Just Because You Like A Team, Doesn’t Mean The Other Is Garbage

It’s hard to believe this even needs to be said, it’s truth so seemingly self-evident: just because you happen to support a basketball team, doesn’t mean the other team are garbage. Doesn’t mean they’re cruel, or vicious, or playing the game wrong. Doesn’t make them bad human beings. 

It just means you don’t dig that other team. And that’s fine.

But if you’ve spend any time on the Internet in the past hour, you’ve no doubt heard heartfelt, pseudo-objective claims that the Celtics are degenerate assholes hellbent on the destruction of the game of basketball: 

The Celtics are garbage, truly. I’m not saying they’re not a good team, because they are, but their players are absolute trash. Watch them on the court and see what I mean; watch their antics and tell me that it doesn’t make you wanna wring their collective neck, especially as a Laker fan. A big reason why I hate the Celtics is because the whole team walks around like they’re individual hairs on God’s ass.

KG is rude. Rondo doesn’t smile enough. Nate Robinson is an uppity little dickhead. Big Baby is screaming, and having a good time, and that’s unacceptable. 

It’s all a bunch of rubbish. And I say that as a Lakers fan. 

You think the Lakers are likeable guys? C’mon, now.

Vujacic is the model for ‘guys you hate, unless they’re on your team.’ Gasol heaves like an angry horse, and whines like a hungry cat. Kobe has an on-court manner that — to put it mildly — rubs some folk the wrong way. 

And Farmar… well, there’s nothing right about that guy.

But that’s all part of the reason we love the NBA. Not basketball, as a sport, but the best sports league there is, full of oversized egos and self-obsessed maniacs and grown men screaming like banshees. 

Revel in it. Lap it up. The fact that the Celtics roster teems with villains should be applauded, not indicted. 

When Big Baby spins to the hoop, drops it in, and licks his lips like a sexually perverted Hannibel Lecter, get angry, call him out… but don’t act as if he’s a bad guy. He’s putting on a show for you. He is the heel to your Hulk Hogan Lakers. 

Hate the Celtics all you want. That’s the point of a rivalry; one team’s fans hate the other team’s fans. But don’t cast cheap aspersions on their collective character. Don’t act like them being demure and mature and kind-hearted would somehow improve the game. 

One of the worst officiating trends we’ve seen since the Malice at the Palace has been the itchy trigger-finger on referees, who are all too willing to tech a man for being frustrated or furious. It robs the game of its liveliness, its human emotion. Its character. 

Don’t make the same mistake that the referees so often do. Showboating, fury, and emotion shouldn’t be curtailed or criticised. They should be celebrated. They’re a big part of why we love this game.

Three Bs.