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Sunday, October 18, 2009

2009 Team of the Year: Showtime for the New Lake Show

    There's no good time to pick the team of the year.  The three major American sports leagues all end their seasons at completely different times.  The Pittsburgh Steelers, the best NFL team in 2009 is really the champion for the 2008 season and the 2009 NBA Champion Lakers played a third of their season in 2008, and by the time New Year's Eve rolls along they'll be a third of the way into their journey to a 2010 championship; making the '09 championship run a distant memory.  
    Only baseball contains its season within the calendar year, but even though this year's MLB playoffs features two marquee teams in the Dodgers and Yankees that play some exciting baseball (they lead their respective leagues in last-at-bat wins), neither team has captured the imagination.  These aren't the '88 Dodgers, the late 90's Yankees or even the (gag!) "Cowboy Up" 2004 Red Sox.  If the Yankees and Dodgers meet up this year the "Joe Torre (and Don Mattingly) in Dodger Blue vs. the pinstripes" storyline will be compelling, but won't make the winning team the team of 2009.
    There is no marquee team in the NFL of 2009.  2008 started with the Patriots finishing up their quest for the perfect season with a somewhat rocky playoff run followed by the shocking last minute defeat to the Giants.  This left the Pats with a gaudy 18-1 record, but no ring to show for it.  No new storyline in '09 elevated another team as the one to follow in the NFL.  The dominant NFL stories ended up being centered around individuals.  There was T.O's end in Dallas,  followed by his reality show and move to Buffalo.  Raiders coach Tom Cable (allegedly) broke the jaw of one of his assistants.  There's the Brett Favre saga and of course, the return of Michael Vick from doggie killing prison.
    As the record cable rating for the recent Packers-Vikings Monday Night Football game proves, Brett Favre makes the Vikings more interesting.  How Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb and Philly's fans co-exist makes the Eagles a team to keep an eye on.   Brett and Vick are compelling story lines to follow but these plot lines pale in comparison to the story of the team that was, is, and will be, the most interesting team, for the longest portion of this year. 




