Sports

What Does Your Favorite NBA Team Say About You?

It's more than a game.

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Complex Original

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As an NBA fan, you wear team colors, root on millionaire athletes with an undying fervor, and unite with total strangers behind a common cause. Your favorite team is like a tribe and the rest of your jersey adorned, beer chugging brethren in the stadium make up your people. But with 29 other clans in the territory, there are distinctive traits that make each group of fans unique. So what does your favorite NBA team say about you?

Written by Sean Evans (@seanseaevans)

Chicago Bulls

You're probably the worst. THE WORST. Prodigal sons like Barack Obama, Kanye West, and Michael Jordan only come back to Chicago to sell their homes. Do you know why? Because they're as sick of y'all as we are. And it's, like, -35 degrees in February.

If you keep this fuckery up, Derrick Rose is going to be the next to bounce. You can't rally through a stiff neck at work, but have no problem telling D-Rose to risk serious injury so the Bulls can stretch a playoff series against the Heat to six games. When it comes to acting like a jackass, The Second City is No. 1.

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Oklahoma City Thunder

You live in a bit of a culture vacuum, so everything you know about style was learned from watching Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook post game pressers. Consequently, you own an irresponsible number of all over print button-ups and lensless glasses.

Miami Heat

You'd be much more compelled to go to a Heat game if American Airlines Arena had a "white party" theme during the playoffs and offered sparkler adorned bottles of Grey Goose in the seats. Either you're on a cocaine comedown or just totally indifferent to having one of the NBA's marquee franchises. You look like Guy Fieri. You dress like Enrique Iglesias did 14 years ago. And your girl looks like she might have been hot...14 years ago.

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New York Knicks

You have an enormous sense of self-entitlement and a woeful disconnect from reality. Your team has a basketball pedigree that sits somewhere between the Milwaukee Bucks and Portland Trail Blazers, but you still expect the Knicks to win a championship next year. You pay too much for your apartment. You're wayyy too comfortable with garbage bags on the sidewalk. And you should spend a lot less time on Twitter.

Houston Rockets

You're optimistic and you have to be. The cornerstones of your team are the third best player on the Thunder, the Bulls backup center, and a guy who was hot for a month last year. Now if you only land that dude who cratered the Lakers franchise, it might be time to pop bottles of Krug in Houston next year.

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Los Angeles Lakers

You're spoiled and have absolutely no idea how to cope with failure. Or you're a celebrity sitting courtside, staring at Instagram, and think Jodie Meeks is that Arizona woman facing the death penalty for murdering her husband. Either way, no one can stand you.

Orlando Magic

You still own one of 1996's most sought after Starter jackets. You live in Florida, so most of your friends are retirees from the Midwest and deadbeat dads. Like Cleveland, you know what it's like to have a superstar break your heart. Unlike Cleveland, you got over it. It's the Florida way.

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Washington Wizards

Your team's not worth a pile of St. Bernard puke, but who cares? You're all caught up on Living Dead, you've read half of the New York Times Best Seller list, and that ship in a bottle is almost complete. There's no way you watch basketball, so life's full of DIY projects and Bikram Yoga.

Utah Jazz

You're really excited to move out of your parents house so you can sip coffee and play root beer pong with impunity. Kobe Bryant haunts your darkest nightmares. You won't wear a Gordon Hayward basketball jersey because the sleeveless look is "too revealing."

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Toronto Raptors

Let's face it, you haven't cared since the expansion novelty of the Damon Stoudamire era. We don't blame you. When do the Maple Leafs start playing again?

San Antonio Spurs

You have a respect for you elders that's rooted in years of watching Tim Duncan play kids in the post. People call your team "boring to watch," but you think they've stereotyped the Spurs unfairly and you're right. You've got the Texas Tea on ice and you're ready to celebrate on June 20.

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Sacramento Kings

Some chick from the Real Housewives of whatever almost sold you out so she could uproot the team and fill her expansive shoe closet with a Harrod's worth of Valentino pumps. That can't feel good. It's bad enough being a Kings fan when you don't have to beg your pathetic team to stay in Sacramento.

Portland Trail Blazers

You have a North Face Denali fleece that smells like Cedarwood incense. You roll a tight joint, so there's that. The Greg Oden experiment was as painful for you as the time you developed Lyme disease hiking the Aspen Trailhead to Rocking Chair Dam.

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Phoenix Suns

Your prized possession is a Champion Dan Majerle jersey that was purchased in 1993. You have second degree burns on your hands from handling a sun baked steering wheel. You carried a D+ average in high school and still managed to secure an academic scholarship to Arizona State.

New Orleans Pelicans

Every unibrow joke has been told. There's no sense in over thinking this stuff. Bottom line: you root for a shitty team.

