In general our experience is built on layers And inputs. But if you are a lakers fan you should remain a lakers fan or at least be ready to explain and pander when you are seen the next day rapping some other team. It has been difficult to love the Lakers with the same 2000 or 2009 vigor. These teams came up fast but they had to come up from numb bottom.
Lebron will probably have the best pound for pound NBA Career when it is all said and done. His high school phenom story uplifted a community. We have seen him every step of the way breaking records for being the youngest and the oldest to do such things. With caveats, asterisks, and if ands or butts.
We spent our childhoods worshipping Kobe and seeing the highs and lows of his career play out and similarly watched his legacy build in purple and gold. He stuck through to some very difficult seasons. Showed us that you can have a second chance. Showed us about trust and reconciliation. His whole career was a Hollywood story every bit as compelling as Michael Jordan’s revitalization of the sport.
There stories seem to read like tall tales.
I loved the lakers. I remember the years on KCAL 9 watching NIck Van Exel get mad at Coach Del Harris the ensuing drama and the hiring of “The ZenMaster” Phil Jackson. I followed the Championships in the early 2000s, Kobe’s road to 81 and
I want to say that I was compelled for a reason. I can’t really just rep another team because for one, I can’t not really understand the backstories that I got to understand with the lakers. I see Lebron James playing for Cleveland, Miami, and back to Cleveland and its
It’s a bit dogmatic to just rep a team and I guess we have to accept some dogma and not think about it too critically. I really identify with California and Los Angeles Culture. I live in Downtown LA and I really think we have have a lot of culture smashed between the 5,10,101 and 110 freeways. I Identify as a Laker fan and Its such a narrative that has been woven in me to rep this team. Ball is life. I will never be ashamed to say that. Ball is life and that sport has kept me out of so much trouble yet saved me from me from obiesity and really my failure to live up to my basketball potential came at a time where I was beginning to understand that my adulthood was just around the corner. I really do not think that there would be any other way in which I would heed life lessons. Lakers Basketball oddly coincided with my basketball upbringing. I never made it to the parades in 2000- 2002 but I turned 21 in 2010 and It was around NBA finals time with the Boston Celtics where I bought some of my first drinks.
It’s really hard for me to just rep the clippers given I like the 2 way game of Paul George, who when not a bonehead, seems to have a feng shui to his game. Similarly I like the 2 way game of Kawhi Leonard, who when not injured, can guard anybody and can dunk on Anybody. His stoic demeanor and how the public tends to interpret it are incredible. NO REPPING THE CLIPPERS.
You must rep the lakers forever. It’s getting hard now. Not one of the lakers that have even played during Kobe’s last game still plays with the lakers. Leaving Loul Deng at a safe distance from this article, the longest tenured Laker is KCP and that was just 4 years ago. Preceding that we watched Kobe dazzle for 20 seasons. It is no wonder you are feeling how I am feeling.
We must give Lebron his flowers somehow. We must support the leader of the franchise in similar way that we support the president of This country. You should hope for success insofar as the success affects your team. As long as Lebron is shooting three’s in a Laker Uniform I should hope they go in.
All in all I hope I have presented some use cases as to why I am not as hardcore a laker fan. I understand that it is compelling to rep a team that started before you were born, rep throughout your life, and pass the baton but the team is either not its players or it is much more than its players. The belief in good teamwork is the groundwork for human cooperation thus the only thing compatible with the continuation of the species. I look to team sports and great restaurants as democratic tools
But Can an individual player be bigger than the franchise ala Jordan, ala Kobe, ala Lebron But in 3 different jursdictions? Can he win Championships on different teams and be able to take show how complete his game is. I think really what makes you the goat is getting the DPOY award. This is controversial, but its mention is really what stops any argument about Kobe Surpassing Michael. We feel Kobe’s legacy needs to be protected but it’s like why? We always will keep Kobe in our hearts and it will be tough for any other player to match what Kobe meant to his fans. We saw his career and throughout we felt his spirit, from its very heights to its pits and throughout it all nobody ever really saw him in a Bulls Jersey. My love for the Lakers meets the Sunk Cost Fallacy Criteria.
