So now that the Superbowl matchup has been set, it’s time to
do the obvious.
Talk about the NBA
of course!!!
What an incredible
year it has been so far in the land of Stern.
Basketball has been fantastic this year, and the stories…
you couldn’t ask for better.
There
are so many already.
The Clippers
rise to prominence, the Thunder thriving after trading one of the best players
in the league, the amazing team ball being played in Oakland under head coach
Mark Jackson, New York playing inspired defense for the first time in over a
decade, and of course Miami’s first go round as the defending champion.
Pro basketball is in Brooklyn, and now
most likely, also back in Seattle next season.
And, oh yeah, San Antonio is good.
We will get to all of these fantastic story lines in the
coming weeks, but since I’m in LA, I have to chime in on the Laker season so
far.
Sorry to do something so
run-of-the-mill, but I just have to.
Really, what can you say?
It’s been absolutely incredible.
It’s what soap operas are made of, and so much more.
The irony of course is that you’d
expect this kind of stuff in tinsel-town on the low-brow screen, new drama
everyday, but not in real life; and certainly not involving the NBA’s most
storied franchise.
What is going
on around here?
I have many die-hard Laker fan friends and it’s been
something a case study observing the emotional roller-coaster they’ve been on
this year. Really, the Lakers ARE
this town and although Laker fans take a lot of heat, undoubtedly spoiled by
years of success, they are very good fans for the most part. They are extremely passionate; they
live and die by Lakers' wins and losses, even in November and December, when
most NBA cities are barely paying attention. I have to respect that, even if I don’t feel sorry for the
fan base that has had great teams in every single era throughout the NBA’s
history. Even the Boston Celtics
can’t make that claim.
Which brings us to this year, when the mighty Lakers were
supposedly bringing greatness into the new era.
They had constructed a super-team in the off-season,
bringing in not one, but TWO future Hall-of-famers, one of them in his prime,
Dwight Howard who also was widely considered the best center in the league.
So you team them with two future
Hall-of-famers already on the roster in Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, and
theoretically you had not just a super-team, but
the super-team.
One
who’s pieces fit together more harmoniously than other combinations we have
seen around the league in the last few years.
It was “can’t miss,” and every single sports radio
loud-mouth in this town was letting us know it.
Everyone was stoked for the start of the season.
And then it started.
I’ve never seen anything like the outrage that happened here
in those first three weeks.
The
Lakers went 0-8 in the preseason, which people weren’t happy about, but wasn’t
of much concern.
Coach Mike Brown
was tinkering with his lineups and guys were learning the new system.
But in the regular season it wasn’t
much better.
The team looked lost,
uninspired, and out-matched even by average teams.
Laker fans were frothing at the mouth!
The obvious solution was to replace
Mike Brown, who was the wrong coach to hire in the first place the year before,
as I always contended.
(Not to
toot my own horn or anything; lots of people knew this, except for Lakers owner Jim Buss apparently.)
So it happened, and everyone knew what was coming next.
Reports surfaced that the Lakers are
talking to Phil Jackson.
It made
so much sense.
He lives in
Manhattan Beach, pretty close to the practice facility, he is virtually married
to Jeanie Buss, (a team Vice President, real owner’s daughter, and current
“acting” owner’s brother,) his specialty is facilitating egos and finding ways
for great players to co-exist and thrive in his system, he only takes jobs with
veteran teams that have to win now (and this team desperately fits that
description,) new franchise cornerstone, Howard (who is a free agent at the end
of the season) was dying to play for him in the triangle, and the fans were
chanting “we want Phil” at the end of games while the Lakers were playing under
interim head coach Bernie Bickerstaff.
Oh, and it’s also worth noting that Phil Jackson is the greatest head
coach of
all-time in
any sport.
He’s already won eleven championships as a coach, including
five here with the Lakers.
It was a done deal.
Everyone knew it, and this town was percolating in blissful anticipation
and already dreaming of a deep play-off run. Phil was ready to come back to cement his legacy here, and to erase the memory of his uncharacteristically
unsuccessful last game back in 2011.
And then the news came down.
Ownership passed on Phil Jackson, in favor of Mike
D’Antoni.
I still can’t believe
this happened.
In real life.
In a film or cartoon, or a soap opera,
it would have been implausible; unbelievable.
It’s so ridiculous that no credible writer would put it on
the page.
You’d lose your
audience, they’d be insulted, unable to suspend their disbelief.
But it did really happen.
So now ownership had to explain
it.
They brought in D’Antoni and his up-tempo philosophy and he
waxed poetic about bringing back the old days of “showtime,” which was
predictable. The Lakers were
trying desperately to save face and what better way than to get nostalgic. Fans were weary though. They wanted to know what had gone wrong
with the obvious hire, and in response to this question came forth the most
egregious lie I’ve ever heard from an NBA team’s management.
Jim Buss said, that the front office’s collected opinion was
that the current roster was more suited for D’Antoni’s system than it was for
Phil Jackson’s triangle.
He
actually said that!
Meanwhile
every Laker fan knew this to be untrue.
Like all fans who play attention to basketball they knew that with two
7-footers who can co-exist together as great passers, two heady back court
players, Nash, who is also one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, and
then Kobe who is, well Kobe, the triangle was a natural fit.
Add to that a semi-decent supporting
cast and you can win over 50 games and make a deep playoff run.
And even if the triangle isn’t the
perfect fit (which it is) the
single
offense that you
wouldn’t want to
implement is D’Antoni’s uptempo offense, which needs young legs, stretch fours
who can shoot, and totally undervalues post players, as well as defense.
The
Lakers exploited their own weaknesses and negated their own advantage! It was absolutely incredible.
The other GM’s in the West must have toasted each other that
day.
Lakers management had taken a
huge risk, and it was clear that other factors must have been in play.
Because any objective person would agree that in your
particular situation, with Phil Jackson available and willing to coach your
team, even simply from a business perspective, you make that move 10 times out
10.
100 times out of 100.
3,456,687 times out of
3,456,687!!!
What???
Wow.
What could have been?
Sit down with Phil Jackson, sign him for one or two years, give him a
piece of management decisions, have him mentor someone to take over when he
retires.
Then your franchise is set for the
next ten years, with Dwight Howard and whoever else you bring in after the rest
of these guys retire.
But none of
that happened, and Laker fans are still shaking their heads. Or sitting in the front row wearing funny glasses.
The diehards talked themselves into it, and got behind
D’Antoni, and the rest is history.
Although not the good kind.
This “super-team” is flirting with missing the playoffs entirely, or at
best, squeezing into the seventh or eighth seeds and going out in the first
round. Either way, even diehard
Laker fans won’t look you in the eye when it comes up in conversation. It’s too painful for them.
And yet this is what underdogs are made of. They are certainly the most unlikely underdog in history, but here they are, the 2012-2013 Lakers. The little juggernaut that could. It'll be fun to see how far they can go.
And how this town will deal with it.
Thanks for reading,
Underdogs OUT!
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