It was the worst of times. Then it was the best of times. There may never have been a more defining season in the history of the Lakers franchise than that of 1979-80 — it set the table for Showtime and the legend of Magic, it had Kareem near his peak, it had luck both […]
Lakers History
Happy 50th Birthday Magic
It seems fitting that today in downtown Los Angeles, a huge Lakers-sponsored 3-on-3 basketball tournament gets underway, one that is going to take over blocks of a revitalized downtown and bring hundreds and hundreds of people to play hoops. (You can go down and watch or still play, just follow the link.) None of that […]
Breaking down #37
Can there be yet another post about Ron Artest? Answer: There can never be enough posts about #37! This post will try to find evidence to support some popular hypotheses – some posed by yours truly. Let’s start on defense. Hypothesis #1. Ron is an excellent on-ball defender. Seems silly to doubt this point as […]
Relive It One More Time
I may just watch this on a loop all day long. I can’t thank all of you that come to this site, read and comment, and make this a real community. I am just the fortunate caretaker, it is all of you that make this site special, and made watching the Lakers reach this pinnacle […]
Game 2: The Pivotal Game
“It is the second game and not the first that dictates the tempo and the mood of the series.” -Brent Musburger before Game 2 after the “Memorial Day Massacre”. A brief history of the Lakers, The Finals, and Game 2. 1984: Gerald Henderson steals the ball. Celtics win in 7. 1985: Kareem has 30 points, […]
On Chuck Daly’s passing…
The game we watch today has Chuck Daly’s fingerprints all over it. From the ticky-tack nature of assessing what level of physicality is allowed to the way Kobe is guarded. It was Daly’s Bad Boys who, along with the Knicks and Pat Riley, turned the game “ugly” in the late 80’s and early 90’s by […]
You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone…
The title of this post is a reference to a famous Joni Mitchell song, Big Yellow Taxi. It’s a song that has been redone, reworked, and used multiple times in pop culture. But, this isn’t a music history blog and I’m not the guy to talk to about songs released in 1970. So, I’m not going to break down the melody or try to […]
The Curious Career of Glen Rice
In 1989 Glen Rice entered the national basketball consciousness by scoring 31 points for the Michigan Wolverines in 1989 NCAA championship game. Rice and Rumeal Robinson would lead the Wolverines to an overtime victory of PJ Carlesimo’s Cinderella Seton Hall team. The shot was pure. The rim was a prop. The net’s movement, or lack […]
The Skyhook
It is the most devastating single shot in the history of the NBA. It is a key reason that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar finished his career with 38,387 points (best in NBA history), had six MVP trophies and two Finals MVPs on top of that, played in 18 All-Star games and finished with more than one handful […]
Jerry West
Just a look back for the weekend.