For starters, I am not a Lakers fan nor would I ever be unless the Thunder stopped existing a-la the Bobcats. My dad on the other hand is a lifelong Lakers fan which is where this story begins.

In 2001 my dad went to LA to watch 2 Lakers games since he had only ever seen them play in Dallas previously since it's so much closer to us. He brought us back Lakers keychains with our names on them. I had that son of a bitch on my keychain for a decade (I was 7 in 2001, didnt need a keychain until 2008ish). Anyways, it lasted for a long ass time. Fantastic quality. Last year the hole in the plastic gave out and finally broke off.

Here is a picture of it: https://imgur.com/a/C09TQRX

For being in my pocket for pretty much a decade, as well as sitting in drawer for the previous years, it still looks pretty good. That things 17 years old now. It was a trooper.

Anyways, my girlfriend was in LA and knew how much that keychain meant to me(don't see much of my dad anymore) so she went and got me another one. While it's not really the same thing, I appreciated the thoughtfulness and put it on my keychain since I was so used to having it on there. After only 1 year it looks far worse than the 17 year old one. It looks terrible.

Here is a photo comparing the 2: https://imgur.com/a/M82HoRX

The Lakers logo is almost completely faded. They also changed up the design a tiny bit with font sizes and such. Mainly though, look at that shit! The other one lasted 17 years and it still looks pretty damn good.

Go back to making them the old way Lakers. The quality was long lasting. Whatever you're doing now is terrible.

Edit: thanks for the gold my fellow keychain quality enthusiast