Killing the Last Five Minutes of Work

Almost time for the weekend. A real quick note, before I leave for an exciting weekend of helping my parents move.

I have been reading Chuck Klosterman's Final Four Blog on ESPN.com. The guy is hilarious. It's kinda like reading Simmons. Just fresher and better. Especially if you read Simmons latest right before. And, his ESPN headshot looks like Corey Feldman's character from Stand By Me:

"Looney, looney, looney."

Anyway, Go UCLA.

Asides 9

Flushing it down.

/*
It's that damn zone. I never thought that I would be missing Vlad Rad too much during his injury but it might have been nice to have him around against Memphis' zone. Instead, with Kwame out, Bynum not being a presence on the block, and the defense daring everyone to shoot from far, the non-Vladimir Lakers let loose 35 threes. I hate when the Lakers do that, settle for too many threes. But the funny thing is, when I checked the boxscore, I noticed that they were 13-35 from 3PT land (37.1% -- not bad) and 20-61 (32.8% -- not not bad) for all other field goals. Turns out it was all those missed lay ups that killed them. Who'da thought?
*/

/*
You have heard many commentators talk about it, but you rarely see a coach call for his team to foul when up by 3 with less than 10 seconds left, giving the team that's trailing 2 free throws and preempting a three point attempt (wow, never tried describing that scenario in words before). Tony Barone actually did it at the end of this last game. And I was thinking, oh man he fucked up. Because, you need some seriously clutch free throw shooters on your team to for this to work out. And it almost backfired when Hakim Warrick missed one of two free throws giving the Lakers one final shot, down by 3. Of course, Smush ended up shooting our last shot so...
*/

/*
Speaking of Smush's last three, I thought that was an interesting touch by Phil Jackson. For one, he figured that no one would be expecting the play to be drawn up for Smush, especially after he had just missed a crucial shot (3 pointer, top of the key, 13 sec left, Lakers down 3, Kobe wide open one pass away). So, he got a pretty good look. But the other interesting thing about that play was that it shows that Phil is very aware of Smush's fragile psyche. I once wrote something about how when Smush makes a mistake, he basically tries to make up for that mistake as soon as possible. You can tell, it seriously kills him and it causes him to lose focus. So, I thought it was cool of Phil to give him the chance to redeem himself for the earlier miss, to show that kind of confidence in him. Now we have to see how he recovers from missing that shot.
*/

/*
More Mj v. Kobe from Lazenby. Kobe haters, begin your indignant pouting...now.
*/

/*
The Dodgers traded Elmer Dessens to Milwaukee for Brady Clark. Seems like pretty standard news at this point in the spring. Marginal pitcher for marginal outfielder. Done and done. But check out this observation from Dodger Blues:

One last note on the trade: With Dessens gone, Brady Clark becomes the Dodgers' last link to Mike Piazza. Back in '98, of course, Piazza was traded to the Marlins for Gary Sheffield, Jim Eisenreich, and Bobby Bonilla. After the 2001 season, Sheffield was sent to the Braves in exchange for Brian Jordan and Odalis Perez. Jordan eventually left as a free agent, but Perez was traded last year to Kansas City for Dessens. Now, with Dessens on his way to Milwaukee, it's Clark's turn to hold the Piazza Torch. Maybe he can find Rupert Murdoch and burn him with it.

Piazza for Brady Clark.
*/

Something's Not Quite Right

At least they are winning now. That's what I try to remember. But there are two reasons why I am wary of getting really excited about the Lakers' five game win streak.

1) The lack of defense. It would be different if the Lakers were coming into each game with a strong defensive effort, making it a point to hold their opponents to a reasonable point total. However, it seems as if they are content to just try to outscore them which, we've all seen, does not work in the long run (the Suns appear to be an exception, but we'll see. honestly, I'd take Dallas over them solely because they play better D). The Lakers, in the month of March (5-7), have given up an average of 110 points per game. Bothersome, but even moreso if you consider this:

In the 7 game losing streak: 110 pts allowed per game
In the 5 game winning streak: 110 pts allowed per game

Basically, the only reason why we're 5-7 in March and not something more like 2-10 is that Kobe decided to start putting up Wilt Chamberlain like numbers. Vitrually NOTHING has changed on the defensive end.

