Of course. It's not just big market city. It's the glamor, the celebrities. Clippers are in LA too. But they don't have that, not as much as the Lakers with all the stars at the court side. The difference is, the Lakers had a smart owner (not anymore with the young Buss) and pretty good FO. NY had Dolan and Isiah.
The lakers have been around for a long time. I guess we live in the era of player only fans. LA is the second largest city in America and the lakers have tradition.
LA Lakers have the rich history of championships along with being Hollywood. If Lakers didnt have past championships and history including West, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Kobe, Shaq etc. then I doubt they would get as many "breaks". LA is the place to be right now. New York and Brooklyn appear to be so as well. Amare, Carmelo, D Will, Joe Johnson, (remember Dwight wanted to go to Brooklyn), G Force. I feel if New York or Brooklyn can break the first round, all-star caliber players will start going to the east coast.
Excluding college sports, they are the easiest team to root for except for perhaps the Yankees who are allowed to outspend their mistakes. If they aren't good, you're right, people will abandon ship but in part because of how spoiled they've been. People, especially in that town come out to be seen not necessarily to watch basketball and if the Lakers have five straight years of 20-30 win basketball, the only notable person that will come out to see them is Jack Nicholson if he's still living when that happens 100 years from now. Also, you make a good point about Kobe retiring because many people only gain interest in watching sports because they're the fan of a player. Notice how the NBA had so many more fans in the 90's, especially "Bulls" fans who went away when Jordan did for the second time. It's a dynamic people don't consider when understanding the bandwagon aspect of fan bases, like what we had with Yao and T-Mac or LeBron in Miami.
Lakers fans will migrate to the Clips land because Chris Paul will convince them that the Clips have the secret to beating the Lakers.
