With Chris Sheridan, our founder, ranking teams on Sundays and mine running Wednesdays, we become the first dual-ranking (duel-ranking?) NBA site, at least done by guys who have been around long enough to have seen Dr. Naismith personally take the ball out of the peach basket at YMCA in Springfield, Mass. I happen to know the old guy only went up that ladder once so they could take his picture, and then he told a kid do it. Chris says they punched
Heisler: Lakers and Clippers will Battle for Blake in 2014
LOS ANGELES – Now about those exciting new Clippers … They’re definitely new with five starters who were on four different teams last season. They’re guaranteed to excite, too, with Blake Griffin, the game’s most spectacular player since Julius Erving, or ever, Chris Paul trying to see how high he can throw a lob Blake can jam, and everyone putting on a nightly highlight reel. Unfortunately for them, they’re still the Clippers, yet to distinguish themselves from The Band You’ve Known For All
Heisler: ‘Day at the beach’ now means ‘Lakerdom falling into the sea’
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
Heisler Column: Taking LA’s other team seriously—the Lakers, we mean
LOS ANGELES — Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses… I know, it’s the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. They’re also thinking of inscribing it on the statue of Blake Griffin and Chris Paul going up outside Staples Center to welcome Laker fans fleeing the oppression of paying $2,700 to sit courtside for geriatric basketball. Wait a moment, am I sleeping? It was all just a dream! It looked so real! They had an exhibition game and the Clips, with five
Heisler Column: David Stern as Charlton Heston
OK, what was that all about? With the conductor striking up the band but no parade in sight, last week in the NBA was like “Planet of the Apes,” with the one of the lost astronauts escaping from the ruling species and gaining his freedom, only to find he’s on post-nuclear-holocaust Earth! Not that David Stern vetoing the trade sending Chris Paul to the Lakers was as dramatic as Charlton Heston ranting, “You maniacs. You blew it all up. Damn you all
Heisler Column: Now watch the stars stampede to big markets
Good news for you little markets … You’ll be making a lot more money! Unfortunately, as far as competing with the big teams, they’ll be them and you’ll still be you for a while, or, possibly, forever, whichever comes last. Whether it was overdue or the owners were due that much, they redressed the economic balance once and for all. Of course, there was a price — and, as usual, it was their non-economic demands that would have leveled the playing field for the
Heisler Column: Morning in Lakerdom: $150 mill profits, Dwight and CP3 too?
LOS ANGELES — What was THAT about? Chris Sheridan and I were both wrong on our predictions that the NBA would start on time (Chris), or by Dec. 1 (me). On the other hand, actual events, which were always going to reveal the real deal, proved our basic premise: The NBA was in far better shape than it claimed, citing $300 million annual losses, making a long work stoppage, as Spock used to say, most illogical (which in Vulcan can mean anything
Heisler column: OK wackos, whose move is it?
The 1 Percent Solution (Cont.): Let’s see, a 2 percent difference, divided by two warring parties is … Anyone? Anyone? OK, it’s still insoluble for NBA owners and players, now reportedly down to back-channel contacts, which may just mean Tim Frank and Dan Wasserman, the p.r. guys, found themselves in the same line at Starbucks. On the other hand, if the side at 50 percent of revenue isn’t in touch with the side at 52 percent while their lawyers prepare to sue each other