The Lakers are in the finals again and we all know what that means: Lakers car flags are once again out in full flutter.
Itâs a very curious thing these car flags. Despite a first-place season and an easy run through the playoffs, Iâd never seen them before in my life. Granted, I only moved to L.A. about nine months ago, but this was well before the start of basketball season. Since then, the Lakers managed win more games than anyone in their conference, hold on to Kobe Bryant and basically steal All-Star Pau Gasol away from the Grizzlies. All these bouts of good fortune and nary a car flag on display.
So what is it with these flags? Are they some sort of automotive botanical curiosity that only bloom at the end of May? No, the answer is quite simple. These car flags are the embodiment of a cityâs collective bandwagon spirit. Nobody feels a need to support the home team until theyâve proven themselves worthy with a spot in the finals.
Why should that be? Itâs not exactly like the Lakers make it hard for fans to root for them. Theyâve got more titles than the heavyweight division in boxing, the best player in the league, the best coach of all time, and offer the only place outside of reruns of the $100,000 Pyramid to see Dyan Cannon.
Despite this list of positives longer than Lamar Odomâs left arm, the car flags remain in storage until they can fly to support a possible champion. And yet, the emergence of these flags is not the most blatant act of bandwagoneering I witnessed this month.
Before my move to the land of the lackadaisical Laker fan, I was firmly entrenched in the Steel City. When the Penguins made the Stanley Cup Finals this year, I suppose I was a bit pleased despite having no particular affinity for the team or the city, just a sort of remembrance of things past.
I, however, appeared alone in my mild indifference. Suddenly, as if an entire group of my friends had been born again, love letters to the Penguins began to dot their digital lives. An away message here, a Facebook status there, faster than a Sydney Crosby slap shot everyone with whom I attended college had transformed into a Penguins die hard.
Such extreme devotion coming from a group of people who as far as I knew had never even known the sport of hockey existed, let alone knew anything about the Penguins. Yet the fandom wore on. Parties were planned (invitations even extended to me despite my living on a different coast), games attended and even tears shed according to one ludicrous Facebook status. Itâs amazing how quickly fanatical devotion can set in. Now we know how cults start.
So rest easy tonight Lakers fans, for the first time in a long time youâve not committed the most atrocious act of pseudo-fandom this week. Maybe now you can cheer for the Lakers without any guilt.
Just try to make it before the start of the second quarter.
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