The Basic Right to Hate
As the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Lakers, among others, have shown us, success breeds contempt. For the Yankees, it’s the idea that an owner can spend whatever he wants to win a championship while fans of small market teams are forced to live on a prayer. The Lakers more recently provided an example of the idea that a star’s personal behavior (Someone please direct Plaschke’s attention to the summer of 2003 for his Lakers argument) could turn an entire league’s fans against that franchise.
At some point Wade, James and Bosh had to have realized that the fans of the other 29 NBA teams were not going to like them very much for their decision to team up. After all, the greatest source of a sports fan’s hate is that it’s not his team winning. Heat fans will point out that fans of other teams would take James in a heartbeat. Of course we would, we’re not morons. But that’s hypothetical, and this is reality. In reality, we hate the Miami Heat because our teams didn’t do what they did.
And for most people that is the only reason they should ever need when someone asks why they hate. Other than “Because I do”, of course.
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“…which is unfortunate because it wasn’t, at least not to the intelligent mass that I’ve written this for.”
You don’t wanna end a sentence with a preposition
@BrahminU – Yeah, a preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
@BrahminU – Can we still end sentences with punctuation?
Sort of unrelated, but why the fuck did the Heat call a timeout with 18 seconds left when they were down by 12 points? Was it just to piss of Dallas?
*Standing Ovation*
Well said.
Don’t forget that Bosh pissed of Raptors fans with how poorly he handled his situation too.
@Thatsamare — Yeah, but they were too polite to say anything.
/hack
//hack hack hack
As a Clevelander I agree with everything you wrote. I didn’t care who won the title, as long as it wasn’t the Heat. In the East I found myself cheering for teams I’ve despised in the Celtics and Bulls. And in the West I wanted whoever matched up best against the Heat (I didn’t think it was the Mavs but at least they got it done).
Do I wish LeBron had stayed in Cleveland? Absolutely. But he left, and the way he did it has made me a spiteful man. I hate the Miami Heat, and that hate kept me interested in an NBA Playoffs my team had nothing to do with. So I agree that hate in sports can be a good thing.
@BrahminU:
Actually, that whole “don’t end a sentence with a preposition” thing is a rule made up by a guy in I think the seventeenth century in order to make English (a practically-uninflected Germanic language) more similar to Latin (a highly inflected Romance language.) These two languages are drastically different in terms of syntax and morphology, so it’s sort of a silly, quixotic rule, and one that doesn’t need to really be perpetuated any further. Unless you were making a joke and I missed it, in which case ha ha?
By Plaschke’s arbitrary logic, I must have also supported the Mavericks because, like Jason Kidd and Oliver Noble, I’m into broad smacking.
Just when basketball gets interesting again, we’re heading for a long and miserable lockout. Fuck me…
I never thought in the war of Douchebags vs Texas that I would root for Texas.
My father must be rolling over in his grave.
I think I hate Lebron the most of any pro athlete out there right now.
I am happy for all the leBron non-aficionados out there but, as a Mavs fan, I think most of our vitriole goes in the direction of Wade. Don’t get me wrong…the decision was B.S but, what happened in 06 just game me a lifetimes’ worth of hate for Wade.
I hate you for making me click through 6 different pages
@Later-era Dugout Convert
I will burn all your books in front of you