So How About Them Lakers?

My three favorite parts of the game (with video):

1. Kevin Garnett flies into the stands and Jack Nicholson is all, "Kill my son, just don't hurt me."
2. Announcer Jeff Van Gundy, who has been an incompetent boob the whole series, has a ChiMo moment and claims that Jennifer Garner's kid is so cute that he would "babysit for her tonight after the game."
3. Ron Artest ignores the reporter's post-game question and instead does an extended shout-out, thanking his "hood" and his psychiatrist.

None of those have to do with the game itself? I was hoping you wouldn't notice.

Look. I follow college basketball, but not the NBA. I like to say that the NBA is where good players go to die. Truthfully, that's where they go to get rich, but they're dead to me. The professional league is more about commercialism. Why do people who make millions of dollars need for me to cheer them on as they throw/kick a ball? It's just another medium for billion dollar corporations with questionable ethics to market themselves with. Sure, the college game has some of these elements, but to a lesser extent, so I find it purer.

So the Lakers. If I lived in a different home, I probably wouldn't care. However, my roommate is obsessed with the Lakers - he has more purple and yellow clothing than most males our age - so I ended up tuning into most of the games. My inclination was to root for the Celtics actually, because I'm an East Coaster with a tie to Boston sports, a former Ray Allen fan, and someone who grew up disliking the Lakers.

Nevertheless, I opted to root for the Lakers. Not gonna lie, this decision was fear motivated. If I cheered for the Celtics, I'm afraid I would become the victim of domestic abuse. That's kind of a joke. As emotional and vocal as my roommate is about the Lakers, I'm sure he wouldn't beat me senseless if I rooted the other way. At the same time, I wouldn't want to put that theory to the test.

Win or lose, however, Los Angeles was bound to face some violence of the non-domestic sort. This city is full of idiots; to say that that anyone "predicted" riots is silly since it was basically a given. I don't understand people who "celebrate" Los Angeles's team by destroying the city's property. Presumably, we're all Angelinos and we all should be happy for our team. But it's hard to do that when fellow fans are flipping our cars and setting fires around town. Heaven forbid anyone have the gall to defend their own property because the mob beats them unconscious, sending them to the hospital.

If commercialism is one thing that has turned me off of sports, the prevalent mob mentality is another. People get so worked up about a team, screaming as if any of it really matters. It's excusable when it's harmless fun, but then these same fans maintain this mob mentality when they leave the arena and they're hellbent on annihilation.

If you've got that kind of rage in you, at least attach it to a cause. I'm not in favor of destruction, but at least the LA race riots were a way of bringing attention to injustice. But for sports? If this is how it is going to be, Los Angeles doesn't deserve to have any winning teams. We're clearly not responsible enough.