Jeremy Tyler: Across the Universe

Jeremy Tyler recently wrapped up an engagement with the Dallas Mavericks summer league squad. At 24, the 6'11" basketball nomad has been with 11 pro organizations and counting.

He's hoping this gig will lead to something more permanent.

Tyler was once a famous phenom, a player who jumped the gun way too early. Not only did he skip college but his senior year at San Diego High as well. At the time, the 17-year-old decided the best path to the NBA was through European pro ball—it would take just a couple years to reach that pesky minimum age requirement imposed by David Stern.

The precocious prodigy was counseled in this regard by his father James Tyler, sneaker huckster Sonny Vaccaro, and agent Arn Tellem, then of the Wasserman Media Group.

“This hopefully will turn out to be one of the great life lessons for Jeremy,” Tellem said per Pete Thamel of the New York Times.

That was back in 2009 but it seems much longer ago. That was when Tyler was being described by NBA veteran Olden Polynice as a young Hakeem Olajuwon, and as “one of those guys who comes along once in a lifetime.”

That was when Polynice described the young protégé as being “pimped.”

Jeremy’s plan was to go overseas and come back a star. He’d become the top overall pick in the draft, shake Stern’s hand on stage, make $200 million over a glorious basketball career and then segue into modeling.

But the trans-continental divide didn’t quite work the way Vaccaro had pitched it to the high school dropout. Tyler’s first team was Maccabi Haifa in Israel where he butted heads with tough veteran players and a head coach with no time for coddling.

The teenager was benched, disciplined and lectured. He responded with complaints and accusations. And he played just 10 games before quitting and returning home to San Diego.

Vaccaro was nonplussed, saying per ESPN: “It would’ve been beautiful, utopia, if he had played and helped his team win a championship."

Tyler’s older and wiser now, a tough, solid player who averaged 11.8 points and 8.3 rebounds per game in Las Vegas. He has learned the tricks of the trade during his globetrotting years. Perhaps Tellem was right, but it wasn’t just one grand epiphany.

Back in San Diego, Tyler examined his options—no high school diploma and no longer eligible for college ball after signing a $140,000 pro contract. And he wouldn’t be draft legal for another full year.

But he still had Vaccaro in his corner. The godfather of the sneaker wars hooked Tyler up with Tokyo Apache, a Japanese basketball team that had just been purchased by a Los Angeles-based investor group led by Evolution Capital Management.

Tyler’s dream was still alive, he’d just get made in Japan.

The new head coach of Tokyo Apache was Bob Hill, a seasoned basketball operative from both the college and pro ranks, including the Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs and Seattle SuperSonics. Bob and his son Casey had been working out prospects for their new venture in Dallas. It was now July, 2010, and the Hills had a reclamation project they would partner Tyler with—Robert Swift who would ultimately become a junkie with a stocking over his head in Gold Bar, Washington. But that hadn’t yet happened.

Swift had been another teenage cautionary tale, drafted at 18 out of Bakersfield High in California before Stern had instituted his age limit. Like Tyler, Swift had been repped by Tellem.

By the time Tokyo Apache happened, the 7-foot Swift had played parts of four seasons with the SuperSonics and the Oklahoma City Thunder. He had wrecked his knee more than once, picked up some nasty habits and scorched all his bridges. Hill had been one of Swift’s coaches in Seattle.

Things didn’t start well for either Tyler or his new mentor in Tokyo. Swift was holed up in his downtown apartment, drinking himself into oblivion. And Tyler, who was still not privy to certain basketball fundamentals, was being ripped a new one at practice by Hill.

But things turned around with interventions and tough love. Swift stopped drinking, turned 25 and began collecting double-doubles. He was also relating well with Tyler who was now 19, and starting to figure out how the game should be played. The universe was coming back into alignment.

“Being in Japan is amazing, especially in Tokyo,” Tyler said per Christopher Johnson of the Times. “Everybody is so positive, my coaches, my teammates. There are so many different things to explore here. Basketball is taking care of itself.”

