One of sports’ biggest and oldest rivalries is between the Lakers and the Celtics, two of the NBA’s most storied franchises, with dozens of basketball’s greatest players having worn their jerseys over the years. They dominated eras, produced legends, and in the process, created an unmatched level of hatred between the passionate fan bases on either side. Robert Parish is one of them.
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Parish has made it clear that he doesn’t respect the Los Angeles Lakers. Well, there are three stars he would not mind paying flowers to. They are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper, and James Worthy. The rest? “F**k them“. Parish’s words.
The Chief spoke this way of the Lakers on The Coach JB show. Just a couple of weeks later, Cooper and Byron Scott joined in, and understandably, neither of them, even Cooper, whom Parish admitted to respecting, appreciated the way the 71-year-old dissed the Lakers. They paid him back in kind.
Parish was relentless. He kept reminding the others on the panel that he had just dropped the F-bomb on countless Lakers greats, perhaps, including Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. He was asked if he forgot to mention Magic Johnson, to which he hilariously responded, “Did I stutter?”
“I respect Kareem because of what Kareem did off the court,” Parish continued. “For justice, for social justice for all. I respect Michael Cooper for what he brings mentality-wise, and I respect Worthy because we went to the Hall [of Fame] together. The rest of them motherf****** Lakers, f*** all of them.”
Parish then made a fair point. He insisted that the Lakers felt the same way about the Celtics, and Scott’s comments backed that up. The first thing Scott brought up? Why Parish respected Kareem so much off the court. In his view, it was because Parish had no answer for The Captain on the floor. Kareem dominated their matchups, and Scott believed Parish knew it. “F*ck Robert Parish, he knows he ain’t know sh**… It’s all good, you know. F*** the Celtics,” he said.
After the clip of Parish’s disrespect was played, Cooper, too, chimed in with his own F-bomb. “F*** you, too, Robert Parish. You, and all of them, man.” Sounds hostile, but all the men involved in this exchange were laughing, which shows that although the hatred was there, they all have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. Scott spoke about just how beautiful the Celtics-Lakers rivalry truly was.
“It was the best rivalry in basketball. We hated their a**, they hated us. When we all retired, the good thing about it, you know, I was coaching, so I got a chance to run into Larry Bird on a number of occasions, Kevin McHale… and the thing that we found out is that we hated each other so fu***** much is because we had the same mentality.”
It’s this mentality that has made both teams so successful. The Lakers and Celtics each have 18 NBA championships to their name and have treated fans to some of the most epic battles in league history. The last time they met in the Finals was in 2010, their 12th showdown, where the Lakers won in seven games. Fans everywhere are eagerly waiting for the next big clash between the giants.