    Sitting by itself, the 2008-2009 Lakers season was not exciting or crazy enough for the Lakers to be considered the team of the year.  Sure there were bumps in the road along the way, but the season was remarkably drama and suspense free, especially by Laker standards.  The team was never really pushed and it's biggest challenge was arguably a 6-0 East Coast swing in Feburary that started with Andrew Bynum going down (again) and ended with the Lakers stopping a 12 game Celtic winning streak and blemishing Cleveland's 23-0 home record.  The biggest "scare" that the team overcame, a 7game series against the Houston Rockets, was an obstacle largely of the Lakers own making.  Once Yao Ming went down in game 3, the Lakers had no business losing at all to the Rockets, and definitely shouldn't have gotten blown out of the gym like they were in Game 6.  
    So why, if their season wasn't that exciting, are the Lakers the team of the year?  The 2008-09 Lakers were the most compelling team in sports not because of the season they played, but because of the context that the season before, and the off season that followed put the '08-'09 seaon into.  The season was incredibly compelling because it didn't exist in a vacuum.  
    It followed the roller coaster 2007-2008 season that started with Kobe depressing L.A. by demanding a trade; the season then took a hopeful turn when Andrew Bynum developed into a real force, helping the team start off better then expected.  That hope was crushed, and then turned to bliss in quick succession when, in the course of a couple of weeks,  Bynum got hurt and GM Mitch Kupchak responded by fleecing the Memphis Grizzlies for Pau Gasol. This led to a Finals appearance that would have been inconceivable at the start of the season, but ended with the depressing Game 4 collapse and crushing Game 6 annihilation, to the hated Celtics no less.        
    The stunning rise of a team that started the season in disarray was overshadowed by the stunning collapse in the Finals to the most hated of rivals.  The blame was spread around; the team was too young, the team wasn't tough enough (especially Pau "Ga-soft" Gausol), the leadership was too lax from Phil Jackson and too lacking from Kobe Bryant.  Last season was the Lakers opportunity to answer the critics, but only by winning the ring.  
    The ring was won, but the questions weren't erased by a road to the championship that wasn't as treacherous as it was expected to be.  The 7 games against Houston didn't seem like a "real" 7 game series without the match up problems that Yao Ming provides, and the Western Conference Finals against Denver was tough, with a game Nuggets team, but it still seemed that a Laker loss in that series would have been much more a Laker failure then a Nugget triumph.  Once in the Finals the Lakers were matched up against the underdog Orlando Magic that had gotten past an injury ravaged Celtics team and a Cavaliers team that can't win a championship because, well, they're in Cleveland.  The entire playoff run seemed anti-climatic without the Lakers-Celtics rematch, or at least the Kobe vs. Lebron spectacle.  The season was over, the new parade route was set and that's when the real drama began.  
    The off-season was filled with questions; will Phil Jackson come back?  Will the Lakers re-sign Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza or both?  If they do sign both will the team improve enough through maturity alone to compete with a healthy Celtics team, or the sure to be retooled Cavs?  Was this team the start of a new Lakers dynasty or a still not ready team that caught a few breaks from the competition?
    The answers came in drips and drabs; Phil Jackson made it clear that he wanted to come back, but that his health may not allow it, he even flirted with the idea of taking some road trips off before getting a clean enough bill of health to take the reigns for at least one more season.  Lamar Odom (and Shannon Brown) were eventually re-signed, after the added drama of the Lakers offer for Odom being pulled and the Heat pressing hard to get Lamar back on South Beach.  Ariza, on the other hand, played hardball and lost, saying he wanted more then the Lakers offered and getting a "see ya!" in response.
    Why were the Lakers so quick to ditch a player that made repeated key plays during their championship run?  Because, they had a Plan B (if not their real Plan A) in Ron Artest.  Best known to the casual fan as the crazy motherfucker that went after fans in the stands of Detroit when he was on the Pacers, his "out of the stands" basketball reputation is that of a great defender, fierce rebounder, skilled offensive player, and all around tough guy.  For a team who's previously toughest player seemed to be Derek Fisher, that toughness part may be the biggest piece of "trading" Ariza for Artest.
    The Lakers may have been tougher then they were before last season (especially Gasol), but they weren't a team that you would describe first, second or tenth as "tough."  With Artrest on hand you might.  Artest will allow Kobe to get away from expending the energy that it takes to be the "lock down" defender on the other team's best perimeter player and will allow him to roam more and collect more steals and blocks.  The boards should be the Lakers' domain with some combination of Bynum, Gasol, Odom and Artest on the floor at any given time, and with all of the other weapons that the Lakers have available Artest should have no trouble maintaining the 40% 3pt shooting that he shot last year.  The biggest boost that Artest will give this Lakers team may very well be off the court though; not because he'll keep attacking other team's fans, but because he'll truly engage L.A.'s.
    While Lakers fans were clearly ecstatic with their first championship since 2002, there just didn't seem to be the energy and love in L.A. for this team that previous Lakers teams got.  There was no Shaq being Shaq or Dancing Mark Madsen at the parade to laugh at/with, and the charm of Magic and the 80's "Showtime" Lakers certainly wasn't there.  While Lamar Odom is by all accounts a great guy, and Kobe Bryant is a force of nature, the team lacked a real personality to latch onto and enjoy.  As long as Ron Artest is in purple and gold they will never have to worry about a personality deficit in Staples Canter.
    Ron Artest has 3(!) Twitter accounts, and he uses them all, a lot (you better have unlimited texts if you have his tweets sent to your phone).   Ron Artest randomly picks fans to go with him to breakfast, bowling, to Sparks games, whatever comes to mind.  Ron Artest is still working on that music career that famously caused him to try and take an NBA break, mid-season, to pursue.  
    I've mentioned the Lakers-Rockets Game 7 a couple of times, well Ron Artest was on the Rockets for that game and apparently got on the team bus before the game in his underwear!  The story goes that since he missed the first two busses that the players usually take he ended up on the third and final bus with the Rockets guests, sponsors and ownership, in his underwear (just thought I'd mention it again).  In Houston a story like this might mortify your fan base and ownership.  In L.A. the owner is Jerry Buss, a man that doesn't seem all that concerned with the conventional, the coach is Phil Jackson, who had Dennis Rodman on his team at one time, and Kobe Bryant doesn't strike me as a guy that gives a damn what you do outside of the 48 minutes of game time that he has to play with you.  
    After Ron Artest bum rushed the stands in Detroit the consensus was that "that boy crazy!"  Ron Artest still is crazy, but it's a happier, more fun crazy.  Ron Artest is crazy enough to think that he can engage every one of his fans (he follows me on Twitter just cause I'm following him), crazy enough to keep on pursuing a passion (music) that he enjoys (after taking care of basketball first these days though) and is crazy enough to march to his own drummer, and band for that matter, when the mood strikes him.  That didn't go over so well at his previous stops in Chicago, Indiana, Sacramento and Houston.  In L.A. he'll find a city full of "own drummer marchers" ready to embrace the guy that brings the "show" back to a team known to previous decades as "Showtime" and "The Lake Show" (as long as the rings keep coming)... 
    







2 Comments:

At 2:37 PM, Blogger GBREY said...

I think we're past being surprised by girls that are into sports right??

 
At 6:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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