The Warriors Syndrome: Picking Some of the Most Hated Teams In Sports
Sometimes, it’s as easy as “they hate us cause they ain’t us.” Sometimes you decide you’re bigger than Jesus while actually kneeing a Kiwi-Jesus in his kiwis and the whole world turns against you.
The Golden State Warriors weren’t always reviled across the league and fans didn’t consistently cast voodoo rituals across 28 arenas they happened to visit. In the not so distant past they were the NBA darling, unseeding the 1st place Mavs in the playoffs. Not much later, they were the baby faced Harvey Dent to NBAs Gotham, working to shape it in their own special way. That is until they got a face full of Draymond Green and became Harvey Dent.
This year, everyone is rooting for the Warriors to lose, while ironically the team also probably amassed the most fans, because bandwagons don’t drive themselves. After winning a historic 73 games, the Dubs went out and signed one of the best offensive players of all time and are primed to repeat their trip to the Finals while also somehow undermining the competitive sanctity of the NBA. They made the league not fun by having too much fun, inviting the ire of supporters everywhere.
So, to honor the 2016/17 Warriors, let’s take a look at some other teams across sports that gathered this much vitriol among collective fan bases. These teams have to be in professional sports. They also happen to be fairly good, or have a history of being fairly good, because it’s an essential component of hating something. No one hates the Cleveland Browns, that’d be just cruel and pointless seeing how the Browns already hate themselves more than you ever could.
The 2015/16 Golden State Warriors
It would be a disservice to exclude the earlier iteration of this Warriors team from the list. Even before adding Kevin Durant and completing what looks like the Voltron of basketball, Golden Stat was already much despised. It wasn’t just the overall cocky attitude, the shimmying in front of the opponents benches and pretending like it was just some sort of silly game. It was was everything in combination. It was the fact that they weren’t supposed to be this historically good or that their owner was so far up his own hind area that he was basically talking out of his own mouth (that is a weird sentence) when he said “light years ahead.”
Up until 2015/16, the Warriors had confidence and determination. In 2016 they became the testicle crunching bully that was simply too good. It’s like Rick spent most of the first season of the Walking Dead thinking, “hey, Shane isn’t such a bad dude, he’s got my back and he’s good to have around,” but then found out Shane was sleeping with his wife and really just wanted him dead. We found out Golden State was sleeping with our wives all along.
The New England Patriots
I would pick a year, but realistically just imagine the whole stretch of the Tom Brady tenure folds into this category neatly. Same as with any franchise, the Patriots can be hated because they’re just too damn good and they don’t really care. At times they are even likable (everything Gronk does), but most of the time they’re definitely not likable (everything Gronk doesn’t do or isn’t even remotely associated with).
The truth is, the Patriots are simply just better than your franchise (Eagles fan here, checking in) by purely statistical measurements. They’re good at winning, and they have the pretties quarterback in all of football throwing the pretties spiral in all situations. They’ve destroyed hopes, dreams and other various metaphorical constructs of a slew of fans and they looked good and determined doing it. That would be enough to keep them cemented on this list.
Then come the various allegations of cheating such as manipulating the amount of air in footballs or using recording equipment to spy on opposite teams. Odds are, even if true, these things do not directly effect how good the Pats are (really good), but at the very least they call that into question subconsciously. Being good, BUT ALSO cheating while being good is suspiciously too close to having your cake and eating it, but also parading that cake in front of everyone for three hours telling them how you have it and you will most certainly eat it.
Bad Boy Pistons
This paragraph could basically just be two words: Bill Laimbeer — the man who’s highlight tape looks more like WWE “Best Of” than a basketball related video.
In the modern NBA, the slightest contact (or even lack there of) provokes theatrical pleas to the officiating crew for some sort of foul, flagrants exist and stars are protected from various retribution. In the late 80s and early 90s, NBA games frequently mirrored as HBO boxing specials. The Detroit Pistons were the prototypical team of the era with a defensive intensity that made football resemble ballet.
While capable on offense, the Pistons played defense in a matter that led you to believe that drawing blood would be worth extra points. Attacking this line-up felt less like basketball and more like running into a brick wall at full speed and then being hit from the back by another brick wall chasing you at double your speed. They weren’t just out to win, they were out to hurt you and more importantly your favorite player.
