Laker loathing

Nobody, especially in these politically correct days, likes to be considered a preacher of hate -- unless of course the sermon is about the Lakers.

Take Steve Ouellette, a columnist for a small newspaper in upstate New York. He’s usually a level-headed, slow-to-anger type of guy who for instance wrote last week about the unpredictable local weather and its effect on recreational softball leagues. But late last month, as Shaq, Kobe and their purple-and-gold minions took aim at a possible fourth NBA championship in five years, he penned a piece that bore the headline: “Lakers Need Heavy Dose of Hate.”

“Hate the Lakers because Rick Fox spends more time getting his hair done and painting his wife’s toenails than he does working on his jump shot,” wrote Ouellette in the 25,000 circulation Press-Republican in Plattsburgh, N.Y. “Hate the Lakers because Jack Nicholson wears sunglasses inside. At night.”

In the same way pro football’s Dallas Cowboys once were, the Lakers are now America’s team, a loose designation that has earned them millions of out-of-town fans, top national television ratings and a bounty of merchandising profits. But L.A.’s celebrated glam squad has also taken fan resentment and bitterness to the next level, making them by many accounts the most despised pro sports team in the country today.

“They are the New York Yankees of basketball. A lot of people just hate them,” said Todd Boyd, a USC professor and author of “Young, Black, Rich and Famous: Rise of the NBA, the Hip Hop Invasion and the Transformation of American Culture.” “There’s this real sense of entitlement -- ‘We are the Lakers and we are going to take the title.’ ”

“To the rest of country, New York and L.A. represent a case of the rich getting richer,” continued Boyd. “We’re in their faces all the time, whether through the world of high finance or Hollywood, and now they have to put up with these teams too.”

Love them or hate them, fans feel compelled to watch. The first game of the finals between the Lakers and the Pistons on Sunday was the most-watched show of that week, beating out competitors like “CSI” and the season finale of “The Sopranos.” The viewership represented a 50% increase over last year’s NBA finals between the San Antonio Spurs and New Jersey Nets.

As the Shaq-Kobe dynasty battles the Detroit Pistons to capture another NBA crown -- a fight that’s not going well at the moment, with the Lakers trailing the underdog Pistons two games to one, and looking overwhelmed much of the time -- Internet chat rooms, websites, and sports TV and radio programs are crackling with derision and disrespect. To their many detractors, the Lakers are grossly overpaid, self-centered crybabies who through a combination of an overabundance of natural talent, poor officiating and last-minute luck (think Kobe’s game-tying three-pointer at the end of regulation in Game 2 against the Pistons) manage to triumph over more hard-working, deserving teams (for example, the San Antonio Spurs and the Minnesota Timberwolves, likable, admirable -- and losers to the Lakers during the playoffs; the tenacious, unheralded Pistons fit the bill as well).

To those with Laker flags proudly flapping from their SUVs in the smog-choked L.A. air, all this anti-Laker chatter would seem to smack of sour grapes. They’re right -- at least in part, says Lynn Kahle, a marketing professor at the University of Oregon who studies sports fan psychology.

“There’s no doubt other fans are jealous of the Lakers’ success,” said Kahle. “What fan wouldn’t be?”

Loaded with superstars

But it’s more than mere envy at work for the growing ranks of Laker haters of today. After all, the “Showtime” Lakers of the ‘80s, starring Magic and Kareem, and Michael Jordan’s Bulls of the ‘90s were as spectacular as and even more successful than today’s Lakers, but they were never as unpopular.

The anti-Laker camp explains that while hate may be an admittedly irrational state, there are plenty of coldly logical reasons to curse the hardwood floors the Lakers walk, run, sulk and loaf on. As much as anything, the Lakers’ roster seems to violate the tenets of the good, old-fashioned American sense of proportion and fair play.

Shaq and Kobe are arguably the two best players in the NBA. Four of the team’s starting five are locks for the Hall of Fame. “The Lakers get two superstars when other teams are struggling to get even one,” said Kahle. “And then they get [Karl] Malone and [Gary] Payton too? It might be shrewd, but come on, it just doesn’t seem very fair.”

And never has so much talent been so underutilized, say detractors, particularly this year. Throughout the regular season and the playoffs, the team regularly drops its focus and energy for no apparent reason other than they seemed bored with it all. As Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum said, this on-again, off-again routine means “you can never count the Lakers in.”

The American ideal for a hoops team perhaps was perhaps best encapsulated in the classic sports film “Hoosiers,” depicting a small-town team of wholesome farm boys who go on to win the Indiana state championship in the 1950s.

But when the nation, the majority of whom are shown Laker games in their local markets, don’t exactly tune into an aw-shucks bunch of scrappy cagers who play for the love of the game. They get Shaq and Kobe squabbling over whose team it is, while Jack, Denzel and Leo watch from $1,000-plus seats.

“They just don’t seem to care too much,” said Paul Angelli, 40, a media engineer from Framingham, Mass. “I’ve been on tour with musicians and they have to play 160 gigs in a year and they’re tired and worn out, but when they walk on stage, they do it because that’s what they love to do. But when you watch the Lakers, it seems like it’s more about being a star than playing basketball.”

The Lakers’ poll ratings aren’t helped by what the rest of the nation perceives as its fair-weather fans. Unlike fans in towns like Buffalo or Cleveland who endure horrible weather and crummy teams year-in and year-out and still cheer on the hometown team, Laker fans seem to get excited -- or show up -- only during the playoffs.

“Laker fans really aren’t seen as true basketball fans,” said Boyd. “They know personalities, but they don’t know the game. I think the rest of the country sees them as just riding the bandwagon.”

In its broadest context, Laker hatred is merely a further manifestation of another popular national sport: L.A. bashing. To many, the city symbolizes much of what is wrong in the world. Style over substance, obsession with celebrity and a generally morally corrupt value system -- Kobe’s legal troubles notwithstanding. Then, throw in a coach with a brand of Zen Buddhism few understand (not to mention his oft-mentioned, little-comprehended “triangle offense”) and you’ve got too much bling-bling -- whatever that means -- for Middle America.

“The Lakers are part and parcel of the Hollywood culture,” said McCallum, who covers the NBA and writes about the team with a combination of admiration and mockery (in a recent issue, he referred to Shaq as “The Big Bellyacher”). “Outside metropolitan L.A., you can’t overestimate how much other people hate that.”

That loathing was the inspiration for the website ihatela.com, founded by 46-year-old Jim Parks of Sacramento shortly after a Laker-King playoff series several years ago. The site, which receives about a million hits per year, is all about the hating of the Lakers and the Dodgers and is at its busiest time now, selling hundreds of its “Laker Hater” T-shirts.

“We’ve shipped our Laker Hater gear to every state in the country,” said Parks. “You’d be surprised how much of it goes to Southern California too.”

So if the Pistons slay the giants, what then?

“It’ll prove you just can’t turn it on and turn it off, that you have to be a team from November on,” said McCallum. “They’ll be rejoicing. America loves an underdog.”