In hoops, too, it's a California thing By Eric Neel Page 2 columnist |
The conventional wisdom, the word from pundits, the story on the street, the buzz in bars and bus stations, is that the regular season is a formality this year. As good as Dallas and San Antonio are (and they're both very good), ask any prognosticator, oracle, columnist or call-in host you know -- they'll all tell you we're headed back to Cali for the Western crown.
So, the question is, who will win this time around? Four in a row, or the birth of a new era? Big brother delivers another slap-down, or kid brother finally turns the tables? What's it gonna be? You're a student of the game, you get your fantasy stats delivered by e-mail, you read Chad Ford and David Aldridge religiously, and you bought the domestic-strife satellite package so you could watch games every night, in every city, even Denver. You're dialed-in. You're looking for patterns and indicators in the next 81 games. You have your eye on Keon Clark and Tracy Murray, looking to see how each guy blends in -- is Keon making interior passes? Does Murray get the kick-out from Shaq, and what's his shooting percentage from beyond the arc? You know Kobe's body-fat and muscle-mass numbers. You're casting about on eBay for bootleg X-rays of Mike Bibby's foot right now, and you know a guy who works the parking lot at the Staples Center, who knows a guy who sells hot dogs inside, who knows a guy who stands outside the door to the locker room, who swears he knows the guy who stocks the tape for the trainer's room, and he says Shaq's toe is healing nicely. You keep your ear to the ground, you do your homework. You chart each team against common opponents, especially Dallas, San Antonio and New Jersey. You keep Shaq's free-throw and Webber's rebound numbers in Excel files. Just the basics.
So you tune to the low frequencies, you ask yourself, What are the hidden factors? What are the intangibles? Where is the mojo? Who's got soul, who's super-bad? As with so many things between these two teams, it's tight, maybe even a push. But rest assured, at some point in the next eight months, there are little things, old things, immeasurable but absolutely crucial things, that will contribute to how the West is won. I can't say how or when, but the Kings are going to rely on things like this: New unis. Sometimes it's not about matchups, or even key shots in big moments. Sometimes it's about feeling good in your new duds. Heartbreaking back-to-back losses in the old duds? Go shopping, break the mold, run a black stripe down your side, bust out some neo-goth, Draculaesque lettering. Whatever makes you feel good. You're beautiful. You deserve it. (Note: The new uniforms are fine, and a fresh start is a fresh start, but if they really wanted to work the sartorial magic, the Kings should have gone old school and brought back the early-80s, name-below-the-number jerseys. That way, they'd be tapping into all that Sam Lacey-Scott Wedman power.)
Hunger. The Kings haven't won a title since they were the Rochester Royals in 1951. They have all kinds of want-to stored up in their coffers. Their desire has a very serious edge to it. Loose balls, lucky bounces, judgment calls -- they're all drawn to hunger. Plus, though there's no evidence of it yet, the Kings have to figure eventually a little fat-cat syndrome is going to take effect with the Lakers. Forget the bickering -- the champs seem to thrive on -- what the contenders have to hope for is some bliss and contentment, a little invincibility, a certain ripe smell in the air.