The Toronto Maple Leafs
The Leafs aren’t necessarily good now, which may detract from them being hated as a franchise, but not everything always relates to sport. The actual organization has went through such a protracted period of uncertainty and not being good that it would generally call for some sort of sympathy (see Browns, Cleveland). The problem is that they still sport one of the most unbearable sports fan bases outside of Boston. Leafs fans will argue against anything, constantly bring up historical stretches of success and deride nearly any other fan base for not being authentic enough.
Not one, not two, not three — 2011 Miami Heat
While basketball has seen teams constructed around a collection of super-talented players (see Kobe/Shaq Lakers or Jordan/Pippen Bulls), few did it so blatantly in your face. The Heat didn’t only decide to bring together three of the most talented players of their generation, they threw a giant party before even playing a single game together.
Much like the current-state Golden State Warriors, the Heat were having a bit too much fun and sporting an embarrassment of riches. They were the first team to go against the grain of the narrative that winning takes hard work. For them, it took 3 phone calls and a small pay cut to make it all work. The 2011 Heat were the metronome for the collective hate of a nation which manifested itself in the Dallas Mavericks, a team that could have easily been put together with an expansion draft that year and not carefully schemed up through a variety of phone calls and banana boat rides.
The New York Yankees
When you have enough money to buy the world over and over, and do so, you’re going to catch some flack.
Duke Blue Devils
The main reason many people hate Duke is ironically also the reason that it has cemented itself to be one of the most successful programs in the country. Coach Mike Krzyzewski has always been the system coach in a sense that he coaches his Duke teams to be successful in the NCAA style of play over prepping the one and done generation of NBA transition students. He plays a deliberate half-court system that stresses the advantages of he NCAA such as a closer three-point line and the 35 second shot-clock, which doesn’t often create the most visually appealing games for anyone outside of the basketball purist pantheon.
Because of this system-first approach, Coach K produced a variety of unassuming players who readily plug in the necessary roles for their teams without spectacular individual production. More importantly, he has became the champion and crown prince of producing unassuming white guys for the NBA, most notable being Christian Laettner and J.J. Redick (you’re next Grayson Allen). Watching Duke play you consistently feel that the parts that put together this squad are objectively more trash than some other top schools on individual merit basis, but Coach K has a way of arranging these parts so the final product becomes more than their sum.
Chelsea F.C.
For the longest time, the Blues were not a good soccer team. That is, until Russian money. The emergence of Roman Abramovich and his laissez-faire approach to team credit, created a rift in the Premiership. Instead of tactical spending to improve where needed, teams now entered bidding wars for the best and worst players. In the first years of his tenure as owner, Chelsea broke spending and transfer records in consecutive fashion whenever he wanted a new toy and being a manager under Roman the Great is much like playing a game of musical chairs blindfolded except there is no music… and no chairs. In many ways Chelsea is the fore bearer of hyper-spending soccer and for that we should all hate them.
The Dallas Cowboys
“America’s Team.” Let that roll off your tongue and into the nearest trash can. Floor is sufficient if there is no trash in the vicinity. Much like the Leafs fan-base, the Dallas Cowboys sport one of the most belligerent followings, predisposed to quoting past successes and putting on for own team beyond reasonable doubt. For the past few years, the Cowboys have been nothing above average (current season notwithstanding) but asking their fans would yield an understanding that it’s the best team in all of football and possibly all human sport.
Also, I really just don’t like Jerry Jones.
The 85 Celtics (The Bird Years)
As a human with a capacity for the full spectral range of emotion, I love Larry Bird. I think of him as an extended member of my family and if he ever showed up at Thanksgiving I would kick my own dad from the table to sit Larry Legend at the head of it. As a Lakers fan and a basketball fan of “not the Celtics,” I have no choice but to hate the hyper efficient machine of destruction that wreaked havoc on the NBA throughout the 80s.
The majority of the vitriol came not necessarily through their superior basketball skills but through a variety of other factors, not the least of which being the Boston fan base (and if you’re seeing a theme, here is a bowl of clam CHOWDA for you). A lot of it came from Larry Bird knowing how good he was and not being afraid to communicate that fact to all of the opposition at all of the times.
