Why I Can't Root For the Lakers

this is a first, a guest post on lamar blogom. not talking about pmac's little chris bosh is a dinosaur comparison, although that was apt. this is a true blue honest to god guest post by Dennis Danziger, english teacher at palisades charter high school and publisher-editor of mad as hell club, which can be found online at www.madashellclub.net .

Here's the deal, not about Lamar in particular, but about the Lakers and the Laker fans and why I can't root for them even though I've lived here for 25 years and love bball.

Laker fans seem to care more about who's sitting courtside that who's playing on the court.

In moved here in the early 80s, I attended my first NBA Championship Game. Lakers vs. Sixers at the Forum. Kareem vs. Dr. J. Does it get any better than that?

I'm sitting about 20 rows behind the Laker bench, the game's on and I can't help but notice that lots of people, not two or three, but dozens are focused anywhere but on the court. They're looking left, looking right, not to see who's setting picks, but who's in the stands.

Then the buzz, "Where's Jack?" Oops. Jack wasn't in his seat, no where to be found, and people were actually concerned about that than they were that the Lakers were behind.

That's the moment I realized I could never root for the Lakers. The Clippers, sure, the Lakers never.

Eventually Jack settled into his courtside seat and the people around me relaxed and watched the game, when they weren't oogling and gossiping about Jack or Diane Cannon or the stars du'jour who had courtside or near courtside seats.

The other moment that solidified by anti-Laker feeling was a few years back. I remember when the Lakers had won back-to-back championships it seemed as if every third car was proudly waving a Laker flag. But the moment they lost, the car flags came down. Never to be seen again.

This sort of fan behavior would never happen in a real city like NYC, Boston, Chicago or DC.