To their credit, they did sack up a few times and got some pretty clutch defensive stops over the course of the winning streak, but still...

2) They seem extremely fragile right now. Lamar, Luke, Kwame, and now Smush are all playing in pain and even though he won't admit it (or just doesn't notice it any more), so is Kobe. That's all the starters. As for the bench, the depth that set them apart earlier this season has been reduced by injury (Cook, Evans), stupidity (Radmanovich), and youthful ineptitude (Farmar, Bynum). Everything seems so difficult right now. Lamar's shoulder won't allow him to shoot from outside of 17 feet (which actually might be a good thing), Kwame can barely get off the ground, and Luke, slow as it is, has lost a step laterally. They are basically a facade at this point and again, this is a problem that has been masked recently by Kobe's heroics.

To summarize, they say that someone's heart doesn't show until they show the ability to press on in the most dire of circumtances. That's the best way I can describe what is going on right now with the Lakers. If the Lakers were a boxer, they'd be entering the 9th round with weak legs, a guard that can no longer protect, and a mind that is hitting the proverbial wall. All they have left is heart. And a devastating right hook.

And unless they catch a second wind, especially on the defensive end, that's all the Lakers will have come playoff time: A puncher's chance.

65, 50, 60

That looks like my midterm scores from freshman year physics.

I think I'll leave it to Lazenby to summarize my feelings on Kobe's amazing run:

After Bryant scored 60 in a road win over the Memphis Grizzlies recently, Jackson told reporters, “At one point, we got the offensive rebound and (had) a whole new 24-second (shot clock) left. Lamar (Odom) gave the ball right back to him and Kobe went right back at them. He just smells blood in the water and he’s going to go after you.”
I interviewed Jackson many times during his years as coach of the Chicago Bulls. The “blood in the water” quote was the sort of commentary he frequently offered about the incomparable Michael Jordan.
In Bryant’s career with the Lakers, I can’t recall Jackson offering a truly Jordanesque quote about Bryant. Oh, Jackson has had plenty of nice things to say, some of them genuine.
But I perceive this quote as different. Kobe Bryant has finally achieved the status he has sought so long.
He finally has neared the level of respect, even reverence, that Jackson accorded Jordan.
...
But there’s no question this is a new day. Bryant has arrived at his moment, able to use his full arsenal truly for the first time. His three big scoring games in a row all resulted in Lakers wins. He is the man at last, the dominance he sought in his youthful vision.
There’s only a sense, that as the team charges down the schedule toward the playoffs, there are more big performances to come, each of them to be prized the way Phil Jackson once prized Jordan’s every move.

The whole Air Apparent thing has died down in the last couple of years. After Jordan retired, everyone assumed that someone like him would take the helm and lead the league into the future. Grant Hill, Penny, Kobe, McGrady were all labelled as the 'Next Jordan' at some point in their careers and all, to this day have not yet come through. And thanks in no small part to the arrival of LeBron, Wade, and Melo and the emergence of Dirk and Steve Nash - all very different players in terms of size, style, and skill set - it seems as if the focus has been removed from identifying the next archetypical shooting guard in the mold of Michael Jordan.

But just when you resign yourself to the possibility that there will never be another Michael Jordan, Kobe steps up and does something that makes you re evaluate things. And I think it's becoming clear. Although these comparisons between Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan have been going on for many years, they are now starting to become really serious. Don't think so? Go ask their coach.

Furcal Injured

Via Dodger Thoughts:

Arguably the team MVP, with no legitimate backup in the organization outside of a major position shift, Rafael Furcal now has Dodger fans holding their breath.

'One batter into the game, Baltimore's Corey Patterson hit a high pop to shallow center. Furcal went out, Repko came in. Repko made a diving catch, and Furcal jumped over him to avoid a collision. It was when Furcal came down from that short jump that he landed on his left ankle and remained on the ground for several minutes before trainer Stan Conte finally drove him off the field on a cart, with assistant trainer Todd Tomczyk holding Furcal's ankle motionless in the flat bed of the cart. This looks bad right now. Really bad. More when I know more.'