The hate thing. I'm talking about the town. Sacramento is salt-of-the-earth. The people have no time for the glitz and glamour thing down south, but they've got lots of contempt for it, lots of healthy disdain, and a fair amount of genuine hate. The Lakers claim they're above the fray, that the Kings are just another opponent. That doesn't play in Sacramento. In Sactown, the Lakers are the prey in the crosshairs. They plot like mad professors, they squeeze their collective bad feeling for L.A. into a powerful beam of light that, when the time is right, will shoot from their super-conductor, Lakers-busting raygun and burn a whole right through the champs and then, and then, they will, yes, yes, yes, take over the world, ha-ha! Tiny Archibald. I don't have to spell this out for you, do I? OK, let's put it like this: Cut open Mike Bibby's chest and you'll find a second heart, a Tiny one. Coast-to-coast love. The Kings-Royals have played in Rochester, Cincinnati, Kansas City (and for a while they were known as the K.C.-Omaha Kings -- a grammatical oddity that undoubtedly provides some sort of that's-just-goofy, confuse-the-other-guy mojo from time to time) and Sacramento. They have fans all over the country. That's a lot of love barreling down highways and screaming across phone lines and into Sacramento. Add to that the general anti-Laker, anti-California vibe that seems to float on the wind in just about every state in the union and you have a pretty serious constituency. Nicknames. Peja, Hedu, C-Webb. Handles are good, they provide a certain crucial liquidity to a team's play, they make things flow a little more smoothly, with a little more savoir-faire. Comradery. Look at that dance thing they do in a circle before games. It's silly, yeah, but you have to be brave and loyal to be willing to look that silly in front of a packed house and a big TV audience. Second sight. According to a piece in Sports Illustrated, the Kings are running all sorts of sets and variations based only on eye contact. I also heard a rumor that they do this thing where Vlade is sitting in the locker room, looking at a card with a black triangle on it, and Webber will be driving on the way to the arena, and he'll know what shape Vlade sees, then he'll start to hum a tune and Vlade, miles away, will sing the lyrics out loud. Someone told me Bobby Jackson helps the Sac police solve crimes, too -- sees bodies in abandoned fields in his mind's eye, that kind of thing. I hear Bibby plans to bend a spoon with his mind before tip-off of Game 1. You don't want to mess with this kind of thing.
And the Lakers? You think they win three straight titles without a little bag of intangible goodies hanging from their belts? You think Robert Horry's shot rips the net without some extra magic flowing through the system? I didn't think so. When the chips are down, when the boys are really up against it, the Lakers can count on: The memory of Chick. Some players dribble, some shoot, some run, but Lakers, then, now, and forever, "yo-yo up and down," make "dribble-drives," "slaaaaam dunk," shoot "finger rolls," and run the "give-and-go." They play in the tradition of the poets, in the comfort of words chosen, given and repeated just for them.
What's a Laker? In Minneapolis, the name made sense. In L.A., it's what ... a reference to Echo Park, to the reservoir up in Silver Lake? Incongruous names are a bad thing if you've never won a title -- see the almost-but-not-quite madness that afflicts the criminally misnamed NBA team from Utah. If you have won a title, however, or if, say, you've won three in a row, or, say, five in the '80s, an incongruous name is part of your mysterious edge, part of your wacky misdirection; it makes you like Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in "The In-Laws," all serpentine action, and hard targetlike. Indifference. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or burst any bubbles, but folks in L.A. don't really give folks in Sacramento too much thought. All the venom coming down I-5 is usually met with an "uh-huh, OK, whatever, you keep plugging, little brother." In a lot of ways, Shaq is the perfect Laker because, like Wilt before him, he brushes guys off (or they bounce off him). It's all about eyes on the prize with the Lakers, guys don't get caught up in thinking about the opposition, even when it's as good as the Kings. Magic. Look at the tapes. Look at that no-look, dump-it-off-over-the-right-shoulder thing he did to Fat Lever that one time. Wicked. The same old unis. Classic lines, bold, contrasting colors, lettering that says speed. If it ain't broke ?
They're unloved. Not in L.A., of course, in L.A., there is a whole lotta love for the Lakes, even among the Valley types who are threatening to secede from the city on Tuesday. But outside of Los Angeles, this is the team the country loves to hate. The players know that, and they use it. They've got the bunker, fox-hole mentality working for them. They might not dance in a circle, but the comraderie thing is covered nonetheless.
Free throws. Everyone says the big man should hit them. Everyone says his performance at the line is going to cripple them one day. But he doesn't, and it doesn't. This drives the opposition batty. What they thought they knew has been turned upside down. The game, which ought to feel natural and intuitive to them, feels somewhat alien and confusing in the Shaq-throw era. What else? Kareem's goggles. Spencer Haywood's double-jointed hands. Bob McAdoo's McAdoo-McAdoo. The way the Angels kept the championship vibe alive in the southland. Derek Fisher's headband. Jack's sunglasses, Shaq's performance on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" last season, and a bubbling, cultural-diversity, city-wide renaissance thing going on in Los Angeles these days. Eric Neel reviews sports culture in his "Critical Mass" column, which will appear every Wednesday on Page 2. You can e-mail him at eneel@cox.net. |
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