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
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
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
Kobe Bryant expects to play Sunday
As you can see from that video, it was a quiet night in the NBA as the final two exhibition games were played, Denver defeating Phoenix by 25 points despite playing without Nene, Ty Lawson, Al Harrington and Rudy Fernandez, and Atlanta defeating Charlotte by 17 despite a combined 0-for-7 performance off the bench by Tracy McGrady (0-for-4) and Jerry Stackhouse (0-for-3). So, ready or not, the 66-game NBA season is about to begin. And when then quintupleheader happens Sunday, Kobe Bryant
Wednesday night’s NBA highlights
By now you’ve probably heard that Kobe Bryant sat out last night’s game against the hallway rivals, the Clippers, because of a torn ligament in his right wrist. And surely y’all remember that cheap shot that Andrew Bynum delivered to J.J. Berea in last year’s playoff sweep, which resulted in a five-game suspension that Bynum will begin serving on Christmas Day. So the big guy is out until the new year, the Mamba is out until nobody knows when, and as Mark
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
Few hookups, and big breakups
The compressed offseason was supposed to be about hookups. On Friday, it was all about breakups. Hours after being chastised by Chauncey Billups, the New York Knicks began targeting his replacement at point guard. Billups met the media in Los Angeles on Friday, less than a week after he was surprisingly released by the Knicks via the amnesty clause. The five-time All-Star is still not over it. From Pedro Moura of ESPNLosAngeles.com: “Billups admitted he “contemplated” retiring after being claimed by the
Bryant rips Lakers for trading Odom
Elliott Teaford of the Los Angeles Daily News quick-posted a story after Lakers practice, quoting Kobe Bryant on last night’s trade that sent Lamar Odom to the Dallas Mavericks: “I don’t like it. To be honest with you, I don’t like it. I’ve known Lamar for a long time and for the team itself, he’s meant a lot. From a team chemistry standpoint, he was great at bringing guys together and things of that nature. I trust that management knows what