SI: Top 25 most hated teams of all-time

I'm disappointed the New World Order didn't make the list.

 

The picture of the three Mets on the bench is perfect.

 

Yeah, I would have thought the Switzer-led team - and I use "led" loosely - would have been the 90s era Cowboys team on the list.

Also, Duke haters loved that UNLV team. Still do.

 

Surprised it was the 78 Yankees and not the 2000 ones. I was a wee lad for the 78 team, but weren't they more crazy and fucked up and entertaining than hated? Throwing firecrackers at fans and redefining trash-talking is one thing, but what do you do with a manager who fights a marshmallow salesman? What, I ask?

 

Why did you just do that? You know she's gonna come here and post that picture now. Shame.

 

2 different Pat Ewing teams, Georgetown and the Knicks.

The Mourning/Motumbo Georgetown teams were almost as reviled as the Ewing teams.

 

Don't remember hating the Russkies as a teen in '72. Do remember hating the people who went out of their way to give them the gold medal basketball game.

 

The thing about the Bad Boys is while they were definitely hated, I think a lot of people really liked that team, in part because they were sick of seeing the Lakers and Celtics every year. Granted, I grew up in Laker-hater country, but it seemed like a lot of people were rooting for the Pistons those two years.

I don't know too many people outside of Florida who were rooting for the Heat this year.

 

Michael Irvin is on there twice too.

 

I think the Heat might be No. 1 in my lifetime. Christian Laettner's Duke teams would be No. 2.

 

The Dallas teams in the 1990s would be my No. 3.

 

Surprised the 1985 Bears were nowhere to be seen. I grew up in Chicago during the '80s and loved them then. They played hard, they played well and they backed up all their ridiculous talk. But if you didn't live on Lake Michigan, I imagine you loathed them.

Just riffing on a top five ...

-- The 1985 Bears (for reasons previously stated)
-- The 1986/87 Miami Hurricanes (for the swagger and the attitude and the hits, for Jimmy Johnson, for the camo)
-- The 1992/93/94 Dallas Cowboys (for the swagger and the attitude, for Jimmy Johnson)
-- The 1974-75/75-76 Philadelphia Flyers (for the fact that they were bullies, plain and simple)
-- The 1996/97/98/99/00/01/02/03/04/05/06/07/08/09/10/11 New York Yankees and the 2006/07/08/09/10/11 Boston Red Sox (for the fact that they spent boatloads of money and most of their fans made me want to throw up in my mouth)

The Heat aren't necessarily top five, but they're close. They would have been higher had they won this year. Also, neither is a team, but the 1960s and '70s AAU is high on my list of most-hated folks in sports, for their draconian and outdated rules (see: Steve Prefontaine holding multiple American records, but having to live in a trailer and subsist on food stamps while training for the Olympics) and the Salt Lake Olympic Committee (for sheer greed).