Newsrooms seem to attract needlers and agitators. Sarcasm passes for everyday discourse. Maybe it comes from the cynicism that overtakes even the most idealistic of just-starting-out journalists. You may still have moments when you feel as if, “Hey, what I just wrote/edited is important.” But on the whole you spend your day sorting out lies, […]

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Let’s say Andrew Bynum comes back and looks like a real center. That pushes Pau Gasol to the power forward position and puts Lamar Odom … where? If the Lakers need another dependable scorer, and they do, and Odom can’t really play the small-forward spot and doesn’t have a perimeter game of any dependability … […]

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OK, sure, a game that ended up with a 39-point margin … probably wasn’t ever going to be the Lakers’ night. But watching the replay, I noted where the Celtics took over. When my sense of a long night for the Lakers became a conviction. It was 32-29 Boston. The Lakers had just gotten a […]

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“Quit” is the ugliest word in sports, but I don’t know how else you describe the Lakers’ pathetic “effort” in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. They quit. Mailed it in when it got tough. Folded the tents and started watching the clock wind down. If they could have left at halftime, I imagine they […]

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The Celtics wrap things up. The Lakers don’t have a quick start, fall behind, never catch up … and we have to suffer through a Celtics celebration. Final score: Boston 91, Lakers 79.

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It was my privilege — for 25 years — to cover high school football teams coached by Tom Hoak. Hoak was a sports throwback. A coach the way coaches used to be. He reminded me of the men I played for in high school, of the legends from decades past. A leader. An exemplar. A […]

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Doesn’t that headline seem almost laughable? As if Kobe needs defending? But, bizarrely enough, he does. I don’t know of any NBA player so routinely criticized. So subject to having his game so mercilessly parsed. No one so regularly attacked on a personal level. That whole “selfish”, “bad man”, “bad teammate”, “egomaniac”, “uncoachable” thing. And […]

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You’ve seen “Its a Wonderful Life,” yes? The Christmas-themed Frank Capra move starring Jimmy Stewart? From 1946. Well, of course you have. Unless you’re so young you remember only this stingy era of “one showing per year” … NBC or somebody owns the rights to the film, and doles it out (once, and only once […]

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Before Game 5 on Sunday, Phil Jackson was talking about how the Lakers still had a chance as long as the series wasn’t over. He emphasized that the only way to get out of a 3-1 hole in a best-of-seven series is to ignore the big picture — and 60 years of NBA history showing […]

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New England often is very pretty in the spring. The Lakers are about to check it out themselves. Again. Surprising a lot of people, including me, the Lakers turned up for Game 5 with a chip on their shoulder and anger in their hearts, and when push came to shove – and it always does […]

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