(quote from Tony Jackson of the Daily News)

Why couldn't this have happened last year when we had a Gold Glove SS on the bench?

Sneaky Bastard

Frank McCourt raised the parking prices at Dodger Stadium from $10 per game to $15 per game so that "the free-for-all to get in and out of the stadium should give way to a more orderly system."

Is it just me, or is anyone else bothered by the fact that a man who made enough money to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, simply by owning a parking lot, just raised stadium parking prices by 50%? According to the article:

About 20,000 cars park at the stadium for most games, so the 50% price increase works out to $100,000 a game in additional revenue, or $8.2 million for the season. About 15% of that will go toward paying about 100 additional parking attendants — double the current number — who will direct fans into specific parking spaces.

Really? Just 15% of 8.2M for more attendants? No satellite parking lot with a shuttle system? No new entrances and exits? If you look at the diagram it looks like all they did was add some new lettered signs and some new road paint for some directional arrows. Oh and they arranged the rest of the numbered parking lots into some sort of discernable order. I'm sure that required a 6 figure line item for a sorting consultant.

McCourt claims that "The challenge at Dodger Stadium is that 20,000 cars all want to be there at the same time and leave at the same time." Uh, yeah. What he fails to realize is that this is not the challenge at Dodger Stadium per se, that's human nature. People in general want to show up just in time for the opening pitch/tip off/ kick off/face-off/ or whatever the hell they do to start Soccer and leave as soon as the game is over. Some arenas/stadiums have well planned parking systems (or public transportation) that allow this to happen. Others, such as Dodger Stadium, are built in a ravine. There's the challenge. However, this plan doesn't seem to do anything to mitigate that fact.

But of course, I will reserve final judgement until I actually have a chance to witness the effects of these changes first hand. However, just for fun let's take a look at this Dodger owner's resume thus far in terms of Non-baseball operations related moves.

+ The unceremonious dismissal of announcer Ross Porter
+ The infamous Dollar Tuesday night
+ The horrible, foul territory eating, field level seat additions in 2005 that featured zero rise and poor view for everyone but the front couple of rows (Basically, non stadium seating in a fucking stadium -- they had to be redone.)
+ The ads on the outfield wall
+ The ribbon screen that lines the stadium loge level balcony (more ads) and the poor bastards deep in the field level sections who are partially blocked by it
+ The all-you-can-eat-deal in the Outfield Pavilion and the poor bastards who will have to clean the Pavilion section bathrooms

Well at least he wrote Angela's Ashes.

Weekend Notes

+ First of all, how about it for USC and UCLA making the sweet 16. The Pac-10 is soft. The Pac-10 is overrated. Whatever. Three teams in the sweet 16, including our two SoCal teams. Sounds pretty good to me. The best part? USC and UCLA have two great coaches and two high level recruits (Mayo, Love) coming in next year.

+ Did you see how hype Kobe got during the Minnesota game? Like after Luke gave him that dime on the 2 on 1 (Kobe got an and1). He slapped Luke's hand like 7 times and hugged him and screamed at him. All while Luke just stood there undoubtedly confused. Or after he got that other and1 late in the game in which he waded through several bumps and slaps and made a short jumper from around the free throw line. He walked off toward the scorer's table screaming something along the lines of "Fuck these motherfuckers! blahablahg Fuck blahblah Fuck." The ESPN broadcast showed it twice in slow motion. I hope he doesn't get suspended.

+ Lost in the excitement of Kobe's big game last night against Minnesota was the three near triple doubles (a team triple triple-double) by Lamar, Luke, and Smush (Smush!). Here are their lines:

Lamar: 16 pts, 9 rebs, 8 assts
Luke: 10 pts, 8 rebs, 11 assts
Smush: 19 pts, 7 rebs, 9 assts
--------------------------------
Total: 45 pts, 24 rebs, 28 assts

There's lots of talk right now about how Kobe has been onemanshowing it the last few games. And that may be true from the scoring standpoint. But this shows that the other guys aren't just gonna stand there with their thumbs up their respective asses (or each other's for that matter).