But on March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake shifted the earth on its axis and caused a tsunami that washed out entire cities. In the aftermath, Tokyo Apache disbanded—their L.A. investors decided it just wasn’t worth the hassle anymore.

That was the end if basketball for Swift whose life spiraled into heroin and minor crime sprees. But for Tyler, there was still hope—he was finally eligible for the NBA draft.

He returned home again, convinced there was still salvation to be claimed. And to the surprise of many, the basketball exile began snaking his way up the draft board with the gift of gab.

Per Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com: "In interviews with team executives,Tyler has shown himself to be more than a perceived ungrounded basketball soul wandering the globe in search of the next start, and has impressed clubs with his maturity and ability to address his image—even spinning his tangled past into a positive."

Just days before the draft, there were rumors that Tyler could be a fringe lottery pick. But on the night of June 23, those hopes failed to materialize. Perhaps there was simply too much baggage, too many missteps. Tyler slipped out of the first round and was ultimately selected at No. 39 by the Charlotte Bobcats and immediately traded to the Golden State Warriors for cash.

It wasn’t exactly the dream he’d been peddled as a high school junior, but Tyler was now in the NBA—maybe.

The 2011 lockout began a week after the draft and lasted until December. Summer twitterdom and media opinions turned in on themselves like dogs chasing their own tails. And when a shortened season finally got underway, the Warriors found themselves in transition under new head coach Mark Jackson.

It was the beginning of something good for Golden State but it was still a choppy ride—Stephen Curry played just 26 games with ankle issues and the team wound up going 23-43.

As for Tyler, he played 42 games with the Warriors, starting 23 of them but averaging only 13.5 minutes per game. His stat line of 4.9 points and 3.3 rebounds during his rookie season still remains his high water mark in the NBA. He was also assigned to the Dakota Wizards in the D-League on multiple occasions.

Despite the low numbers, Tyler was improving. His starts came toward the end of the season on a team decimated by injuries. In the last game of his rookie campaign, he played 44 minutes and delivered a career-high 16 points, plus nine boards.

The team even put together a brief “swagger and power” clip of the rookie’s highlights.

But the following season Tyler only averaged 1.1 point over 20 games for Golden State, along with more D-League assignments—the Wizards had by now moved west and become the Santa Cruz Warriors. And more changes were still in store.

Right before the February deadline, Tyler was traded to the Atlanta Hawks for future draft considerations. It was nothing more than a cost-cutting move—owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber wanted to get under the luxury tax ceiling. And whatever portion was left of Tyler’s second round minimum rookie contract, was enough to do the trick.

The onetime high school sensation played exactly one game in Atlanta before getting waived. Tyler was becoming a nonstory.

He appeared with the New York Knicks summer league team in 2013 and was signed in the fall before suffering a stress foot fracture that required surgery. He was subsequently cut to make room for J.R. Smith’s brother and signed by the Knick’s D-League affiliate, the Erie Bayhawks.

Tyler was brought back in late December by New York, playing 41 games for a team that had reached its nadir, featuring the endless death march of head coach Mike Woodson.

Zen master Phil Jackson took over basketball operations in March. Tyler was excited about new opportunities. He studied up on the Triangle offense, feeling that its inside-out nature could benefit his game. He listened in April as Jackson addressed his players in an impromptu group meeting. And when summer arrived and Derek Fisher was hired, Tyler praised the new coach’s leadership.

“Everyone is following his plan,” Tyler said of Fisher during summer league in July. “Everybody respects his system of the Triangle. Even off the court I’ve been replaying different sets in my mind.”

But Tyler was traded to the Sacramento Kings a month later and immediately waived. He managed a training camp invite with the Los Angeles Lakers who were coming off a train wreck season and about to embark upon one that would be even worse. Tyler lasted three preseason games before getting the axe.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes, they call me on and on across the universe.

