprehend our hatred.

The day we are Champions, there will be no riots in the streets of Sacramento. You’re more likely to see complete strangers hugging than cars being overturned. There will be a new world record for the number of grown men crying at one time. It will be a total, all-consuming supernova of emotion; of joy, of relief, of vindication, of validation. It will be a Disney movie come true. And when the victory parade rolls down Capital Mall, the cheers will shake the city.

We may never have as many trophies as the Lakers, but they can never have our journey. They weren’t built the way we were built, the team and the city. The Lakers winning a Championship is like the President’s son becoming President; pre-destined, planned, expected, fixed. The Kings winning a Championship is like a foster child becoming President. A blind foster child. With one arm. And a drinking problem. The cities fit the analogy as well; L.A. the privileged, Sacramento troubled, frustrated, and forever fighting. Our "sweet" will be that much sweeter for our "sour".

I’ll never forget how it felt the day we lost Game 7. The air was thick with it. It wasn’t bitterness, or anger. It was pure, straight sadness. It was borderline horror. We were victims- of the refs, of the Lakers, and of ourselves- but we weren’t wrathful, we were wounded, the players and the fans. The Lakers and their fans could never relate to that, which is the source of much of our "hatred". But take heart, Kings fans. They can never, ever touch the joy of our redemption.