+ Seeing Kobe shoot the Lakers back into that game against Portland made me think about that one game in 2004 (the Malone-Payton Campaign) in which the Lakers beat the Blazers in double OT to clinch the Pacific Division title. In that game, Kobe hit a three to tie it in regulation and then hit another to win it in double OT.

Kobe for the tie:
Kobe pump faked about 3 times trying to get Ruben "KobeStopper" Patterson in the air but he did not bite. So Kobe said fuck it, and he jumped to the right and leaned in and made it anyway. By the way, the photo to the left is named KobeTai.jpg. I have more than one of these.

Kobe for the win:
Then, with about 2 seconds left in double OT, the Lakers down 2, Kobe caught the ball near the left wing, and fading away, he launched a rainbow shot over the oncoming Theo Ratliff. Swish. Kobe landed on his heels and almost fell down before running down court in celebration. After the game, Ruben asked Kobe for a signed pair of his shoes and promised to never again call himself the KobeStopper. Then he tried to kiss to Kobe.

+ The turnaround, fadeaway three that all but sealed it in OT on Friday night was more impressive than both of those 2004 shots. By far. That one was a piece of art.

Good Weekend

Kleiza'd

For about a quarter and a half, the Lakers teased us, showing us a brief glimpse of the team that rolled to a 26-13 record to begin the season. Then this guy starts dropping bombs on us.

I swear I played with that guy at the park once. And no, he didn't miss then either.

But at the very least, if silver linings are to be drawn from a dull gray sky, it's that for a quarter and a half, they showed they still got it.

That is all.

Asides 8

/*

An unnatural basketball act.

A very astute comment by Luke:

"He [Kobe] hits us with elbows all the time [in practice]. It's part of the game. I know they're trying to clean it up, but you can't just start calling someone dirty because he's playing the same way he's always played."

To me, if the league would be more vocal about their efforts to clean up the game, then it wouldn't be an issue about whether or not Kobe is a dirty player. Maybe more people will notice that it's not necessarily Kobe's game that has become dirty but rather that the league has lowered (or raised, depending on how you look at it) its standard as to what is dirty and what isn't.

That said, if the league were to spin their recent disciplinary actions as an official crusade to clean up the league, they may be biting off more than they could chew. They would be forced to uphold the consistency of their punishments league wide rather than just with Kobe. They would be suspending someone everyday. So basically, Kobe is just shit out of luck that he got busted in the first place and how that places him squarely under the microscope from here on out.

You could argue, as Phil did (50 K), that it's a witch hunt. But I have tried and tried and I still cannot come up with a scenario in which it is good for the league to suspend Kobe. Well, actually I can, but it always leaves me sounding like Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory.
*/

/*
Speaking of Luke. He's supposed to play tonight. The Lakers record since his injury: 6-15. Holy shit.
*/

/*
I got my tickets for my 13 game package at Dodger Stadium. I go in on the ticket package with about 5 other dudes, all in their early 40s, almost all of them married with young kids (my stepdad's friends, not including my stepdad for some reason). They do not get out much. Hilarity ensues. Trust me, you'll hear more about these guys as the games go by.

Monday April 9 Colorado Rockies (Opening Day) - Ever gotten drunk on 6 jack and cokes in the Dodger Stadium parking lot at 11:30 am? Ever have 2 hot dogs, 4 beers, and an ice cream sundae in a plastic Dodger helmet? Ever take a shit on the steep dirt hill that flanks one of the fringe stadium parking lots? Was it diarrhea? Did you use your underwear and your socks to clean up? I repeat. THEY DO NOT GET OUT MUCH.
Tuesday April 10 Colorado Rockies - I will have 5 extra tickets for this game.
Friday April 20 Pittsburgh Pirates - I played on the Pirates in little league, so ...
Tuesday April 24 San Francisco Giants - Fuck the Giants
Tuesday May 1 Arizona Diamondbacks - Eh, do I have to? Screw it, I probably won't go
Tuesday May 15 St. Louis Cardinals - Watch my Dods try to take it to the champs. Pooholes.
Friday May 25 Chicago Cubs - Prior and Wood will be injured, watch
Friday June 8 Toronto Blue Jays - Never seen the Blue Jays before
Friday June 15 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim - versus the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles
Friday June 29 San Diego Padres - Fuck the Padres
Friday July 6 Florida Marlins - I have always wanted a Furcal Bobblehead
Tuesday July 17 Philadelphia Phillies - Ryan Howard
Tuesday July 31 San Francisco Giants - Chinga los Gigantes
Tuesday August 14 Houston Astros - I have absolutely nothing to say about them. Doesn't that just say it all about the Houston Astros?
*/

