There’s this running internet joke that’s mostly true: If you look hard enough, you can find almost any player, on almost any basketball team, Photoshopped into a Lakers jersey. There’s a hashtag for it: #FutureLaker. There are hundreds of Lakers fan accounts and individual creators using social media. There is no way to tell which ones are sarcastic or not.
“It has worked so often for this team,” Harrison Faigen said, “so why shouldn’t they be able to just Photoshop it into existence?”
Faigen’s explaining the Lakers fan base’s psyche, and he knows it well. He’s the editor-in-chief of Silver Screen & Roll, SB Nation’s Lakers blog that amasses millions of page views during its busiest months. “I’m sure every other team around the league and their fan bases are like, ‘Why does this team think they can just take all of our players?’” he says. “But for a team that…
