LOS ANGELES — Imagine that, another Laker bubble gets popped before the wife and kids can pick up the wrapping paper from their Christmas gifts…. “Here’s a timeshare in Hawaii for you, and one in Cancun for you, and a Rolls-Royce for Mom…. “Dad has to run downtown but we’ll eat at, like, 6 p.m.? “No problem. By 4, we should be winning by enough to coast in. We’re the Lakers.” Of course, even with local talk show hosts predicting they’d win 72 or
Archives for December 2011
NBA season 3 days old, so panic ebbs & flows
// That calming breeze you feel outside is the collective sigh of relief coming from the West, originating in Los Angeles. Unless the wind is blowing from the Northeast, near Boston. Then it’s cold and bitter. The folks who sit in the front row and wear their sunglasses indoors had a little extra bounce in their step as they strode to the valet stand last night, a measure of normalcy having returned to the Staples Center as the Lakers — the first team
Explaining the panic in Lakerdom
When you’ve won as many championships as the Lakers have (11 since moving to Los Angeles), your fans get spoiled. And what do spoiled people do? They whine when things don’t go their way. That’s not a knock on Lakers fans, it’s just the way I see it. I spoke about that particular fan dynamic tonight on the Sportsnet 590-The Fan radio in Toronto with host Roger Lajoie, and we also touched on the uptempo style the Miami Heat are playing, the surprising struggles
Tonight’s best game: Utah at LA Lakers
By this time Wednesday, the city of Los Angeles could be in a full-blown state of panic. Forget about earthquakes, brushfires or rolling blackouts, which are the customary causes for trouble in Tinseltown. No, it’s the Lakers, who will be trying to avoid an 0-3 start when they host the Utah Jazz. It’s the second game of TNT’s doubleheader, which means everything the Lakers say and do will be analyzed by their star-studded studio panel in a way that would shame Sheldon from
Perkins: Udonis Haslem, the Heat’s key “addition”
MIAMI — The first thing you notice about Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem is his hair. The trademark braids he wore for his previous eight NBA seasons are gone. Spending two hours a week getting his hair done finally got to be too much. But after you get over that initial shock of seeing Haslem wearing a medium-sized afro, you notice the rebounding, the toughness, the willingness to take charges, to get on the floor after loose balls. You see the art
Mavericks, Lakers lose again
The defending champion Dallas Mavericks got booed off their home court – and that happened before halftime. The L.A. Lakers lost in Sacramento for the first time in more than three years. The Chicago Bulls, lost, too, while the Nets, Raptors and Bobcats opened what promises to be a weird, wild, compressed NBA season with victories that left them all 1-0. Scratching your head? That’s OK. It’s allowed after these first 48 hours of NBA basketball that we all waited so long for are
Mitnick: NBA “All-Import” Team, Euro-rules style
TEL AVIV –In most European countries, there are separate post-season awards for local players and import players. The NBA justly classifies all of its players into one category, as passports are a non-factor when post-season awards are up for discussion. While the approach taken by the NBA is certainly the right one, as the absolute acceptance of foreign players into the NBA has made a big impact on the league in the last two decades, and fans are always looking for
Day after Christmas a downer for Lakers, Celtics fans
// Did you get what you wanted? If you are a long-suffering Clippers or Knicks fan, you sure did. If you are a Mavericks fan, you sorta did (a banner), sorta didn’t (a shellacking). If you are a member of the tribes known as Lakers Nation and Celtics Nation, no you did not! Today dawned with a post-Christmas hangover in a lot of places where folks had been accustomed to having their wishes fulfilled and their dreams come true. The Lakers were up six
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