Haha same. My second favorite team in the NBA used to be whoever was playing Lakers on a given night. Now it's like, whatever....
All my hatred is reserved for GS now.
That being said.... Beat LA!!!!
I'm still pretty upset that the Lakers got bailed out by Danny Ainge before last season's trade deadline. When a
Celtics legend is gift wrapping the Lakers' playoff entry on a silver platter, you know that things are just always going to tilt in LA's favor. I
hate that. From the front office on down, it has rarely seemed like the Lakers needed to work even half as hard as other franchises in order to succeed.
I've got no love for the current iteration of the Warriors, but at least that's a franchise that had to build their dynasty from the ground up. Through a CBA wrinkle, they lucked into Kevin Durant for a short while, of course. But by and large, their success has pivoted on their ability to construct a winner around a core of Curry/Klay/Draymond. And after the sun sets on Stephen Curry's career, there's not going to be any lifeboat awaiting the Warriors. They're going to have to be smart, draft well, and work hard to rebuild.
But the Lakers? I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're able to find success even after Lebron retires. One superstar or another will want to sign there, and they'll find a way to create the cap space to get it done. Some GM will bail them out, the way they so often do.
This is all a long-winded way of saying... BEAT LA. I may not have animosity towards the Lakers the way I did 20 (!!) years ago, but I still hate that franchise and I will always delight in the schadenfreude when things don't go their way, especially since it's just so rare that things don't go the Lakers' way.