The NBA washout did what anyone still chasing the dream would do—he headed to the People’s Republic of China. And there in an ancient mountainous province, he played basketball for Shanxi Zhongyu and a roster of Chinese nationals…plus Von Wafer.

Tyler was a star in Asia once again. He was living in the large industrial city of Taiyuan and took in the outlying sights—massive crumbling Buddhist statues and cliff-hanging temples. But this northern region isn't particularly suitable for tourism in the cold winter months, Mostly, Tyler practiced, played and enjoyed the hospitality of his hosts.  

The Shanxi Brave Dragons finished their season by losing on the road in the CBA quarter-finals to the Quindao DoubleStar Eagles. The game deconstructed in its latter stages, with the tempestuous Von Wafer kneeing an opposing player in the family jewels before tossing a chair into the stands.

Not to be outdone, Tyler got into a fight with Iranian man-mountain Hamed Haddadi and later deigned the giant’s act of contrition—matters escalated into a full-scale hallway rumble replete with security forces and ongoing Brave Dragon/DoubleStar Eagle skirmishes.

Another basketball season was over.

***

During the first week of summer free agency, DeAndre Jordan fled the Los Angeles Clippers for greener pastures, feted by select organizations before agreeing to terms with the Dallas Mavericks. Owner Mark Cuban went all in on the endeavor, according second-choice waiting status to Tyson Chandler who promptly signed with the Phoenix Suns.

But Jordan changed his mind after nearly a week of being a de facto Mav, leaving Dallas conspicuously lacking at the pivot.

A couple years back, Cuban blogged about the capricious nature of free agency and his penchant for seeing something in retread players who had failed in other organizations or systems. “I like our ability to work with what I call 'fallen angels.'"

How can a man who has been mentored by Robert Swift, engaged in fisticuffs with Haddadi, and failed to launch a $200 million career, not be a fallen angel? Tyler rebelled against the Basketball Gods and was cast out time and again. He has chased the rainbow, worked on his craft, become a father and played in every hoops system known to mankind—all by an age at which some prospects are just getting started.

Jeremy Tyler’s greatest sin wasn’t in listening to influencers. It was daring to be a teenager. Sure, he made a mess of things, like a kid with an electric guitar—just take some time and learn how to play.

But while sports is generally big on redemption stories, there is also a coded structure—a beginning and a middle and an ending. And if you take too much time getting to the hook, all is lost.'

Maybe Cuban will play the smart business angle, filling a hole with a minimum salary deal. And maybe a kid once bound for glory will knuckle down in Texas and finally deliver on his much-delayed promise.

But NBA training camps are still months away and professional basketball has increasingly become a year-round globalized business.

For Tyler, the great life lessons continue, across the universe.

LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL

It has been eight long months since the Lakers last saw the Dallas Mavericks. The World Champion Dallas Mavericks. Most basketball fans know how that went. Every Lakers fan knows how that went. An ugly four-game sweep that brought Phil Jackson’s last stand to its end. Jackson retired, a lot of people were fired and Mike Brown was hired. The last time Lamar Odom wore a Lakers uniform he was ejected for a vicious hit on Dirk Nowitzki. Times have changed.

Lamar Odom was Sixth Man of the Year last season, the heart and soul of the Lakers. The off-season was long—an acrimonious lockout was broken only when the players filed suit against the league in federal court. Hours before training camp was set to begin, Odom was offered as a key piece in the Chris Paul trade with the New Orleans Hornets. It was the deal that never was—torpedoed at the final moment by Commissioner Stern.

Odom was shell shocked and did what scorned lovers do. He demanded a divorce. The Lakers shipped him off to Dallas for a trade exception that they haven’t yet, and may never, use.

One of the best books on basketball that I have read is Sole Influence: Basketball, Corporate Greed, and the Corruption of America’s Youth. Written by Dan Wetzel & Don Yaeger, it is the story of AAU and NCAA machinery, about the sneaker wars and broken promises. The chapter about Lamar Odom is unforgettable. From playground days in Queens to a recruitment scandal that got him booted from UNLV. In his own words, a life lesson about having “too much, too soon.”

