I am obligated to root for the Lakers against Brooklyn...

It helps to remember that the Lakers lose their 1st unless it's in the top 3. So we want them winning a few games to minimize their chances.
Man, imagine if the Celts get a top 5 pick from Brooklyn and the Lakers lose their pick to the Sixers, despite being a horrible, sad sack team.
That would just be . . . perfect.
It'll never happen for that reason.
I'm curious, who would people rather get a high pick, the Lakers or the Sixers? I'd rather the Lakers kept their pick. My Laker's hate kind of ended when the big 3 broke up.
So long as the Buss family is running that team and Kobe is on the roster, I'm happy to see them flail.
I would like to see the Sixers finally start to put together some NBA talent that can actually play well together. I like Noel and Okafor, I think Brett Brown is probably a pretty decent coach, and I respect the dedication of their franchise as a whole to a unified vision for building the team up. I don't blame them for the system that encourages their strategy.
The Sixers are as much a classic NBA franchise as the Lakers or Celts, and it's been too long since they had a genuinely competitive team in Philadelphia.
I think due to all the positive comments about them on this blog and how lot's of people use them as an example of what we should be doing I have come to root against them.
So essentially Celticsblog makes me dislike Philly where I would not care how they do otherwise.
Also, they're in our division, so I don't really want to have to deal with them with too much top-tier talent. I mean, they could legitimately bring in two top-five picks again this year to add to Noel, Okafor, and Embiid.
They're going to run into trouble, though, because you can't truly expect to develop that many star players all on the same team. Even to just trade them, they have to be developed enough first to have value, and having "too many chiefs and not enough indians" is just going to hamper each player's development. Also, what player is going to agree to go to that losing culture right now in a trade? Philly could offer up one of their top-five picks for a disgruntled star, but I can't imagine any disgruntled star willingly going to Philly right now.