My wife and I moved to Portland from Los Angeles in the summer of 2008. Sure, it rains a bit, it’s hard to maintain a tan as well as find high-quality Mexican food, but the quality of life here in PDX is excellent.
Unless you acknowledge that you are a Lakers fan.
There is no team that chaps Rip City’s hide more than the Los Angeles Lakers. My interaction with P-Town people is compromised when I wear my Lakers gear. People just get sour with the mere mention of the purple and gold.
Just this past Saturday, I had to leave my favorite sports bar in Northwest Portland because the bartender could not handle me asking him to put on the Lakers game so soon after the Blazers laid an egg in Atlanta.
While Portland is a great NBA city and has many sensible and grounded fans, it has an equal amount of those ruled by delusion. I can’t tell you how many times I hear that the Blazers would beat the Lakers if they matched up in the playoffs.
Some of the popular theories are: the Blazers match up well with the Lakers, Kobe Bryant is not the player he once was, and the Lakers can’t win at the Rose Garden.
I don’t know whether they are trying to convince themselves or if they truly believe this. But let me administer a dose of reality in plain and simple terms: there is no way the Lakers would fall to Blazers in a seven-game series.
First and foremost, it is difficult to contrast these teams’ rosters and see how the Blazers match up well. They are starting LaMarcus Aldridge and Gerald Wallace out of position at center and power forward (respectively), leaving them matched up against Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol.
While LaMarcus is enjoying his most dominant and impressive season as a pro, the Lakers have th...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
