The Rams moved to St. Louis and became dead to me. Never appreciated the Raiders gangsta thing, and then they went back to Oakland.

The Dodgers fell under the spell of the necromancer Frank McCourt. Never was an Angels guy. (I still consider them the Johnny-come-latelies who play 10-man ball.)

Don’t care about hockey.

Major League Soccer … are you serious?

USC and UCLA are too difficult to follow from the other side of the world.

That leaves one team in Los Angeles I care about. And a hint: It ain’t the Clippers.

The fortunes of the Los Angeles Lakers retain the ability to influence my day. I come out of the coma about 9:30 a.m. UAE time, and I log on …

and see what the Lakers did. And then I enjoy a frisson of pleasure … or grimace for a moment.

Credit Chick Hearn. Jerry West. Gail Goodrich. The brilliant decision, back in the 1960s, by ownership to telecast most (all?) of their road games — in an age when live sports on TV usually meant roller derby or wrestling.

If I was a Dodgers fan from the age of, perhaps, 6, I was a Lakers fan by 9, and maybe earlier. The Lakers arrived in Los Angeles in 1960, and I have a vague notion that I was aware of the ridiculously close-call-championship-not-won in 1962.

In the early days, the Lakers were good, but they had a bit of that lovable-loser vibe because they always fell to the Celtics in the NBA Finals.

Then came Wilt, and the 33-game winning streak and an NBA title in 1972. And then came Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Magic Johnson and Showtime, and then Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant … and we’re up to today.

I like this Lakers team. Not as a great team, but as an interesting team. A curious one.

Kobe was ridiculously good for the first three months of the season. Playing through injuries, willing a ragged team to victory, seeming to run a team ostensibly coached by Mike Brown.

Remember when Lakers fans pretty much divided into “Shaq” versus “Kobe” camps? I was a Kobe guy, and he’s still there. Well, I’d still like the team had they kept Shaq and traded Kobe … I think. That guy will do almost anything to win. It’s hard to think of anyone in any sport who seems to care more about every play, let alone every game, as does Kobe Bryant.

I admire that in a sports figure.

I like Pau Gasol. A big guy with a beautiful game and a hideous beard. Andrew Bynum fascinates me. The guy who came into the league at age 17 (hence, his uniform number) who is just now breaking through, and I wonder if he can help the Lakers do something important before his inevitable next breakdown.

I even have developed a tolerance for Ron Artest/Metta World Peace — if not for his jump shot. People seem to like Ramon Sessions; I haven’t seen him, but I am prepared to like him over the heady but oh-so-done Derek Fisher.

I am a fan of Matt Barnes, and was when he was at UCLA. I like Steve Blake, and persist in believing he will have some sort of production breakdown — even at age 22. Josh McReynolds and Kevin Ebanks … they can contribute, right?

As a franchise, thhe Lakers also have been very good about developing traditions. The half century of Chick Hearn. The Laker Girls. And the band, which got some love on espn.com last week. Lawrence Tanter. Gary Vitti!

I care about this team. In a way, I’m glad that I do because it shows I’m not completely dead as a fan. In theory, professional journalists are not meant to be fans, and I pretty much am not … except for this Lakers thing.

I doubt they can win their 17th NBA title this year, but they could make a run at it. The key moment may be when Metta World comes back from his suspension — assuming the Lakers close out the Nuggets, over whom they took a 3-1 lead today.

I clearly remember sweating out the victory in Game 7 of the 2010 finals. I was already here in Abu Dhabi, and I was up at 7 a.m. to follow the game on one of those screens that have a picture of the court and show where shots are taken and running box scores over to one side.

I was seriously nervous for that one, and I couldn’t really see it, but I wrote about it anyway, both for this blog and for The National.

I wouldn’t mind explaining another Lakers championship to the UAE audience. Don’t think it will happen this year, or any time soon … but stranger things have happened. And no one else has Kobe Bryant.