I was thinking about this topic in the context of our current series against the Jazz. Came across this article (from 2016) that was an interesting read. The sports fan tends not just to attach themselves to heroes, but also to create villians to be rooted against. http://theconversation.com/why-sports-fans-need-villains-66725 In particular, there's this theory called the "Affective Disposition Theory". It's described like this in the article:
Sometimes though you have a player like Bruce Bowen. You don’t create a villain. He simply deserves to be disliked because of how reckless he is, injuring other players.
ESPN has keyed in on this, and has painted the Rockets as the villains to Golden State's hero status. They want all of America watching with a rooting interest in Golden State.
Well considering GS is the favorite, they'd rather portray them as the heroes cause then it makes the casual fan feel good when they do win. The casual fan goes out, tells all his hardcore fans GS is going to win, and when they do, he gets to act all superior even though he don't know a gawdam thing about the sport. Happens all the time.
When you watch a game, it's always more fun to either root for or root against someone. If you don't really care who win or lose, then it's not as fun. It's the same psychology for playing sports. If there is no stake of winning or losing, it's not much fun. Some people say that the fun of competitive sports is in winning. It is actually not true. The fun is more in the struggle to win than the winning itself. That's why a blow out game is boring. A close game is exciting and fun.
Conversely, we tend to view the Warriors as the villains, and personalize it with respect to particular personnel of that team (especially Draymond Green and Steve Kerr, and to a lesser extent Kevin Durant). We latch on to anything small or imagined so that we can retain the illusion that these are really bad people who deserve to be beaten down and punished in competition. That heightens the stakes, and makes the wins sweeter.
Why do y'all think the media is pushing the whole "The Rockets are an Abomination to Basketball" narrative so damn hard? Its all to further elevate LeBron WHEN they rig it for him in the finals, just like what they did to GSW in 2016.
The #Narrative is more fun with villains. Also, the greater the villain, the greater the hero. The juxtaposition.