Right now, the Clippers are clearly the best basketball team in Los Angeles. That much was evident Friday night.
But I know what’s coming in the newspaper and on talk radio — “LA is now a Clippers town!†The thing is, this will always be a Lakers town, but that doesn’t make exciting copy, doesn’t light up the phone lines.
Look at the two area baseball teams. Right now you see more people wearing Angel gear around than I can ever remember. The reason — they are winning and have household name players, the Dodgers are not and do not (save Gagne).
The Angels generated a fair amount of excitement in recent years because they have won. But that pales to the palpable excitement in the city the Dodgers generate when they win, when they are serious playoff contenders. The Dodgers are the Los Angeles tradition, the one that people hold fond childhood memories of, the one that elicits intense passion when they do well.
Los Angeles likes a winner, so right now they like the Angels, but they will always love the Dodgers.
The same is true of the area basketball teams. People like the Clippers now because they are winning, because Brand and Cassell and Maggette are good players. They’ll even find a way to like Chris Kamen’s hair.
But they love the Lakers. The Clippers will never be able to match the excitement that comes with the Lakers in the playoffs, the passion people have to see the Lakers good again. This is now and always will be a Laker town.
john says
probably right. if the clippers or angels generate enough of their own winning memories though, maybe ten or twenty years down the line they’ll have built a legacy themselves.
man, something has GOT to be done about kwame brown. i don’t mean trade or benching him, i mean focusing everything they can so he can give them something.
with mihm finally starting to show some consistency, and odom only having to taking a couple aggressive extra shots in a half to score more [he woulda had 20 if he made half his free throws last night], getting kwame out of his hole should be priority #1.
maybe he should come off the bench, since that unit doesn’t have a lot of scoring potential, and they can focus on giving him the ball a lot.
brian says
TRADES!! Kurt, we need to hear your thoughts on potential trades. I know its early in the season, and I may be panicking, but man – things are getting close to unraveling if the team doesn’t build some consistency.
Players I can see the team acquiring if the money lines up and we don’t have to give up too much:
Toni Kukoc
Malik Rose
Joe Smith (?)
Jalen Rose (more of a dream, but …)
Josh Childress (another dream, but his minutes are way down …)
– Hoping for a Ronny Turiaf (sp?) return later this season.
Any chance of Vlade coming back for a pro-rated minimum (I know there’s none, but with the current lack of depth in the frontcourt, even a shadow of Vlade’s former self could help with his passing and attitude!) ?
brian says
I forgot to mention Spree.
Is that $2.5 Million still available to spend?
Do you think he could handle playing the 1, moving Kobe to the 2, and Lamar to the 3?
Kurt says
I’m not the best trade forecaster ever, but I may try to do a post next week (the Lakers play Sunday then are off until Thursday).
I’ve never been up for getting Spree, there is not much left in his tank, but he thinks there is, which is usually trouble. Kukoc is okay, but I’m not sure what the Lakers need is a shooter and I’m not sure the Bucks want to move him, they have to be pretty happy right now.
If the Lakers are going to get something, they need size (or a guard that would allow Odom to go back to the four). Turiaf appears to be on course to come back at some point this season, but he’s not ready to step right in and play big minutes. He needs to come along more slowly. Bigs are hard to come by in the league because they are scarce (which is one reason to hope Bynum works out). That’s just some ramblings, let me think about it some and I’ll post more later.
john says
in my drunken stupor last night i forgot kwame got injured.
if any team would gamble with sprewell, it should be one with phil jackson as the coach. i was leaning toward wanting the lakers to sign him, now i say nah. the season’s on, the triangle oh so complicated to pick up.
those names you threw out were pretty interesting, if only because they sound doable. kukoc i bet would be too expensive by now. not to mention old. i know phil wasn’t in love with him but he sure provided an offensive punch off the bench.
speaking of which, have you noticed devean george has disappeared again in the last 3 or 4 games? and last night he played only 4 minutes. did i miss any reason why that happened also?
big says
His shadow, big clit videos the covers tight over my thoughts were four.