It was a rough three seasons for Los Angeles Lakers fans. Not long after the conclusion of a five-titles-in-10-years run, those fans saw their team become an NBA afterthought … if not a laughingstock. After the Lakers went 45-37 and made the playoffs, in 2012-13, the decline came hard and deep. To 27-55 in 2013-14 […]

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This topic occurred to me tonight as I watched video of Draymond Green reciting, in selection order, the 34 players who were taken ahead of him in the 2012 NBA draft. This is significant because the Golden State Warriors, who spent their second-round pick that summer on the Big Ten player of the year … […]

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Only a few weeks after forward-thinking baseball pundits pooh-poohed the likelihood — as well as the wisdom — of calling up “best pitching prospect in ball” Jose Urias … the Dodgers have done just that. The left-hander from Mexico, still only 19, was working on a 27-inning scoreless streak in Triple-A when he got the […]

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How Clippers is this? Ten hours after learning yesterday that Stephen Curry, leading man of the Golden State Warriors, will be out for two weeks, setting up the possibility of the Clippers being able to beat a weakened Warriors team in the second round of the NBA playoffs … … Chris Paul suffers a broken […]

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Well, that was an NBA regular season that ended with a bang. The Golden State Warriors recorded an unprecedented 73rd victory, but somehow it seemed less astonishing than Kobe Bryant ending his 20-year Lakers career by scoring 60. 60! Kobe spent much of the season struggling to be something more than a subpar player who […]

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Well, it’s good news in my view of the world, anyway. We don’t have to be negative all the time, do we? Let’s do a list to celebrate some of the uplifting or inspirational or remarkable. For one day, anyway.

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Kobe Bryant’s decision on Sunday to announce his retirement, effective at the end of the current season, was timely and proper and even a bit quixotic, coming as it did in the form of a poem written by the player and posted on a somewhat obscure players forum. What he addressed in those words was […]

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How many more games do the Lakers give Kobe Bryant to demonstrate he has something left? How many more games does Kobe give Kobe? He was 1-for-14 with four points last night in the 111-77 humiliation at the hands of the champion Golden State Warriors, who set an NBA record by winning their 16th game […]

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Knee surgeries. A snapped Achilles tendon. A broken leg. Kobe Bryant fought back from those to return to the Lakers. But now a torn rotator cuff? In his right shoulder? In his shooting arm? At age 36? We may have just seen the last NBA game Kobe Bryant will play, which is sad … but […]

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I’ve been away. I may have mentioned that. The last time I was at Staples Center probably was 2009.  Games 1 and 2 of the NBA Finals. The Nokia Theater was complete, before the jump to Abu Dhabi later that year. But I don’t remember much of anything around it. Most of the rest of […]

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