The world according to Jim:
• So can we assume that a large portion of Southern California’s basketball fans will be rooting fervently for Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks over the next few weeks? …
• If you are a Lakers fan of any vintage at all, you know where I’m going with this. The Boston Celtics are pursuing a record NBA championship No. 18, which is their organization’s Holy Grail just as much as it is that of the Lakers. …
• We will remind you, by the way, that since Bill Russell retired after the 1969 Finals, the Lakers have won 12 titles while the Celtics have six – and just one in the last 37 seasons – so there are bragging rights already in place. Still, 18 is 18, the top of the leaderboard. And since the Lakers can’t get to it yet – and in truth seem to be going backwards – if you root for them, the choice in the NBA Finals that begin Thursday should be easy. …
• The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy suggested in his notes column last week that the 1986 Celtics, who were 67-15 in the regular season, lost only once at home all season and postseason and lost just three games in four playoff series, were “the greatest NBA team of all time — come and get me …”
You’re on, Dan. I can think of at least five Lakers teams who could have beaten those Celtics. …
• The ’87 Lakers finished 65-17, also lost just three games in the playoffs, vanquished Boston in six in the Finals – remember James Worthy’s dive in Game 6 to redirect a loose ball to Magic Johnson for a layup? – and boasted both the regular-season MVP in Johnson and the Defensive Player of the Year in Michael Cooper. The ’85 Lakers were 62-20 in the regular season and beat the Celtics in six in the Finals, becoming the first visiting team ever to clinch in Boston Garden and avenging the previous year’s loss. …
• Or how about the first Phil Jackson Lakers team in 1999-2000? The first of the Shaq-Kobe 3-peat teams broke in Staples Center with a 67-15 record and a victory over Larry Bird-coached Indiana in the Finals, with O’Neal winning both the scoring title and regular-season MVP. (Where were the Celtics that year? Oh, right: 35-47 and watching the playoffs from home.)
You can also throw in the 2008-09 Lakers. Still smarting from a Finals loss the previous June to Boston, they were 65-17 in the regular season and knocked off Orlando in the Finals with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol leading the way. (And the core of that group avenged the ’08 loss to Boston in ’10.) …
• Oh, wait. There’s one more. The ’71-72 Lakers of Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain, L.A.’s first champs, broke the NBA record for regular-season victories at 69-13 and knocked off the Bucks (and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and the Knicks in back-to-back playoff rounds. And they set a professional sports record that still stands more than a half century later.
When you find a team that wins more than 33 in a row, get back to us. …
• All of this is a reminder of Laker Exceptionalism, or at least what it used to look like. It can also be interpreted as a sad commentary on the present condition of a franchise that has spent the past three seasons in the play-in round and is about to hire its seventh coach in 14 seasons. …
• Worth noting: The Lakers coach with the best record since Jackson left the room in 2011? Bernie Bickerstaff, the interim leader between Mike Brown and Mike D’Antoni in 2012-13, at 4-1. …
• As for the disclosures of interviewees in the current Great Laker Coach Search? I get the impression that they’re all in town interviewing for assistant positions. If JJ Redick truly is going to be the guy, as seems to be the consensus in the rumor mill, he’s going to need all the high-powered help on the bench he can get. …
• Regarding what appears to be the NCAA’s New Normal (and we will have plenty more to say about it in Sunday’s paper), a couple of thoughts:
Athletes being compensated for the value they bring to an athletic program is a good thing, for sure. But one reason we advocated the Sam Gilbert Rule – i.e., boosters and businessmen being allowed to help players financially – years before State Sens. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Steven Bradford (D-Inglewood) introduced the legislation that ultimately spawned NIL, is that it would have allowed the schools to maintain their levels of athletics funding without having to directly dip into the till to pay the players.
Now that the schools themselves – at least the big-time programs – will be budgeting revenue-sharing payments to their athletes as part of the proposed settlement of three different antitrust suits against the NCAA, how long will it be until track or swimming or water polo or other Olympic sports start to disappear from various campuses? …
• A possible alternative, evidently, is private equity investment in college athletic programs. Given how private equity has impacted other industries, that’s a scary thought. …
• Anyone see the (supposedly leaked) photos on social media of what presumably are the Dodgers’ new City Connect uniforms? This is another reminder: The people at Nike in charge of designing these clown suits, and the people in the MLB offices who consider this a good idea, have no respect for or interest in the heritage of the teams and cities they’re supposedly connecting to.
Plus, funfetti is for birthday cakes, not baseball uniforms. …
Update, the guy gave us his jersey to take pictures of it. @PhilHecken pic.twitter.com/TFHgodV1it
— uɐʎɹ (@_RF30) May 29, 2024
• Following Sunday’s column where we published readers’ rants about local owners (and, not incidentally, the noise level in our local sports venues), the responses kept coming. And at least one team reached out, with Ducks’ director of publications and digital content Adam Brady noting that there is a place on the team website – https://www.nhl.com/ducks/info/contact-us – where comments, be they praise or complaints, are welcome.
Any other organizations want to chime in? …
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• And maybe the overriding sentiment in all of the, um, noise about noise was expressed best by Ira J. Waldman, a past contributor to This Space, who said he’s not renewing his Kings’ season tickets after 40 years – “Do the owners care? Doubt it,” he wrote – and is afraid of what the volume will be for Clippers games at the new Intuit Dome.
“What is really disappointing about the noise level is that you can’t have a conversation with your season ticket cohort (those who sit near you and have become friends with) either before or during the games,” he wrote, adding: “If the fans can’t get the noise level up on their own, don’t bother.”
Then again, he also suggested he’d prefer a “Sweet Caroline” singalong. Ira, I’m not sure I’m with you there.
jalexander@scng.com
