Lonzo Ball was named 2017 NBA Summer League MVP and, in general, the Los Angeles Lakers were the dominant story in Las Vegas over the ten-day basketball exhibition. In fact, Lakers fans flooded the desert to the point that the NBA sold out an entire day of game action ahead of time and, given the fact that the Thomas and Mack Center is the size of a typical professional arena, that is a startling amount of attention paid to (largely) meaningless basketball.
However, the social media team of the Sacramento Kings poked a bit of fun at the sprawl of Lakers fans in Las Vegas and they did so in an exceedingly trollish manner. Using the hype surrounding Lonzo Ball and company, the Kings asked “Lakers fans” in the arena about two players that don’t exist.
Hilarity ensued.
It is at least possible that the Lakers fans used in this video are not actually Lakers fans because if they are, it is not a great look. Shawn Carter and Ned Stark are household names for different reasons, as outlined in the video itself, but even the most peripheral Lakers fan (and one willing to spend the requisite cash to get to Vegas and survive) would almost have to know that they aren’t part of the squad.
With that said, this is a brilliant bit of ribbing on the part of the Kings. The organization has a longstanding “rivalry” with the Lakers dating back to their epic set of battles in the early 2000’s and, even this week, there were whispers that Ball was avoiding a match-up with Kings rookie De’Aaron Fox because of previous failures on the grand stage in college. It would be easy on the part of the L.A. faithful to push back on Sacramento given their lack of success in recent years but, for the most part, this is just funny, even if no one would blame you if you think it’s not 100 percent authentic.