To say Odom has been touched by tragedy is to say just a little. His father was a heroin addict whom Lamar rarely saw growing up. His mother Cathy died of colon cancer when he was 12. He went to live with his grandmother, Mildred Mercer, whom he adored. She passed away eight years ago. In 2006, Odom’s infant son Jayden died in his crib from SIDS. This past summer a favorite cousin was murdered. This past summer, a car that Lamar and wife Khloe were passengers in, struck and killed a 15 year-old boy.

Christmas day could have been a basketball sanctuary. But instead, Odom found himself adrift. He hasn’t yet found his way with the Mavericks, telling SI’s Chris Mannix, “I’m not prepared I guess, to play. I don’t know if there’s anything else to say.”

I remember Lamar as a rookie with the Los Angeles Clippers, romping coast-to-coast, silky-smooth and smiling. It was a fun squad to watch and like most Clipper lineups, it didn’t last. He was used for one season in Miami as a straight-up power forward and then dealt to the Lakers during the first Phil Jackson exodus. We debated it endlessly in threads, Jackson returned and tinkered and prodded, and eventually just let Odom do his thing. He became a leader, was beloved by his teammates. He led each pregame huddle, words said and felt in a circle. 

.

Trade talk comes from the media and agents and executives and fans. Players get used to it, they deflect through mechanisms, they chalk it up to business. Each summer Odom’s name came up and each time he laughed it off. He said it was good to be wanted. He said, “We’re all rock stars in L.A.” But it’s like the little boy who cried wolf. The rumors never materialized and he took less money to come back to a team he loved. He got married and ignored those who said it wouldn’t work. He put down roots and made plans. He decided there wasn't any wolf after all.

The Lakers lost the other night to their cross-hallway rivals, the eventual winners of the CP3 sweepstakes. It was an ugly loss but no more ugly than most of their recent wins. The Lakers may no longer be a pretty team to watch but they’re effective enough to be in contention in the west. Kobe Bryant’s play this season has been nothing short of stunning—he adjusted to a torn wrist by becoming the league’s scoring leader. Odom’s replacement is an amalgam of big white guys who run real hard for big white guys.

Thomas Wolfe famously wrote, ‘you can’t go home again,’ meaning you can return to a building or a place but not to a place in time. It is never quite as we remember, and we ourselves are not the same. It has also been interpreted as meaning that you can’t go home without being deemed a failure.

Just as Odom’s basketball game has often been elusive and transient, so has his life. He returns tonight to the Staples Center, as a visitor, unsure of what the outcome will be.

OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY

Our long national grind is over. It ended where in many ways, it began - Miami, FLA - home of the best that money could buy, the master-plan, the decision.  Superstars shelled into submission by a lanky bridesmaid who couldn’t spit in the ocean in the first half, supported by a gang of misfits who could.  It’s how it should be, the basketball gods must have been smiling.

The knock on Nowitzki for years, has been that he’s soft, can’t or won’t play the interior, doesn’t come through when it really counts, in the playoffs, in the finals.  This year was different - his Mavericks played like a recommitted team but the perception remained - they had failed too often and the public had turned away. Until they wound up in the finals, pitted against a team that had gone from media darling to pariah.  Suddenly, the game had new meaning.

Somewhat lost in the drama and the loglines, was the fact that Dallas had been playing beautiful basketball, all season long.  This wasn’t the old Dirk. This was a veteran seasoned by years of disappointment, by personal and public missteps, a guy who loved to play so completely, to whom loyalty and dedication meant everything. His game was more complete, his desire all the more evident.

