The poem and the essay both have a very similar concept in that they are basing culture off of sports teams. The Lakers and Celtics have a tremendous rivalry and the essay explains how both teams have total opposite influences on culture which stems from the two teams being on complete different ends of the spectrum in all aspects including the players on the teams. It's not just the Celtics and Lakers who affect the surrounding cultures, its every city that has a sports team; mainstream or not it doesn't matter. There are tons of towns that revolve their entire culture around even the smallest of teams including high school athletics. For example, in my home town you dont even have to ask anyone what they're planning to do with their Friday nights because you already know that everyone is going to the high school football game. The days leading up to that are spent anticipating the kick-off and talking about matchups and how "we" look stacked up against our upcoming opponent. I put "we" in quotes because when we talk about the game or sport in general we always refer to the fans as "we" even though we will have no affect on the outcome of the game. But the surrounding culture is so into the game and the team that we all consider ourselves part of the team when we really aren't.