The Golden State Warriors are coming fresh off of a NBA championship run, and aside from having the most talented roster in the NBA, their home court advantage is hands down the best because of how rowdy their fans are.
Former Los Angeles Lakers guard and Warriors executive Jerry West was asked about how Golden State’s fan base stacked up to the Lakers fan base, and he had some interesting comments.
Here are the quotes from CBS Sports:
Rome asked West whether Warriors fans were the same, different, or “frankly better” than the notoriously huge Lakers fan base, and West did not hesitate in the slightest to confirm that the Roaracle blows Staples away.
“Oh, much better than LA fans, OK? They don’t ever leave the game,” West said. “Once we moved into Staples Center, our fan base changed, I thought. It’s a completely different kind of fan than Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a lot of corporate fans there, whole different people sat in different seats. You can go up to Oracle right now and you’ll see the same fans in the same seats every night. The fans in Los Angeles are great, but I’ve never seen fans like this here.”
While the Lakers obviously have the larger fan base, I don’t think it is even close when it comes where it is tougher to play as the opposing team.
It’s not a cakewalk to win in the Staples Center, but it was virtually impossible to beat Golden State at Oracle Arena. I can see what Jerry means by the Golden State fans being better, but you can also make a case for Los Angeles due to how vast of a fan base they have that sprawls across the country.