Dallas beat Portland and the populace shrugged. They swept the Lakers and experts said it was just too hard to win three-in-a-row. They beat the team of the future, OKC, and headed to the finals for the first time since ‘06.  The media at large, examined the situation and proclaimed the Mavs to be a very, very good team... who didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell against the three-headed monstrosity.  A couple games in and the storyline began to change.  Dallas won naturally, on the backs of a point guard older than Methuselah, a journeyman center, a reborn Matrix and Jason Terry - thrower of Heat-seeking missiles. I love his shooting philosophy, "I didn’t even see the basket, really."

You couldn’t have scripted a better ending to a long perplexing season, a serpentine trip.  Meanwhile, dark clouds were gathering on the horizon. The league and ownership (i.e. the brain-trust) had acquired various bits of information suggesting that the game of basketball was alive and well, and expanding at a rather astonishing rate.  Said knowledge firmly in hand and the Collective Bargaining Agreement about to expire, Stern-nation apparently decided that the proper course of action would be to shut it all down.

Bill Simmons wrote a piece recently, focusing on the negotiations and equating the owners’ purported $300 million shortfall to a cherry-picked clutch of bad player contracts. I’m not a Simmons hater, not part of that expanding crowd.  I actually like his style, how he turns a phrase.  But, he shoots from way outside and sometimes hits nothing but air.  How do you come up with the solution of taking a player’s salary?  Is that really how we want our league?  Is this like mandated testing for schools?  You lost your touch, your knees are broke. Give us back the money.

 Later in the same inexorably long article, Simmons offers that ABC/Disney stood to make $110 billion dollars for a Game 7. Not sure where he got his figures but just rolling with it for a moment, let's take some other multiples of billions and times them by hundreds of nationally televised games and thousands of locally televised (and syndicated) games and give a nice cut to the owners and add in merchandising and tickets and concession sales and more ancillary markets than would fit on this page and the next logical conclusion is a player lockout.  And all the children, are insane.

Pause for PSA - the Lakers still exist. Just thought I’d toss that in, considering this is supposed to be some version of a team blog.  Mike Brown’s still putting together his staff.  The draft’s about a week away.  Ron Artest is working on a reality show. Steve Blake’s become addicted to Extreme Couponing (OK, I made that up).

Everyone’s likening Rick Carlisle to Jim Carrey these days. I always thought he looked like Dick York from "Bewitched" but then everyone’s always said Carrey looks like York.  Regardless, Carlisle turned the bad news bears into true believers and it’s a testament to artful coaching, adaptability and communication.  Erik Spoelstra’s talked about the difficulty of working collectively inside the fish bowl.  Jim Carrey Rick Carlisle on the other hand, flew under the radar and used penultimate role players like the Custodian and the Human Wind-Up Toy. He built a raft from found pieces and steered it all the way to a championship.

The season was long and bumpy and the next one could be far away.  I’m reminded of what Shaq said in his last get-together with Phil Jackson, "I don’t understand why it had to come to this". Shaq and Phil are retired now and it somehow feels fitting that this year’s ring was won by a group of veterans who in fact, showed Phil the door.  And if there’s a lesson for D-Wade and LeBron, it’s this - don’t clown your elders, they may just kick your ass.

THIS IS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL HOUSE

Hibernation has suited me just fine since my last post.  Still, events keep rolling along and I can’t hide forever, my fingers will atrophy from lack of typing.  Dallas is going back to the finals for the first time since ‘06 and they’ll face Miami once again.  Dream scenario - Dallas sweeps.  Speaking of the Mavs, I wrote about J.J. Barea during the second round, something of a scathing lark which I figured on deleting after a day or so. Surprise of surprises, it’s still getting hits - ten times as many as any other SfS entry.  Ironic, bothersome and somehow awesome.  Thanks, evil munchkin.

The finals will begin and they will end and the possibility of a work stoppage will rapidly grow - it doesn’t appear that the league will be satisfied with anything less than a scorched and barren earth.  There’s ample precedent when it comes to undermining labor of course - the disastrous air traffic controllers strike in 1981 comes to mind as well as the decimation of large-scale manufacturing in the United States and the recent state-sponsored union bustings in Wisconsin.  Don’t even get me started on the vast retail workforce, now being systematically snuffed out of existence.  Bring on the warm robots.