Eternal Optimist

It's as long a shot as you could bet, but I still have hope for this season. I am not Roland Lazenby.

Godspeed, Laker fans.

I Don't Understand Stu Jackson

It was announced today that Kobe will be assessed a retroactive Flagrant I for his bow to Kyle Korver.

This is exactly what I thought the league should have done in response to Kobe's elbow to Manu Ginobili. Allow myself to quote...myself:

But a suspension? How about a retroactive Flagrant I?

I mean to me, the hit on Manu was at worst, a loose ball foul. A loose ball foul that didn't get called because there was less than 10 seconds left and the refs had swallowed their whistles; trust me, there have been greater travesties in the last 10 seconds of an NBA game. But if the league, from its high horse, really wanted to dole out a non-trivial punishment over the heads of the game refs, then the retroactive Flagrant I would have effectively disciplined Kobe without taking him away from the MSG crowd last night.

Seriously, it's what Jesus would have done.

My whole problem with the two suspensions was that I felt like a step was skipped, a level in the hierarchy of punishment was completely ignored. In the Manu incident, the punishment went from nothing (a non call) to a suspension. In the Jaric case, it went from a loose ball foul to a suspension. In both cases, I felt like the retroactive flagrant I would have been wholly more appropriate.

The fact that the league would draw attention to this by exemplifying that they can, in fact, "reclassify fouls or non-calls as flagrant fouls," is mindboggling. Because all this will do is motivate vigilant fans and journalists to ask the question, what exactly was the difference between the Korver elbow and the Manu/Jaric incidents and why was there such a disparity in the severity of the respective punishments?

All In

Lamar Odom is coming back on Thursday v. Denver. This reeks of:
1) Desperation
2) Courage
3) A cortisone shot

The Lakers are getting close to the bottom rung of the rope ladder and the helicopter is beginning to ascend. As they fall, rung by rung, the amenities that come with being higher are lost. Home court advantage. Favorable matchups. Resting players for the push. But as they fall, rung by rung, they narrow their focus on a more fundamental goal: not being left on the ground. And the grip tightens.

Memorable Lakers: Elden Campbell

Earlier this week, a friend asked me what I thought about Elden Campbell and his place in the storied Laker history.

I will always remember Elden as the quintessential "serviceable big man." He could play center or power forward. He was fairly mobile, fairly good hops. Had a decent back to the basket game, even if he couldn't turn his head without his whole body following (trust me, this made for many ineffective head fakes). And for whatever reason he loved dunking with his left hand.



Elden was never supposed to be a star in the NBA. Once in while, especially during periods when Shaq went down with injury, Elden would throw up nice a 24 and 12. But he couldn't be counted on to do that night in and night out. He was a good shot blocker. A good rebounder. He made his free throws. And he rarely made big mistakes. He was, well, serviceable.

How would I describe these headshots? You guessed it: serviceable.

He probably would have meant more to Laker fans if he didn't have the charisma of a potato. But I will say this. The departure of Elden Campbell left a huge void at power forward that the Lakers struggled mightily to fill, even as they were winning Championships. J.R. Reid, Dennis Rodman, A.C. Green, Robert Horry, Horace Grant, Samaki Walker, Mark Madsen - all came and went. Some got the job done. Some were horrible. Some were just good enough. The point is, when facing the likes of Tim Duncan, Chris Webber, and Rasheed Wallace yearly in the playoffs, the Lakers would have been a lot better off if they still had Elden.

