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

The Los Angeles Lakers for the first time in history actually will embark in a real rivalry with the Los Angeles Clippers. The question is, should the Lakers fans be worried? Lake Show Life shows interesting behaviors that lead some to think so!

The Los Angeles Lakers start the NBA season this week in their quest to make a run at the NBA Finals and possibly a championship. With the addition of Anthony Davis and the complete reconstruction of the roster to serve LeBron James‘ “strengths”, excitement in Laker Nation is at its highest since the turn of the decade.

The excitement transcends Los Angeles to the rest of the NBA as the era of the “Dynamic Duo” is rampant throughout the league replacing the “Superteam” tenure.

But even with all of the stars moving around the league, most eyes will be focused on the Staples Center, where four of the top ten players of the league reside.

Los Angeles might have replaced New York for the time being as the “Mecca” of basketball. The city of New York may still be a Knicks town, but the combination of futility, along with comments from Kevin Durant on Hot 97, New York doesn’t have the potential rivalry Los Angeles has.

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The two LA teams, the Lakers and Clippers, had no problems getting superstars to play with their franchises. The Lakers got what they wanted grabbing Anthony Davis (The second time around!) to join LeBron James on the Lakers via trade. The Clippers, on the other hand, provided the biggest shock of the free agency landing Kawhi Leonard and Paul George like a thief in the night.

With oddsmakers in Las Vegas picking the Clippers to win the NBA title and the Lakers return from playoff exile thanks to LeBron James’ “Revenge Season”,  Los Angeles basketball is in the unprecedented territory of being the most exciting basketball area in the world.

With the storylines between the four superstars, the city’s two teams could form one of the NBA’s most heated rivalries. Something Danny Green doesn’t believe yet according to an interview he had with Wosney Lambre of The Athletic.

"Lambre: Do you see the LA Clippers as rivals? Seeing as you share a city, a building, and you’re both chasing a championship this season. Green: No. We’re not worried about anybody but us. We feel like we have what we need (for a championship) and if we do things the right way like we’re supposed to, we feel like the only team that can beat us is us. So we just need to stay healthy and do things the right way. But they obviously have a good team, as well as some other teams in the west. We’re definitely not sleeping on anybody. But were just worried about reaching our full potential. If we reach our full potential and don’t win, we can live with that. We can’t let small things like rivalries distract us from our goal of being the last ones standing."

Let’s take a deep tissue massage into this statement from Danny Green. What was stated is what most NBA players, coaches and executives say to avoid putting up bulletin board material going into the season on opening night.

But Green is wrong on so many levels. The Lakers fanbase will throw out two numbers every time these teams take the hardwood this season to play each other or debate which LA team is better.

The numbers are 16 (The number of championship trophies the Lakers have) and zero (The number of trophies the Clippers have). History teaches us that overall, the Lakers own the Clippers.

But, has the pendulum swung the other way? For the last 30 years, the Lakers wouldn’t even bat an eye about a threat from across the hall, even in the “Lob City” days. Now, there are full-on debates in social media that actually gets nasty. The more interesting question is, is Laker Nation actually worried?

Should Laker Nation be worried? Strangely, the good fortunes that all belonged to the Lakers in the past have been spread out more evenly between the two franchises. In the old days, the Lakers delivered on all of the superstars. The Clippers, well, was a temporary stop for players to get to the next franchise.

In anticipation of the biggest game on opening night, the Lakers playing the Clippers in Staples Center, Lake Show Life looks at the potential paranoia of the fans of the Lake Show.

Let’s take a look at the two players the Los Angeles Lakers missed out on and the Clippers landed.

The Los Angeles Lakers thought Paul George was in the bag! They couldn’t even get a meeting. 

Two teams can’t have a rivalry without talent. Furthermore, it can’t be exciting without a fascinating backstory. The Clippers couldn’t be considered a threat to the Lakers if they didn’t land the superstars to even up the playing field.

Over the last two seasons, the Lakers made a concerted effort to land Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. They made it clear to both players that they were wanted and cleared a ton of cap space for their potential arrival.

Both players, in their own way, snubbed the Lakers and joined the Clippers. One player (Kawhi Leonard) quietly handled his business that kept everyone guessing. The other player (Paul George) just confused everybody.

Remember when it was a foregone conclusion from media members that these two were going to be in the purple and gold?

First Sam Amick of the USA Today.

"“Rival executives will argue that his value is depressed because of the alive-and-well rumor he is headed for the Lakers, knowing full well that the Thunder don’t want to lose a superstar for the second time in three summers after Kevin Durant. The lack of leverage, if nothing else,could compel the Thunder to see this through until the summertime.”"

After a Thunder trade that seemed like a huge gamble to many, paid off handsomely, at the time.

The drama ensued when George refused to even carry a conversation with then head of basketball operations, Magic Johnson.

Then Paul George added fuel to the fire saying that the Lakers were “pissed” on Chris Pfaff’s Short Story Long podcast.

"“L.A. was pissed at me,” he said. “I didn’t give Magic Johnson a meeting which I understand. But at that point, I knew I wanted to give it another shot. I didn’t want to prolong it and waste people’s time.”"

