The Los Angeles Lakers Are America and You Should Love Them for It

When asked why Islamic terrorist organizations are so singularly obsessed with attacking America, George W. Bush defiantly declared, "they hate us for our freedom." Of course, it was a preposterous statement since Americans aren't exactly completely free in the traditional sense of the word, and also because we didn't really ask them to weigh in on the subject. I guess that would have been an awkward phone call.

Even if Bush didn't quite articulate his point effectively, he was onto something. Countries hate us because we always remind them that we think we have the greatest system of government in the world, that we have the largest military, and are free to eat as many double cheeseburgers as we want (until we keel over from a massive coronary in our 50s).

I kinda get it. I would also hate being told that someone else's country is the unquestioned best place to live since Atlantis sunk into the ocean. Still, I'm an American, so I guess I won some sort of prize—I think it was heavy student loan debt, which is truly the gift that keeps on giving. It's natural to hate winners, and that's why the sports world is cheering every single mistake made by the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most successful franchises in all of sports. As a Laker fan, I know you hate me. You hate me for my freedom.

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Americans love sports for a lot of reasons, and most of them have very little to do with the aesthetic qualities of watching people in really good shape put their bodies through hell for an obscene amount of financial compensation. Sports give the average person a chance to engage in the kind of civic pride that's pretty fucking corny in other scenarios. LeBron James expressed that in his Sports Illustrated letter explaining his choice to go back to Cleveland. A sports team represents a city and its identity in a tangible fashion. You can root for the team, and also feel like you are expressing your love for where you live without messy shit like voting or watching city council meetings on public access TV getting in the way of not giving a fuck.

Sports are also an internally optimistic pastime. LeBron spoke of bringing hope to his hometown team, and that's a wonderful thing to have as a supporter. long-suffering Chicago Cubs fans are prone to the familiar refrain of, "wait till next year," even if that doesn't mean shit when you look at their roster. America defines itself by the expectation that hard work, perseverance, and talent will be enough to get you through life. Sports tap into that desire for the world to be fair, and for better days to be just around the corner. There's no American city where hope is more of a virtue than in Los Angeles.

LA is a place built on the great pipe dream. People move to my city with an explicit expectation that they'll stand out from the masses and amount to something important; in finance, show business, politics, or dressing up like Batman on Hollywood Boulevard. You'll get noticed in LA if you just put your time in. It's historically been easy to stay hopeful about sports in LA too, because of the Lakers.

Tuesday, the team introduced Byron Scott to the world as their latest head coach, and hope is back in fashion in the city. Scott played for the legendary Showtime teams, has Kobe Bryant's respect, and says all the right things about the grand tradition of the club. Fans are stirring, despite the fact that since they won the 2010 NBA championship-their tenth, and the most in the league since the beginning of the three-point line era-the Lakers have been a franchise seemingly obsessed with creating as many obstacles to success as possible.

After 2010, they'd been to the Finals three years in a row, winning two. As the crumbling Miami Heat can attest, that much sheer mileage can decimate any team, but especially one with a noticeable dearth of young legs. The Lakers did very little to upgrade their roster after the 2010 title, which lead to an embarrassing second round playoff sweep at the hands of the eventual champions in Dallas. The next season, Mike Brown took over for Phil Jackson as head coach, and the Lakers again were battered in the second round, this time to a younger, faster, more talented Oklahoma City Thunder team.

Mike D'Antoni succeeded Brown early in the 2012-2013 season, after the Lakers gave away long-term assets to acquire an aging, injury-prone point guard (Steve Nash) and a high-priced center with a tendency to spend more time practicing his Charles Barkley impression than his free throws (Dwight Howard). The predictions of titles started immediately, but that was quickly revealed to be presumptuous at best. Somehow, an old team got older and the whole thing went tits up in a hurry. Dwight left, Nash only played 15 more games than I did last season, and Kobe Bryant suffered serious injuries that he might never fully recover from.

After a quixotic attempt to sign Carmelo Anthony this summer, Jim Buss and GM Mitch Kupchak signed a hodgepodge of older free agents to add to last season's mess of a roster. We've got Nick Young's bizarre shot selection still, Jordan Hill's streaky play under the basket again, and Steve Nash's vaguely sexual courtside stretch sessions to look forward to for another 82 games. Jeremy Lin and Carlos Boozer have both contributed on other teams, but neither player is in their prime. Plus, Boozer is one of the worst defensive players in the league not named James Harden. I have more faith that America will develop a working health care system than I do in this Laker team.

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Where does the hope and confidence in the Laker franchise come from? I guess just like in America, a nation that prides itself on what it used to accomplish, that hope comes from pretending like the past is present. That's why in LA, we can seemingly accept paying Kobe Bryant as though he was 25. That's why Byron Scott can make us feel that there's an actual plan for this team. They were both around when anything was possible, and the dreams were reality. We have all of the history, all of the prestige, and all of the money, but no team.

Still, Laker fans (and Americans, in general) are impatient. In two years, they'll have tons of cap room, draft picks, and a truly fresh start. But if the way government in the United States has worked in the last six years is any indication, no matter how fresh the start is, if no one can agree on what to do next, it won't even matter. The Lakers are America's true team, because they're a reflection of our continued inability to turn away from the things we've done, and become aware of the things we have to do. You might as well start rooting for the Lakers to sort themselves out, because if they can do it, then anything really is possible.

Dave Schilling is a Staff Writer for VICE. Follow him on Twitter.