Derek Fisher says the latest CBA proposal is very similar to the one the league submitted a year ago and Billy Hunter says it’s worse than the one he tore up in February.  Owners publically protest at the idea of hard salary caps but make no mistake, they’re the ones demanding it - along with decreased revenue sharing for players, a reduction in health and welfare and a ban on all new tattoos.  A lockout could cost the owners $3 billion dollars as well as a billion to the networks.  Why are they so eager to bite the hand that feeds them?  Because they can.

There are contingency plans of course, in the event that cooler heads prevail and a season is somehow salvaged.  For the Lakers, this entailed finding a coach who could follow Phil Jackson, a coach who would bring a fractured team back together and lead them to the promised land.  After careful consideration, they hired Mike Brown.  Pause for the sound of a gigantic shoe dropping with a loud, dull thud.  Yes, that guy from the Cavs, the one last seen with LeBron’s tire tracks across his back.  He was on ESPN the other night, grinning huge at the prospect of working with Kobe.  I’m sure Kobe’s excited to work with Brown as well, henceforth to be known as the big bulls-eye.

What was Jim Buss thinking?  You probably don’t want to know, I suspect his mind is a soggy and dangerous place.  He often talks about learning at the hand of Mitch Kupchak but it’s a crock - the only guy who sat at the right hand of Kupchak was Ronnie Lester, 25 years with the Lakers and the one really responsible for scouting and championing Andrew Bynum.  Lester’s now joining the exiting conga-line of coaches, scouts, trainers and video staff, courtesy of Jimmy's sloppily wielded truncheon.  Bonnie-Jill Laflin though, is expected to stay. 

Is there anything left to look forward to? I hope so.  There’s been entertainment value, even in the lean years. Actually, scratch that, the 2004-05 season shouldn’t be wished on anyone.  There’s always the draft to anticipate - the Lakers have four second-round picks this year and I’m hoping they spend them all on nutcase outside shooters.  Maybe they'll transplant Hubie Brown's brain into Mike's, beg Kobe to pretty-please show human kindness to his teammates and who knows, we might make it to the second round again.

TIME HAS COME TODAY

The road to the Larry O’Brien Trophy is long and winding and sometimes it ends right around the corner. One could insert ‘unexpectedly’ but let’s be honest, the warning signs were on full display all season long. Still, there was always hope - that issues could be dealt with, that the switch could be thrown, that age might turn its cruel stare away.   And, the frailties were evermore apparent come playoff time and we followed along - one last stand, one more game, one last chance.

Andrew played huge last night.  My lasting image of the game is how he pleaded, demanded, to stay in after his fourth foul.  Kobe too was terrific - poised, efficient and commanding, even when on the sidelines.  The team played a solid, smart game, up until the final few minutes.  And then came the mistakes and the turnovers and Dallas was ready to capitalize. It happens.  One team has to lose.

There is still a game to be played and perhaps, more.  History tells us that it’s highly improbable - no team in basketball has ever come back from three games down.  There have been 98 such scenarios and logic assumes that number 99 will soon follow.  Yet there are precedents outside our sport - The Red Sox against the Yankees; George Foreman against Michael Moorer; Harry Truman against Thomas Dewey and one of my all-time favorites - the racehorse Silky Sullivan who came from unbelievably far back in almost every race he ever ran.

Sometimes the words flow freely and sometimes they don’t.  Tonight would be the latter.  I feel saddened by the loss and the greater context but it’s somehow been compartmentalized - shuffled inside with other aches and pains.  I ran into a friend today and we just looked at each other and shook our heads.  I’m not sure where the hours have gone.  The television was on and Memphis won and the Celtics won, more storylines playing out.  I have a late dinner on the stove and the old dog has his ball in his mouth, ever hopeful.  I take him out, it’s still hot with a crescent moon overhead, the cicadas in full chorus.  Midnight is at hand in Austin.