Don't believe me? Think about this. The Lakers were 8-2 against the San Antonio Spurs when they had both Shaq and Elden in the lineup, including a run of 6 in a row heading into their final regular season matchup of the 1998-99 season. At the time, much was being made about the Spurs and their twin tower model featuring Duncan and David Robinson, thus this was no ordinary feat. But after Elden got traded (with Eddie Jones) to Charlotte for Glen Rice and J.R. Reid (and BJ Armstrong) , the Spurs KILLED the Lakers by 27 in that final regular season matchup, and then owned the Lakers in the playoffs with a dominating sweep on their way to the 1999 NBA title*. So basically, keeping Elden could have been the key to starting the Laker Dynasty a year earlier and ending the Spurs Dynasty before it even started. Imagine that.

* I think we all know what this means: Fuck the Spurs.

Notes on the Game -- KOBE SUSPENDED

+ Stu and Joel Meyers 'called' both overtimes. First Joel chimes in, Lakers up 2 and about 5.2 seconds left in regulation, with "Oh I hope we don't see overtime." Then, after scolding Joel for his comment, Stu comes back with a similar comment at the end of the first overtime. I hope they feel good that they were right.

+ How you like that one play toward the end of regulation that started with KG guarding Kobe and ended with Jaric swatting the shit out of Kwame? Weird game all around last night.

+ That travel they callled on Bynum toward the end (he was trailing the play, caught the pass as he was streaking down the lane, took two steps and a jump stop - the pro hop - and then went up) was the very same 2.5 steps that I've seen NBA players do since I can remember. I guess it's only a travel when you're that big and you can make up almost 15 feet without dribbling. That, my friends, would be a double standard.

+ I really wish Smush would just make his free-throws rather than try to jinx Ricky Davis as he's shooting his.

+ Speaking of Smush, Kurt at Forum Blue and Gold had this to say about him the last couple of days, after his benching at the end of the PHX game for his porous defense:

I think it will be interesting to see how Smush responds to this at the start of the next game. Does he learn and change a little on the defensive end? Or does he try to go on a scoring binge, saying basically “you can’t afford to lose my offense right now?”

then,

As I said yesterday, I’m curious about how Smush comes out after his benching at the end of last game. My guess, he comes out gunning. But I hope I’m wrong.

Well, it looks like Kurt's worrying was somewhat validated by Smush's 24 points last night. But on a more general note, that's the thing that bothers me the most about Smush: the chip on his shoulder. He's always playing that disrespected role and it always seems like he's going out there with something to prove. Watch him after he makes a mistake. The very next play, he's going out there gambling to get a steal or taking his man one on one, trying to erase his mistake whether or not it makes sense for him to do so from a team standpoint. I realize that sometimes it's good that he has that chip, like when he pickpocketted Nash in game 4 of the PHX series last year, but for the most part you want a point guard who is poised, secure, and even keeled. And I feel like Smush's tendency to go out there and "get his," moreso than his skill set, is the reason why he is always seen as a back-up point guard. He's just so self conscious out there and it's obvious.

+ Kobe's arm flail on Jaric was the Manu/Suspension play all over again. But now the league has to decide whether or not to suspend him again and basically they're screwed either way they decide. If they don't suspend him, they're being inconsistent. If they do, they are suspending a player for an action that did not even earn him a flagrant foul from the game ref.

I realize that Kobe didn't get a flagrant foul that first time either and he got suspended anyway. However, that time, no foul was called at all leaving the refs with 2 outs: 1) they didn't see it or 2) they swallowed their whistles cause it was the end of a close game (an unsaid rule). But this time, a ref did see the play, blew the whistle, and assessed a loose ball foul. So now what? Are they going to suspend him for something that a league official, standing 2 feet away, saw as only a loose ball foul?

Probably.
Yes.

A Picture Says a Thousand Words

Yeah, well this one says just one: FUCK.

You might remember this picture from a post a couple of weeks ago. Well who would have thought it would turn out to be so prophetic.

So here we are, waiting for results. Not waiting for results as in awaiting progress of a young team full of potential. Which is where we probably should be had the injury bug not crawled up our collective ass, and then rolled its ankle. We are waiting for results in the sense that we are waiting for Doctors to tell us how the tests on Lamar's shoulder and Luke's ankle went.

