What the heck happened to the Los Angeles Lakers?
In a season of irregular menstrual cycles (no offense to Pau Gasol) -- starting the year 8-0, losing four-in-a-row, winning seven-in-a-row, losing four-in-a-row, losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers, winning seventeen-of-eighteen, then going on a five-game-losing streak toward the end of the regular season, struggling distractedly against a mediocre New Orleans Hornets club in round one of the playoffs -- the Lakers ended 2010-11 not only being swept by Mark Cuban's Mavericks (losing the final "win or go home" game by 36 points) but also by becoming a group of guys who would clearly rather go on vacation than spend another second in each other's presence. Or with their (now gone) head coach.
As a Lakers fan since before they got Magic Johnson, I've never felt the emotional attachment to the post-Shaq "Kobe Lakers" I had with the Showtime teams of the 80s (not even close) or the Shaq Threepeaters of 2000 - 2002 (or the goofy Nick Van Excel clubs of the 90s). The problem is Bryant. His spirit has dominated the team since 2004, even with the chastening of Phil Jackson's return in 2006. There is no joy in Kobeville. Whether L.A. is on a five-game losing streak or repeating as NBA champs, with Kobe is it always grim, grim, grim. While absolutely one of the greatest players (and winners) of his time, Kobe Bryant is a tight-ass bore. Not someone easy at all to like in the way we like our athletes, sometimes close to a crush. When the 80s Lakers would lose to the Celtics or Sixers or Pistons, I would feel bad as a fan but even worse for Michael Cooper, Mychal Thompson, and James Worthy. It's impossible for me to feel bad for Kobe Bryant.
Many of the current Lakers perhaps feel the same way. The club became wholly unglued at the end. Imagine. Two-time defending champs. Three-time defending Western Conference champs. The last run for your 11-titles-winning head coach. One-game -- win it or not only go home but send Phil Jackson on his way in the most embarrassing manner possible. And the team -- with the exception of a first-half Kobe Bryant, who then also seems to pack it in -- shows up sullen, petulant, in a snit. And quits.
Obviously a team with a very delicate sense of purpose and togetherness. Maybe Gasol just got sick of playing with Bryant. Or Odom with Gasol. Or Gasol with Andrew Bynum. Gasol, of course, has taken the most heat from the sports media, as well he should. Something funky was happening with him and the league must have smelled it. Beginning in early April, when the Lakers were still playing their best basketball, several players around the NBA, from separate teams and divisions, began to whisper (publicly) about Pau Gasol's manhood -- the manhood of the starting center on the NBA's two-time defending champions. First, Kendrick Perkins of OKC said something. Then A'mare Stoudemire of the Knicks. Other players went with it, off the record. What was going on here? The Lakers were playing great and there weren't any "Pau Gasoft" cracks since L.A. lost to Boston in the '08 Finals. Gasol himself won the championship last year by his very tough and focused Game 7 performance (while Kobe was melting) against the Celtics. So what were the April remarks all about?
Somebody knew something, because beginning with those remarks the team went into emotional free-fall, and Gasol became punked. He became scared and confused on defense, passive and hesitant with the ball. Perhaps he announced to the team he was coming out. Another rumor has Kobe's wife saying something to Gasol's steady girlfriend which caused Gasol to be dumped. (Yet, how does this compare to Steve Nash in December witnessing the birth of a black baby to his white wife? These guys are human. . .) How does the Gasol situation explain the clear separation taken from his teammates by Lamar Odom? By Andrew Bynum? The aghast frustrations of veteran Derek Fisher?
What happened this spring could very well have happened the two previous springs. A few more timely Houston Rockets baskets in '09 would have knocked the would-be champs out in the opening round. A couple Laker misses in 2010 would've sent Phoenix ahead to the Finals instead of L.A. So let us all now send a red-hot poker to GM Mitch Kupchak's house, the man who sat on an aging and very charmed team when so much movement was happening around the league, except for helping to create a bench dominated by the "Killer Bs" -- Barnes, Brown, and Blake -- standing for very BAD and beyond them the likes of Luke Walton, the 62-year-old Joe Smith, and Phil Jackson's pot-dealer. And dear old Derek Fisher, still starting at point guard. . . a wonderful guy, a fine union leader, and currently worth less than zero as a basketball player. Why didn't Kupchak pick up O.J. Mayo or Corey Brewer (or Ronnie Brewer) for chump change? Or Stojakovic? Or Tony Allen? Perhaps Kurt Thomas would've slowed down Nowitzki or Jason Terry. . .
Phil Jackson must also take his medicine, along with his peyote. His inflexibility must have stoked the fires of dissension. Why did he refuse, since the Fisher situation was not going away, to play Kobe and Artest together more in the backcourt? Why wasn't Odom, Bynum, and Gasol on the court more often? Artest, Bryant, Gasol, Odom, and Bynum for 34-38 playoff minutes per game seems pretty unbeatable to me. And the terrible misuse/underuse of Andrew Bynum. . . After the Carmelo-for-Bynum rumors went away in January, Bynum was the best player on the Lakers and the best center in the league aside from Dwight Howard. Yet the offense never went through him. No offensive adjustments were made. He continued to sit out the last six minutes of each game. Why, Phil?
The worst part of the collapse is Jackson going out this way. I'll miss him very much. The easy thing about being a Lakers fan, aside from all the winning, is that it's an organization of class, wit, and intelligence. Unlike the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dallas Cowboys, there's nothing piggish or underhanded or cynical in how the Lakers win titles. Phil Jackson embodies these good qualities (as Kobe does not) in ways which are true and unique. (The Laker teams between Jackson's two coaching reigns were drab and grim -- they took on Bryant's aura instead of their head coaches. Detour ahead. . .) While Game Two of the Mavs series was coming to its dispiriting close, the fans at Staples Center booed, left, yelled bad words. And no one acknowledged they may have been seeing Phil Jackson for the last time. And they were.
