Now that football has entered hibernation period, and just before baseball begins its long warm-up to a long season, there is basketball of the college and professional variety to help us pass our weekend time.
And while the amateur ranks of college have produced a wildly entertaining and wholly unpredictable state of affairs, with the nation’s No. 1 ranked team losing each of the past five weeks, the NBA hums along toward its mid-way point with little surprise in its pecking order. As usual, you will find the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder, Miami Heat, and of course, traditional powers like the Los Angeles Clippers and Indiana Pacers.
Wait, what’s that you say? The Pacers and Clipper aren’t traditional powers? You wouldn’t know the Pacers had won 15 straight at home until Friday night’s loss to the plucky Toronto Raptors. Hell, you may not remember Canada still has a team. Or that the New York Knicks – yes, the Knicks – have the second best record in the Eastern Conference, or that the Chicago Bulls are hanging around and doing pretty good without former MVP Derrick Rose, still out because of his knee injury suffered last year.
You might not know the aging Spurs are 40-12, and have only lost two home games all year or that the Golden State Warriors are an emerging young team out West.
But as a casual fan coming out of a football coma wouldn’t know these things because no one is talking about them.
It’s all Los Angeles Lakers, all Dwight Howard, all Kobe Bryant and all the time.
The Lakers are a 24-28 team – good enough for 10th place in the Western Conference. They are old, injured and plagued by infighting. As I highlighted a few weeks ago, they aren’t really worth watching. Yet I couldn’t turn down the chance to watch at least a little of the ABC “Sunday Showcase” game featuring the Lakers at the Miami Heat.
For three-and-a-half quarters, the game was competitive and close. And then the Heat blew the Lakers doors off in the final six minutes before winning 107-97. Eric Spoelstra out-coached Mike D’Antoni, LeBron James continued to outplay everyone and Kobe Bryant tried to will his team back in the game, even as a five or six-point lead felt insurmountable.
You could glean several things by just watching the second half, where the Lakers couldn’t keep pace and allowed the Heat to score 29 in the final stanza. Even more telling – the Heat outscored L.A. 25-16 the final nine minutes.
First, LeBron James has no peers right now. It’s all come together and he’s at the peak of his prime. Google “LeBron James” and “shooting streak” and you’ll get a good idea of why. Efficient doesn’t even really begin to describe what James is doing, shooting 75 percent on his last 65 shots. He just broke the franchise record with five-straight 30-point games as well.
It’s a reminder of when Michael Jordan was in the midst of his reign of awesomeness: the only way James won’t win another MVP is if, much like Jordan, the voters get tired of it. No one else should win. He’s just that good.
The second thing you’d notice from yesterday’s game is just how dysfunctional the Lakers truly are. Steve Nash looks like a broken man who regrets agreeing to this trade. When they showed a close-up of his face, I pictured him with a thought bubble over his head: “I really think losing in Phoenix might be better than this.”
And for as great as Kobe is, as he himself has admitted recently, he is a difficult player to play with. He clogged up the offense good and gross down the stretch Sunday, using an array of back-to-the-basket moves, faders and leaners, appearing to me like a guy who’s legs were fading. This is understandable considering the Lakers were completing their long annual Grammy/Eastern road trip with the game in Miami.
Maybe Kobe was just tired. But he looked like a guy who was old, the one who’s shots at the end of the open gym are bouncing around the rim four or five times and falling out. And with each passing possession, his teammates are less and less interested in watching the same show. Keep in mind, Kobe’s heroics were half the reason the Lakers were even in the game midway through the fourth quarter, but the outcome was all too familiar: another loss.
We haven’t even touched on Dwight Howard (frankly because everyone else spends too much time on him). But Howard’s either not right physically, disengaged with all the drama mentally or most likely, a little bit of both. This week alone featured another round of media clips of Kobe calling out Dwight, Dwight responding and even Dwight’s dad getting involved to take a shot at Mike D’Antoni for not stopping it all.
But forgetting all that drama, the Lakers lack scorers, speed and aggression. They have no bench. There’s relatively little that’s likable about this team on our off the floor.
The Heat play, as do many of the aforementioned teams, with a sense of aggression and attitude. The Lakers have only Bryant with that mindset. Pau Gasol, currently out 6-8 weeks with a foot injury, attacks once every three weeks. Dwight Howard shows more aggression in trying to make his teammates laugh than he does on the court. Howard has one of the most forgettable 15-point, 9-rebound games I can remember. Howard ought to be getting 20 and 10, every night.
The Heat have let our out their inner beasts, the Lakers their inner child.
It’s clear the Lakers made a mistake in not bringing back Phil Jackson, who’s perhaps the best there ever was in the professional ranks at bringing massive egos like Howard and Bryant together under a common goal, while nurturing bruised ego’s like Pau Gasol’s and crazy-in-the-head egos like Metta World Peace/Ron Artest.
What does it say about Mike D’Antoni that the Knicks were a mess during his time in New York, yet a year later, they have the second best record in the Eastern Conference and seem to be playing quite well together? All you need to know about D’Antoni is what he said following the game yesterday: “We’re making strides. We can still do this. [Miami] set the bar and this is where we got to get to.”
I suppose I don’t know what I expect D’Antoni to say. I really don’t expect that truth, which would be: “We’re horrible and we really aren’t getting better. We should be left alone to become an afterthought on what has been a compelling and entertaining NBA season.”
He can’t and won’t say that, I know. But it’s outlandish to think the Lakers are making strides. Or that they are close. Not only can this team not win a championship, it shouldn’t out of sheer principle.
But sadly, this won’t go away. They are the Lakers. It’s 2013. The media cannot not hammer this story, this team, even though there is more going on in the NBA than this mess. So I beg of you, turn on NBA TV, check out some other games this week and then All-Star Weekend. You’ll find so much more going on in the NBA than what you might have seen Sunday from the team in purple and gold.
Otherwise, March Madness won’t just be reserved for the college ranks, as I’m not sure how much more of this ongoing soap opera in L.A. we can take.
It certainly was a Showcase Sunday for both James and the Heat and Kobe and the Lakers.
Yet only LeBron and Miami can feel good about what’s on display.
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