UPDATE: This is from Mike Bresnahan of the LA Times:

Lakers forward Lamar Odom will wait two to three weeks before deciding whether to try to play again this season or undergo surgery on his left shoulder.

Odom's visit today in Los Angeles with shoulder specialist Lewis Yocum confirmed that Odom has a torn labrum that first showed up on an MRI exam Saturday.

Odom will now undergo therapy on his shoulder and see how it reacts. Important considerations over the next few weeks include range of motion, strength and level of pain in his shoulder.

D. Fish, Rob, and Foxy

The trouble I had with those All-Time Laker Team polls on LATimes.com stems from the fact that they ask me to make cross-generation comparisons of great players from different eras. And admittedly, I feel qualified to speak to just one era, the 90s to the present. I mean, I do remember Showtime. But only through the eyes of a single digit ager and thus my opinions would be unbalanced. For example, my one memory of Mychal Thompson in his playing days was him missing a big free throw, hence I think he sucked. And as for the Jerry West Lakers...yeah I've heard of them.

Predictably, this led me to be somewhat biased toward the players that I've actually watched play. And I'm sure that most people felt this effect to a degree. But I guess that's the challenge. Another challenge would be to not take meaningless online polls so seriously.

With that in mind, here is a poll that I made up that takes the differing eras element out of the equation.


Free Online Poll
Real quick, here are some pro/cons for each guy:


Robert Horry
Pro - "Horry, for the win!" and the like, defended Webber-Sheed-Duncan during the title years, bad ass muthafucker
(throwing towel at Danny Ainge should not count since he wasn't on the Lakers when he did it)
Con - Showed up only for the playoffs, wildly inconsistent, the 0 for 39 shooting streak during the 2002-2003 playoffs
Now - on last legs with the Spurs, at least one big shot left in him, possible play-off foe




Rick Fox
Pro - The clamps he put down on Peja (and others), great entry passer, blocking out Duncan so that Kobe could put in the game winning put back in Game 3 (I think) of the 2001-2002 WC Semis against San Antonio, countless right hand lay-ups from the left side, tough as nails
Con - His hair, "Foxy", slow
Now - D-list actor, banging lots of chicks in L.A.




Derek Fisher
Pro - Bull dog defender, high basketball IQ, has guns, 0.4, floor leader, dunked on Iverson in the 2001 Finals, taking charges both legit ones and flops, looked like Elvin from the Cosby Show
Con - Had trouble staying in front of certain guards (Bibby, Tony Parker, others), thought he could finish around the basket consistently (he couldn't), flopping/falling down while getting picked on a high pick and roll (that never gets called)
Now - Crafty veteran point guard on the Jazz, tutoring Deron Williams on big game dynamics, possible play-off foe

There you have it. Choose wisely for this decision will affect you for the rest of your life. That said, I hope Pat Riley doesn't sue me for using "Threepeat."

Busy Today, So Real Quick

For the last week or so, due to travel and various other distractions, I have been just a casual fan of the Lakers. Well, as casual as one can be with a hand painted Magic Johnson portrait on his wall. But what I mean is, I have not watched a full game since they lost to Portland to cap off their 6 game, rug burn inducing skid -- I saw all 6. And they haven't lost since. Should I watch the next game?

The first pitch of the Dodger's Spring Training season was thrown today. It was a strike. Nah, I don't know. But it was thrown.

One passing thought about Livingston: If he can somehow make it back from what turned out to be the worst knee injury ever suffered on a basketball court, suddenly all of the pressure and all of the expectations of being the future of a franchise are gone. He will no longer have to play through the self consciousness that comes with being that tantalizing prosepct with a wealth of unrealized potential because honestly, that wealth of potential just took a serious hit, at the hands of a freak accident no less. So, if he some how makes it back, and I really hope he does, he will already have proven himself as a special athlete and talent, only it would be in a way that no one could have predicted. And finally, he'd just be able to go out and play.

Not to say that this is in any way a silver lining, because the cold reality is that he may never play again, but it's just one more thing on a long list of things to hope for.