7 Most Irrationally Dedicated Fanbases in the NBA

When people get to talking about the NBA, one thing they inevitably talk about, so long as they talk long enough, is the merits of each fan base in the league. Which ones are more dedicated than others, and which ones are too watered down with bandwagon fans to matter.

However, one of the most interesting groups of fans I see out there are the fans of those teams who haven't won anything in years, the teams who have seen more injuries to their star players than playoff series wins, more inept moves by management than big free agent signings or more players walking out on them than effective draft picks used.

There are those teams out there who have a dedicated core of followers that nobody would blame for giving up on their team for a few years. Being a basketball fan is, after all, a very exhausting thing to be, having to dedicate time, money and love to something that will never give you any of that back.

So how do you rank these irrationally dedicated fan bases? Well, I want to give a good amount of weight to the number of fans who have stuck around during hard times, but I also want to show some appreciation to the amount of suffering that has gone down and the overall impact that suffering would have on your normal fan.

Here you go, then—the seven most irrationally dedicated NBA fan bases.

7. Los Angeles Clippers

There aren't many "real" Clippers fans out there, but the ones that are out there are some of the most dedicated or stubborn fans you'll find, depending on who you ask.

Of the 19 Clippers fans that were around pre-Blake Griffin, the amount of dedication they've had to even rock a Clippers jersey in the Lakers town shows enough to give my respect to them.

Like I said, there aren't many of them, but few have truly suffered like real Clippers fans.

6. Cleveland Cavaliers

Throughout the years, the Cleveland Cavaliers have gone from short bursts of success book-ended by periods of basketball tragedy.

The late 70s saw them get to the finals with Campy Russell and Austin Carr, but that ended quickly once Ted Stepien bought the team in 1980. He began trading draft picks and gutting the team for players not worth their names. He traded so many draft picks that eventually the league put a rule in place proclaiming that no team could trade first-round draft picks in consecutive years. He owned the team for approximately two years, but he ruined the team for a decade.

Then the 90s came and Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance and Hot Rod Williams led the team to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1992, losing to the Chicago Bulls. Over the next four years they would lose in the playoffs to the Bulls two more times and the Knicks twice.

When the 90s dragged into the later years, they ended up dealing with a fat Shawn Kemp and an injured Zydrunas Ilgauskas—meaning the leader of the team was Wesley Person. Those weren't great years for Cavs fans.

We don't even need to talk about what happened to the team in 2010.

Still, save a bottoming out of support here and there, Cleveland fans have stayed true to their team as much as they possibly could.

5. Minnesota Timberwolves

Like every team who goes through a bit of a drought, the Minnesota Timberwolves' bandwagon cleared out pretty quickly after Kevin Garnett was shipped off to Boston, but there was still a huge chunk of people in the stands cheering for the likes of Al Jefferson, "Bassy" Telfair, Marko Jaric and even Antoine Walker at one point.

For a few years there, they saw their attendance dip below 15,000, and—quite frankly—they had every reason not to go to games. The Timberwolves front office completely screwed up the Kevin Garnett years.

Here they had the best (or second best, depending on the year) power forward in the league, and they screwed up his prime by trying to gain a slight advantage in signing Joe Smith below market value. Back in 2000, they promised Smith a future multi-year deal if he were to sign for less at that point, when the league found out they voided Smith's contract, fined the T-Wolves and took away three first-round draft picks.

Aside from that, the team couldn't keep Stephon Marbury happy, and they couldn't keep Tom Gugliotta in Minnesota—which led to Garnett running the team on his own in Minny.

Let's hope the same doesn't happen with the team Minnesota has now.

4. Golden State Warriors

Ever since the Golden State Warriors upset the Dallas Mavericks back in 2007 as the eighth seed in the Western Conference, it seems like the front office has decided that the team doesn't need to be good for the fans to come—they just need to score a lot of points.

Because of that, over the past five years the Warriors have been one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA, the Warriors peaked at 48 wins and have gone as low 26 wins back in 2010.

The Warriors have continued to play fast-paced basketball, but they haven't been winning as much as you would expect from a team with such high attendance.

For that, I have to throw some love to the fans out in the Oakland-San Francisco area.

3. Portland Trail Blazers

When it comes to bad times, the Trail Blazers haven't really been a victim of inept front office dealing, just a rash of bad luck that has spanned decades at this point.

From Bill Walton to Sam Bowie to Greg Oden and Brandon Roy, the Blazers fans have had to deal with more injuries than any team's fans should. At the very least, Walton got them a title back in 1977, but they should have so much more.

A healthy Bowie with Clyde Drexler or a healthy Oden with a half-healthy Roy would have given them such a better shot at a title. Heck, they could have had two or three more on their record books by this time.

The only thing that got these dedicated fans down was the Jail Blazers era, and even then they still went to games—they just went to boo.

They could have taken a year off here and there, but they haven't, and for that I have to throw some respect their way.

2. Toronto Raptors

Combine a lot of bad luck, a string of star players splitting on the town and an overall .407 winning percentage, and you have yourself a basketball team whose fan base you would expect to be disgruntled.

However, whether it be the uncannily kind nature of Canadians or the fact that the Raptors are the only professional basketball team in Canada (I still miss the Vancouver Grizzlies), those Raptors fans are intriguingly gruntled.

When they were coming into their own in the early 2000s, the Raptors saw Tracy McGrady walk out on the team, then they saw VInce Carter sulk his way into a trade four years later. After the cousins walked out on the team, Toronto fans saw Andrea Bargnani tread the line between boom and bust for four years before he started to play like a number one overall pick last season and saw in 2010 Chris Bosh do exactly what Tracy McGrady did a decade earlier.

For all intents and purposes, the Toronto Raptors have been an incredibly well-run franchise, save a trade here and there (Marcus Camby for a washed-up Charles Oakley and Roy Hibbert for a nearly washed-up Jermaine O'Neal? C'mon, guys.) and have drafted well in the lottery, but they just haven't been able to hold teams together.

For the Raptors fans to stand beside them as well as they have over the years is impressive to say the least, but I can't quite put them at No. 1.

1. Seattle Supersonics

Whenever someone reminds me of Randy Marsh, they're alright in my eyes, so this guy with the "NOklahoma" sign seems pretty cool to me, as do most Sonics fans for that matter.

I don't know what it is about the Pacific Northwest when it comes to dedicated fan bases, but for my money, they are the only bunch of people who outshine Midwesterners when it comes to dedication to their teams. Heck, these people even turned to soccer after the Sonics were stolen, making them the highest draw by an enormous margin for their three years of existence. That, I respect.

Anyone who was a Supersonics fan before the team was ripped from their clutches and galloped away to Oklahoma City by a rhinestone cowboy is still a Sonics fan, and they still contend that they'll be getting a new team—which I certainly hope is going to happen.

Seattle fans should hate this league; they should hate David Stern for what he did to them, and they should hate Clay Bennett for his seedy dealings and half-assed attempts to keep the team in Seattle. For the most part they do, but they still love their Sonics—even in death.

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