What Laker fan denies those advantages?
NY, LA, Chicago are always going to have those advantages as big markets. Boston too to some extent.
The Lakers have the added advantage of being an attractive destination -- well run, historic, glamorous, etc. Helped bring Shaq no doubt. Probably Malone and Payton, too, though that didn't end well.
Where your whine runs dry is in overlooking that much of this advantage has been mitigated by the new CBA. Superstars don't change teams via FA much anymore. It has been a long time since a superstar signed with LA because of the reasons you gave.
The NBA, like life, is not entirely fair. It will never be. I think the league has a duty to make compe ion as level a playing field as possible, but it can't make LA mid-market or unglamorous. It can't make NY obscure or a boring place to live. Why fans of SA and other small- and mid-market teams don't just appreciate overcoming that obstacle and enjoying it rather than whining about it doesn't quite add up to me.
I say this as a fan of the Minnesota Twins. Mid-market, the Yankees have innumerable advantages over them. Ain't fair and throw in a CBA that doesn't protect compe ion like the NBA does and it's almost comical. Just makes me appreciate 1987 and 1991 all the more.
Plenty. Most of you act as if the Lakers are what they are based on the fact that they're just better and smarter than everyone else, like everything they've done is their doing and not largely based on myriad other factors.
Where your whine runs dry is the Gasol "trade". Maybe superstars don't change teams via free agency much anymore, but they do via trade and they've also been known to attempt to control where they end up in the draft, such as a certain arrogant puke some fourteen years ago. I know it's been a long time since a superstar signed with the Lakers because of the reasons I gave, which is why I said "if you want to go back far enough".
It's one thing to overcome that obstacle when the playing field is relatively even, but when they have a front line that's like men against boys compared to almost every other team, the margin for error is almost zilch. And on top of that front line, they also happen to have a top two-three players in the league on the perimeter. It would be one thing if they cultivated that front line legitimately, but in the case of one of them, the best one of the three, they didn't. Everyone knows it and it's completely altered the landscape of the league since.
Had this happened for an obscure small market franchise, I don't think anyone would suspect any wrongdoing, but the Lakers? Conveniently it happened the following season after the previous summer that diva (who happens to be one of the two biggest stars in the league, so obviously they didn't want him leaving their precious Lakers) whined for more help or else he wanted to be traded. Come on, it was all too convenient and to anyone without bias and with a brain, highly su ious.
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