Throughout the years, there have been plenty of teams that Portland Trail Blazers fans - the author included - love to hate.
The Los Angeles Lakers have been the target of many a Blazers fans’ ire over the years - in fact, on this very site there were years when some stories would stylize the Lakers as ‘L*akers.’ The Seattle Supersonics were always a fun rivalry as you also had the “Portland is Seattle’s younger sibling” dynamic thrown into the mix. In more recent years, it’s been easy to hate the Miami Heat given their ill-fated pursuit of Damian Lillard, or maybe the Golden State Warriors for a host of reasons, including for the whole Gary Payton III thing.
But as time goes on and the NBA landscape changes, so does the Blazers’ place in it, and with that we have a new crop of teams to look at sideways. Yesterday, Dave asked about which team is the Blazers’ real competition next year, but this time I encourage you to close your tabs of Basketball Reference and leave roster construction aside to search within your feelings: which Blazers’ opponent are you going to most strongly enjoy see losing to Portland?
Leave logic aside! This is an exercise of encouraging the pettier side of your fandom, and the answer that makes sense to you doesn’t necessarily need to make sense to me or anyone else.