Los Angeles Lakers: Should Laker Nation be worried about the Clippers?

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George spend downtime at sporting events and that turned into an event within itself.

There is a list of cities that Kawhi Leonard will be booed in. Those cities are.

Philadelphia:

Why? It’s Philadelphia. They boo everybody. They booed Santa Claus. They treated hip hop artist, Ja Rule worse than the Milwaukee Bucks crowd last year. Oh, but they did cheer Michael Irvin’s career-ending neck injury.

The reminder on Kawhi Leonard ending the Sixers season with the most ridiculous series ending shot in NBA history (Sorry Dame Lillard!) will have them salty.

Toronto Raptors:

Like he left. The Raptors championship hopes left with him. Next.

San Antonio:

Read the same statement above. But it may not be as loud with Michelle Beadle any longer handling ESPN’s NBA studio show anymore. But if there are still Gregg Popovich purists in the audience, boos will still be there.

But in his hometown of Los Angeles? Yep. Here’s where the rivalry starts in earnest right here. In the old days,

I’m sure Michael Olowokandi, Keith Closs, Eric Piatkowski or Pooh Richardson would incite such a response. Why? Because back in those days the Clippers stunk and it did not matter. Now it does.

Kawhi Leonard can’t even take his family out to a football game without getting booed. To be clear here, social media can make things worse than it really is. It would be hard to believe that 68,000 people in the stadium are Lakers fans showering Leonard with boos. But it does bring out storylines and narratives.

Plus it seems that Kawhi wasn’t the only Clippers player to get a rude welcome at a Los Angeles sporting event that weekend. On a Saturday night at a Bellator MMA event at The Forum in Inglewood, Paul George was reportedly booed as well.

That’s a great point. Clippers owner, Steve Ballmer is going full speed ahead on a state of the art arena in Inglewood. The time frame will depend on the constant lawsuits that are going on between Ballmer, the city council and the Madison Square Garden group led by James Dolan.

What does the booing of these two show?  The Clippers will have to win a title this year in order to START being half as popular as the Lakers in Los Angeles. Let’s ignore the well documented Donald Sterling problems and focus on a franchise that has never been to a conference final. This includes stops in San Diego and in Buffalo, when they were known as the Braves.

But if George or Leonard had signed with the Lakers in either summer, the receptions would have been standing ovations. Instead, the Lakers fans show reminders that their team was snubbed.