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| Friday, November 17 Don't jump off that Laker bandwagon yet By Scott Howard-Cooper Special to ESPN.com |
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And I don't care. The Spurs are real, the Suns are promising, the 76ers are intriguing and the Jazz is still dangerous, or are still dangerous, or were still dangerous, or something like that. But it says here the Lakers are still the favorites. (Because either we'll come off looking good when they repeat in June or won't mind being real wrong because the magnitude of the flameout could make it worthwhile.) "When we're going on a 10- or 15-game winning streak," Grant said, "you'll see that bandwagon full again." Please keep your arms and legs inside until the dynasty has come to a full and complete stop. The Lakers opened by beating the Trail Blazers -- back when that meant something -- but since then have mostly grinded gears, winning on talent more than precision. They lost to Utah, which is understandable, then had a stretch of being taken into the fourth quarter by the Grizzlies and Clippers and losing to the Rockets while scoring 74 points in the process. None of which is understandable, except as isolated incidences. A loss at San Antonio came next, with 81 points this time. A six-point win over the Rockets, then a rare flexing, if only by involuntary only by involuntary muscle: a 119-103 win over Denver. Then, overtime against the Kings on Thursday night, impressive only because it came as they rallied from 13 points down with nine minutes left. Not that this ever has been a conventional team. The coach is Zen, the two superstars are now, and everything else falls somewhere in between, which is how you end up winning a championship and giving consideration to replacing three starters (Ron Harper made it back, but A.C. Green and Glen Rice didn't), having the top basketball man in the organization refusing to watch any of the Finals, and having the O'Neal-Kobe Bryant relationship charted closer around Hollywood than Demi-Bruce.
Not to mention:
The citizenry then breaks into predictable levels of outrage, meaning Jackson had successful accomplished his meaning. "I should think they would know Phil well enough by now not to let that bother them," said Tex Winter, in his 10th season as a Jackson assistant coach. "Really, I think the reason he does it is because he knows he gets under their skin. He has that prerogative, I suppose you'd call it at this point, because of the fact that he's been a winner." He has that need to be unconventional, too. "We have a league that promotes all these histrionics that go on before the game and try to make it all show and enthusiasm and we blow out $2-3-5,000 worth of fireworks before the game and make this thing into kind of a three-ring circus," Jackson said. "So I like to poke fun at it. That, I think, is the basis of it." The good news is that he still has case studies in his own locker room, and that's also the bad news. O'Neal and Bryant, after commendable growth last season, are getting chippy again, complete with all the code words. O'Neal says, "Write what you see," when asked about how things are going with Bryant, which, to anyone who ever passed through Lakerland, is like a distress flare being shot into the night. So why stay with them? Because it's early, mostly, and to jump off the Lakers now would be no different than wagering hard on the Cavaliers to reach the Eastern Conference finals, since 10 games makes not a season. Because they still have the most dominant player in the game and the best second option who, for added kicks, will defensively shut down three positions worth of opponents -- both backcourt spots and small forward. Because every team has problems, except that no one else has O'Neal and Bryant and Jackson. Because to jump off the Lakers now, you'd miss a memorable ride, one way or another.
Scott Howard-Cooper covers the NBA for the Sacramento Bee and is a new regular contributor to ESPN.com. |
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