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Milwaukee Bucks

You have no idea that it's possible for a team to get higher than a No. 8 seed. And, let's be honest, you can stand to lose a few pounds. But you probably pay the same for a three bedroom home in suburban Milwaukee as we do for a serial killer's crawl space in Brooklyn, so the joke's on us.

Dallas Mavericks

There's something about you that good point guards find absolutely revolting. Derron Williams is from Texas, and Dallas couldn't lure him during free agency. There's a reason they call it the "Lone Star" state and it's because your team only has one good player.

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Memphis Grizzlies

You fancy yourself a believer, but you don't care enough to fill the stadium for one of the league's best teams. So you don't really believe in this team. You don't believe they can win a ring behind Zach Randolph. You didn't think your team was going to come back from a 3-0 deficit. And you don't think that the team's staying in Memphis, which also makes you psychic.

Los Angeles Clippers

You're either a shameless bandwagon jumper or addicted to muscle relaxers. The Clippers carried a year in, year out record of 25-57 for most of the last 45 seasons. You'd have to be in a medically induced coma not to turn on this franchise. But if you're someone who's been down since wayyy back in 2011, salute. Your ability to stand by your team through good and good is really paying off.

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Indiana Pacers

You're from Indiana so you already have a crash course in being overlooked. But as a Pacers fan, you know exactly what it's like to have one of the NBA's most exciting teams and—instead of validation—see nothing but Tim Tebow coverage on ESPN. We know it hurts.

Golden State Warriors

You know what it means to stand by your man. You're the Hillary Clinton of the NBA. Your team has only had three playoff appearances in the last 20 years, but you still support your cause with the loyalty of an admiring German Sheppard. Success will taste the sweetest, if you ever achieve anything.

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Detroit Pistons

Between the Chevy Vega and Insane Clown Posse, the Pistons are the pride of Detroit by default. The team loses, so the fans can't burn the city down to the ground in celebration. You don't handle success very well, so it's a good thing you're failing.

Denver Nuggets

You were supposed to be this year's Pacers, but once again the Nuggets were bounced in the first round. Good thing marijuana is legal in Colorado, because it takes a lot of self medicating with bong hits to get through playoff time in Denver.

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Atlanta Hawks

Loyalty to the Atlanta Hawks helps you to manage expectations. For fans of the Heat, Spurs, and Lakers, there's crippling pressure to win a championship and, consequently, crushing disappointment when those teams come up short. When you wear a Dominque Wilkins throwback on casual Friday, you've officially learned to accept failure in more ways than one.

Philadelphia 76ers

Hailing from the douchiest sports city in the country, you know what it's like to be marked with an unshakable stigma. You punched an eight year old in the face for wearing a Celtics jersey in the Wells Fargo Center and that blemish on your criminal record sticks out like a scarlet letter. As a 76ers fan, you know that it's not always sunny in Philadelphia.

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Minnesota Timberwolves

Half of your wardrobe is from Target. Deep down you know that Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love are skipping town the second there's a contract offer and, quite frankly, you wish you could go with them. You also probably know how to use a crossbow or hunting rifle, so we're going to stop talking shit.

Charlotte Bobcats

You're a bigger college basketball fan than you are of the pro game, and for good reason. It's going to take a decade's worth of lottery picks to turn this franchise around. Right now, the Bobcats saving grace of the future is probably in eighth grade with a 9:30 p.m. bed time. Be nice to every teenager you come across, that kid egging your house on Halloween could put on for your city one day.

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Cleveland Cavaliers

You're like that dude that dates out of his league in high school. Then after graduation, she gets a volleyball scholarship to the University of Miami while you work part-time at Turtle Wax and take some gen-eds at the local community college. By Thanksgiving break, she's dating the Hurricanes' second string quarterback and you're drunk texting her Drake lyrics on the nightly. Heartbreak can be so pathetic.

You never deserved LeBron James. It was nice while it lasted, but your city's most worthwhile attraction is the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. You knew, deep down, that a bitter breakup was inevitable. It's been a few years since "The Decision" and it's time to move on. Find a divorced mother of two with a low credit score and take her on a date to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. You'll have that Machine Gun Kelly swag back in no time.

Boston Celtics

Boston is one of the country's more insecure cities and see you it in Celtics fans. Rajon Rondo shoots like Amanda Bynes looks, but the TD Bank Garden faithful still think he's the best point guard in basketball. That's all you really need to know. Folks from Boston are basically YouTube comment trolls personified, and that inferiority complex gets turned up to 11 when the team's competing for a ring. Thank Based God the Celtics are going to suck for the next half decade.

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Brooklyn Nets

Brooklyn Nets fans see the big picture. It's a team that will perpetually disappoint, so focus on everything besides basketball. That means buying a snakeskin Just Don snapback, a Mitchell & Ness crewneck sweatshirt, and some matching black and white Chuck Taylor All-Stars. Bang. It doesn't matter if your team gets drummed out of Barclays in the first round until 2023 because you. stunt. hard.

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