Now that he’s with the Clippers. Now, this.

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Rivalries can’t happen without quotes like these. For some reason, they seem to fire up Lakers fans on social media. Instead of looking at past history, they post nasty tweets without remembering George’s recent playoff performances.

What about George’s success as a superstar in the playoffs? No, not just last year when Damian Lillard waved bye-bye to the Thunder organization and its vision.

How about that elimination game versus Utah the year before? Does anybody forget about the LeBron-led Miami Heat giving him the blues?

Paul George was happy being Robin to Russell Westbrook‘s Batman in OKC, but will he stay happy with the same role to Kawhi Leonard for the Clippers?

Speaking of Kawhi Leonard. Let’s talk about how his drama played out. Let’s just say he handles his business a little bit quieter than George.

Los Angeles Lakers fans may blame Magic Johnson for not getting Kawhi Leonard. Maybe they were just getting bad intel and ran with it.

When things don’t go right in Laker Nation, somebody has to take the blame for it. In this case, Magic Johnson got most of the fingers pointed at him for the reported dysfunction that was going on in the front office.

When Paul George sent out mixed messages that span from which team he loved growing up, he opened himself up for the criticism of Lakers fans.

First. he can do an ESPN documentary saying he can envision being in a Lakers uniform as a kid, then turn around and say he was a Clippers fan growing up. That’s all well and good, but then the message gets murkier when he says he’s a Kobe fan. Good luck selling that to NBA fans.

Kawhi Leonard does not have this problem. He stated the one thing he wanted since he wanted out of San Antonio. He wanted to go home to Los Angeles. That’s it.

Maybe the mixed message was relayed by Fox Sports’ NBA analyst, Chris Broussard.

Nothing against Broussard and his work, but he basically gassed up the Lakers faithful (Check out Shannon Sharpe and his hopeful co-signing) with his daily reports from his sources and percentages of the Lakers landing Kawhi Leonard.

Man, it went on for months. While Kawhi Leonard was in the playoffs stating he would make his decision after the season, Chris Broussard persisted that he was going to be a Laker.

At that time, no one knew where Leonard was going. Why? Because Kawhi’s camp has absolutely no leaks. But when it got down to the longest week in recent NBA free agent history while the decision was still not reported, Chris Broussard had his theories and shared them on air.

After Leonard shocked the NBA world with the decision to play for the Clippers. Check out the Michael Jackson like moonwalk the Monday after.

Lake Show Life had no more of a clue of Kawhi Leonard’s intentions than anyone else, but we did know that as long as Jerry West was a member of the Clippers organization, they always had a chance. It is known as the “Jerry West” effect.

Now that the Clippers have two stars in the fold with George and Leonard, players that were coveted by the Lakers, it now seems that the snubbing touched a nerve with the Lakers fans.  Let’s take a look at how Lakers fans showed their feelings at times over the summer.

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.

It seems that many believe that the Clippers will be the NBA champs when it’s all said and done and not the Lakers.

In the offseason when the NBA needs to keep the news cycle moving until opening night, a poll is sent out to NBA general managers asking specific questions. Then the data is released for the NBA fans for debate.

Guess who the GMs think will win the title this year? It’s not the Los Angeles Lakers.

Based on what was seen from the Clippers last year and the additions of Leonard and George, NBA general managers signed off on the Los Angeles Clippers in their yearly survey, courtesy of NBA.com. 

The Clippers received 46 percent of the vote while the Milwaukee Bucks finished second with 36 percent of the vote. The Los Angeles Lakers followed up third with 11 percent. Just like  LeBron James said this summer, the winner of this NBA free agency is the Staples Center.

The GMs weren’t done showering the Clippers with praise.

The Clippers won the title of the best offseason in the NBA, according to 82 percent of GMs. Kawhi Leonard was hailed the best free-agent addition collecting 67 percent of the vote. Anthony Davis was second, Paul George was third.

Then there are the analysts that tend to agree that a team that was only an 8th seed, taking the Golden State Warriors (With Kevin Durant!) to six games in the first round, will get over the hump with the influx of talent in the offseason.

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In the end, does any of this mean anything? No. But they provide a good look into the opinion-based, speculative business the NBA has become. Social media platforms are full up with some of the brightest basketball minds combined with people who want to just get in the conversation and sound intelligent.

In short, this article along with many others gives fans something to argue about as they eagerly wait for the NBA regular season to begin on Tuesday, October 22nd. The comment section is below. Invitation for Clippers and Lakers fans to start early for the next 48 hours.

With the season just days away, the Lake Show Life will take any distraction we can get as long as it makes the days go by faster.

No matter what GMs, fans or analysts think, the Lakers and Clippers are expected to be two of the best teams in Western Conference and they share a stadium. That alone is enough for a rivalry.

The Los Angeles Clippers play the Lakers to start off one of the biggest storylines in this upcoming NBA season. Lake Show Life will effort some of the most in-depth coverage breaking down this and every game this season with post-game analysis.

The Los Angeles Lakers have started their championship journey. Lake Show Life will along for the wild ride giving you the most in-depth complete analysis and coverage. Keep it locked with us.