I’ve never been a chalk player - it’s strange that I’ve been so devoted to a championship team for so long.  I like the underdogs, the dark horses.  I’ll bet a longshot over the favorite and favor a fighter coming off the ropes.  I vote for politicians who are idealists and I will never forget Kirk Gibson's swing for the fences in 1988.  Tomorrow provides for the most unlikely of scenarios - the most successful franchise in the NBA as the comeback kid?  It’s all screwy and doesn’t fit the template but there it is.

Phil Jackson was as demonstrative as I can remember him being last night.  Kobe's intensity is always unmatched, anywhere.  Artest will be back, Odom will again command the second unit and Bynum will likely pick up where he left off - dominating where others have not.  And then there’s Pau Gasol.  The immensely talented Spaniard has been off-kilter as of late.  The subject has been picked and probed, dissected six ways to Sunday.  His journey is difficult to watch but there is still a quixotic element to it - he may yet find his Dulcinea.

So yes, an impossible dream but these can be the best of sports stories, the idea of history being made.  I’m going all in tomorrow because the alternative is the end and I’m just not ready to say goodbye yet.  Maybe some other day.

BITS AND PIECES

There's only 7 games left in our regular season and it’s hard to fathom.  The season's gone by faster than any I can remember and that’s a lot.  It may have something to do with keeping this online journal of sorts - Searching for Slava’s not your traditional sports blog but I’ve had fun doing it - sections of basketball lumped together with other bits and pieces. Then again, the ever quickening passage of time may be just that.

I wrote about the distractions back in January and they can work the same with lowly mortals as with NBA stars - forces of everyday life seemed destined to keep me from scrolling every blog, devouring articles and games in whole.  It's come in odd parts as of late but this final stretch drive will push it all to the side. The Lakers have been on an epic tear since the All-Star break - 17 wins and 1 loss as of this typing and the rest of the games come fast and furious - plenty of back-to-backs, away and at home.

It would have been absurd only a week ago, to contemplate taking the top seed in the west. That was before a six-game skid from the Spurs - their worst in 15 years. It’s still a Silky Sullivan longshot - the Spurs magic number is 5 - any combination of their wins and our losses. Still, at the Lakers current win streak pace, that could mean 5 out of 6 wins for the Spurs and it’s certainly not how they’ve been playing lately.  Someone please correct me if my math is corrupt - I keep puzzling it and it's giving me a headache.

The brouhaha Thursday night was entertaining - many saying Dallas was punked but it's also worth noting that they were simply outmatched.  Our bigs are bigger than  their bigs and they play even larger.  Andrew's been a monster as of late, Pau's scoring at will and Lamar's making an unbreakable case for 6th man of the year.  I can't believe I just wrote that tripe - as if L.O. hasn't already strip-mined his unisex flower juice to death.  Phil Jackson chided Dallas’s Terry Stotts for his bear-hug of Barnes. He’s right of course - if an opposing coach had done that to Phil back in the day, there would have been a backwards elbow and a broken nose.  Stotts got off easy, Barnes merely dumped him onto the bench - a one-game suspension followed.

The Lakers sallied forth to Utah on a Friday night back-to-back.  The Jazz are decimated by injuries right now but still jumped out to a sizable lead - the Lakers didn't bother to flip the switch until late in the 2nd quarter. Kirlenko was out and we weren't treated to the usual display of  his shimmery locks solidarity with Martin Short  Gordan Hayward.  Fesenko started for the first time all season - he's a real big kid and laid some serious hits on Kobe.  Jerry Sloan would have been proud .  Utah battled back periodically in the second half but the Lakers machine took over - they won by 11 but it felt like more.

Sunday brings a 12:30 game against Denver and it'll be a challenge - the ink-squad's been impressive since shedding Melo and the early hour interferes with brunch.  Then again, the playoffs are in sight and surprisingly, so is San Antonio.   My laptop's been a black hole all night, I'm posting this while I still can.