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After 39 games, the 26-13 Lakers had a better record than the Cleveland Cavaliers. The LA press was calling the Shaq trade a success since Shaq was now breaking down and the Lakers had Odom and Brown for the next several years to show for the trade. Andrew Bynum was also starting to play like a mini-Shaq, and all was well for the 26-13 Lakers.
Flash forward just 40 something games and LA's season is over and Kobe is accusing the Lakers of not trying to win now. Yet if one looks at the Laker's roster, their players match up really well to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Probably what hurt the Laker club more than anything else was the 10 cent head club that grew out of a 26-13 start. President of the 10 cent head club, Brian Cook, actually deposited his warm-up sweats onto Phil Jackson's lap! Phil's crime was putting Cook into the game for the first time near the end of the third quarter. Phil immediately took Cook out of the game and Cook was seen arguing with Brian Shaw over the incident and then throwing a towel to the ground again as an instant replay bonus.
Prior to that 10 cent moment, Radmonovich broke his arm snowboarding in Utah! Meanwhile, prior to that, Kwame Brown infiltrated a private party at a club and actually dunked some guys birthday cake all over his head, a guy he didn't even know! Kwame then did what any 10 cent head would do, he fled the scene in his limo. Allegedly, Kwame was not alone, two other Lakers were with him at the time, proving that when you put three 10 cent heads together, you still only get 10 cents. Smush Parker has been known to sulk, and sulk to the point where it actually effects his play ON the court. 10 cent heads can hurt a team, even a team that was once 26-13.
Pile on all the injuries on top of the Laker 10 cent head club and you have a Laker team in disarray on the court over many situations that actually happened off of the court. Now Kobe Bryant has gone on record as wanting to join the 10 cent head club by accusing Laker ownership of the one time 26-13 Lakers of not trying to win.
If you were to compare the rosters of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers, the two teams really do match up very closely. Ironically, the Lakers are viewed as underachievers and not wanting to win now, and the Cavs are just two wins away from the championship series. A few 10 cent heads can do that to a team.
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I submitted the above story to the LA Daily News at the same time I posted it here. Five days later they run a story that uses some similar themes to what I speak of above. I actually like mine better, but I guess I'm biased.
Daily News "Variation on my theme" 5 days later.
Kobe Bryant should learn from...
Cavalier attitude
Take a good look, Kobe: Cleveland's LeBron James is leading a no-name cast into the NBA Finals
By Paul Oberjuerge, Sports Columnist
Article Last Updated: 06/04/2007 01:54:11 AM PDT
Hello, Kobe?
You may have missed this, while doing a talk-radio interview or updating your Web site with The Real Story on Shaq's Lakers demise.
(It was all Jerry Buss' doing; now it can be told.)
Anyway, there's this thing going on in the playoffs.
LeBron James just threw down a gauntlet. At your feet.
You think you have it bad? Surrounded by mediocrities, burdened by inept management, asked/expected to hoist a team all by your lonesome?
LeBron is in the same fix.
Except he's just lugged his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, all the way to the NBA Finals.
So it can be done.
You don't have to resort to demands for trades or trying to be the general manager in your spare time. If you play hard enough, smart enough, relentlessly enough, great things can happen.
It would be nice, sure, to have Jermaine O'Neal or Jason Kidd as a sidekick. But LeBron's wing men are Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Larry Hughes.
And LeBron is in the finals. Did we mention that?
You have Lamar Odom; LeBron has Drew Gooden.
You have Luke Walton; LeBron has Hughes.
You have Kwame Brown; LeBron has Ilgauskas.
You have Jordan Farmar; LeBron has Sasha Pavlovic.
You have Chris Mihm, Andrew Bynum, Maurice
ShawEvans and Brian Cook off the bench. LeBron has Anderson Varejao, Daniel Gibson, Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones.
Would you rather have his supporting cast over yours?
If so, not by much. And probably only because Gibson (a kid the Lakers passed on last June to draft Farmar) looks like a star in the making. But it's close, yes? Your guys, his guys. Not much to choose from there.
And LeBron is in the finals. You went out in the first round.
OK, we'll grant you some mitigating circumstances.
You finished seventh in the superior Western Conference and got the 61-21 Phoenix Suns in the first round, and they're kryptonite to you and the lads. LeBron finished second in the inferior Eastern Conference and faced 41-41 Washington without Gilbert Arenas, then the 41-41 New Jersey Nets.
But then they got the Detroit Pistons, a veteran playoffs team that rolled over you and Shaq in 2004 ? and ousted the Cavs last year ? and LeBron pretty much willed the Cavaliers past a team with a better starting five and a deeper bench.
Maybe you saw Game 5? LeBron scored 48, including Cleveland's final 25 as the Cavs won in double overtime. An epic performance, and the game that broke the Pistons' backs.
LeBron does some things you, frankly, can't do. Even if you were generally considered the league's best player, until a few days ago.
He is bigger than you, and much stronger. He is a better rebounder.
He turns it on down the stretch when you're running out of gas and banging the front of the rim. The Pistons seemed almost afraid he would hurt them when he was going to the basket; you don't inspire that sort of fear.No.
He seems to make his teammates better, and that's not something you've ever really figured out. Seems as if you have only two modes: "Getting my teammates involved" and "shooting on every trip."
When iIt seems as if there ought to be a middle ground there. The one Which LeBron James seems to have discovered.
You're saying you need help. That you can't do it alone. But LeBron is four victories away from winning an NBA championship with Sasha Pavlovic in the starting lineup. And if he and the Four Dwarves who suit up with him pull that off, beating West monster San Antone ... well, you might want to reframe your rants.
Maybe along the lines of, "If I were as good as LeBron, and I think I am, I'd make the best of a bad situation. I would rise above it. And bring everyone with me."
Perhaps management will find a way to get you some help. It probably will come only at the expense of Odom, who is better than anyone on the Cavaliers' roster whose initials aren't LBJ. Unless some Brinks' heist of a trade presents itself, the Lakers' roster won't be significantly improved, next season. And you won't be happy.
But if LeBron wins an NBA title, he cuts the legs out from under you. He demonstrates that, in the watered-down, modern NBA, one great player and four non-entities can win it all. If that great player is as good as LeBron James. And we're guessing you think you are.
The gauntlet is at your feet. Will you pick it up? Can you show you can lead a batch of Average Joes to the finals? Only your legacy is at stake.
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Paul Oberjuerge is a staff writer. He can be reached at (909) 386-3865 or
[email protected].
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I'm really proud of this topic.
I originally wrote it on May 30th of 2007, while the Cavs were in the finals against the Spurs. If only the Cavs had had a little more juice against the Celtics, we might have had a Lebron / Kobe finals.
Many in Los Angeles act surprised that the Lakers made it to the finals. Yet if you notice, the Lakers removed the exact players I mentioned in this piece (Brown, Parker, and Cook.
(Radmonivich's error in judgement was more of a one time thing than those three). When an already decent team replaces Brown, Parker, and Cook with Trevor Ariza, Derek Fisher and Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum continued his improvement, the sky is the limit for the team.
The Lakers are fortunate to get all the pieces they needed before Kobe wanted out, I hope the Cavs can do the same.
