[LA Times] Steve Ballmer: “I have been surprised by animus from Lakers fans (...) There are 29 other teams you have to beat to win a championship, but you must be pretty worried about us. The Lakers are a great organization, a great franchise, but Laker fans, you must be a little worried about us.”

“Why did so many in the town cheer against us?” the Clippers irrepressible owner asked in an interview with The Times on the eve of training camp. “At some points it gets like this ... for a long time the Clippers were nothing, so nobody had to pay attention, and for people who had been Lakers fans forever, there’s no threat.”

He paused and smiled.

“We’ll, we’ve gotten pretty good,” he said. “We’re actually serious, you can see we’re serious, we’re not the old screwed-up franchise in town, we’re getting our act together and I think because we’re getting our act together, it gets people like, ‘C’mon, you can’t get your act together, it’s just my team, my team is the only one that matters!’” He kept smiling.

“No, we’re coming,” he said. “We’re coming.”

“I have been surprised by animus from Lakers fans, and my message has sort of been, why, you don’t have enough confidence in your guys?” he said. “There are 29 other teams you have to beat to win a championship, but you must be pretty worried about us. The Lakers are a great organization, a great franchise, but Laker fans, you must be a little worried about us.”

https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2021-09-23/clippers-steve-ballmer

Ballmer firing shots across the 5 freeway