FRIDAY FEEDBAG (and random acts of linkage)

In any sport (save bog-snorkeling perhaps), things can turn on a dime. For the Lakers, a pretty poor month of December begat a ragged start to the New Year. Bad moon on the rise, Kobe calling out teammates, Jackson taking his own odd-angled shots (zen marble-mouth) and Ron reacting in his inimitable way to Phil’s motivational soapbox. You can touch a type-key blindly and find a post that perfectly breaks down some aspect of the game but the game’s not played by writers, it’s played by guys who’ve been doing it all of their still young lives and it’s ingrained more deeply than most of us can ever know. X’s & O’s aren’t necessarily going to bring you out of a skid, there’s a witches’ brew of real time moments and combined chemistries, a team finds its way for reasons unknown and we don’t need no stinkin’ critics, you blink an eye and don’t make it to your feed on time and the Spurs lose a couple and the Lakers win a couple and suddenly the gap’s not as wide. Make gone the absurdities and Rube Goldberg diagrams, the team’s back and playing with purpose.

The rest of the month bodes well for a team getting it back together, 8 games at home, 4 on the road, a few good teams but not what you’d call a tough schedule. Phil Jackson supposedly likes to compartmentalize, five games at a time. Good enough for me.  Tonight we play New Orleans again (we demolished them last week), New York will probably give us a game on Sunday, Cleveland could theoretically be a trap just because they’re so plain bad. A quick jaunt up to Golden State on a back-to-back but the one I’m really looking forward to is the Nets at Staples Center on Friday the 14^th.   The return of a couple guys who didn’t much like each other in L.A. but find themselves ironically linked once more on one of the league’s worst contractions attractions. Jordan Farmar seems to have found his niche and Sasha’s increased his numbers ten-fold since being traded. It’s hard to say what he’ll do back in Staples for the first time since leaving.  If he gets to the charity stripe and grooms his eyebrows there could be trouble.

When your main stomping ground’s a particular team, It’s usually an easy call to link specific blogs and sites. They will after all, blanket the day’s source material and fit conveniently into a narrative. Still, there’s so much good stuff out there and spending lost hours in the maze reveals so many read-worthy items, sometimes closely related to whatever’s currently on the menu or perhaps tangential but still tasty. I don’t even know what I’m writing half the time by the way. 

Breene Murphy examines the horror that is Sterling in the ClipperBlog.
Colin Stephenson writes about Sasha in the Star-Ledger.
Pick and Scroll features a pretty great Haiku Recap.
The guys at A Wolf Among Wolves write incredibly good stuff, all the time.
48 Minutes of Hell rolls the Spurs eclectic draft philosophy into a Pacers preview.
Yes, it's Lakers-centic but just the same, check out today's Lazenby's HoopsHype Blog.

Okay, it took me twice as long to post these links as it actually did to read them.  Stupid slow laptop.  I'm gonna have some lunch now 'cause I'm feeling really cranky.

WHERE ART THOU, CAMELOT?

Seasons begin with themes in Phil Jackson’s world and sometimes they play out as planned and sometimes they don’t. The final triumphant Bulls run was the "Last Dance" while the Lakers’ ripped-apart "Last Season" was immortalized as a team in search of its soul. That 2003/4 edition became no more - a gut-wrenching clearing of the decks that paved the way for the most improbable rise from the ashes - the return of provocateur Jackson and the rebuilding of a dynasty. This current season was tagged in advance as the "Last Stand" and Phil hoped it would be a grand one. And it started that way, sans Bynum but still a team with size, depth, experience and versatility, jumping out with the kind of run that had many predicting a three-peat, even with the Decision rearing a misshapen head and sucking ESPN into its gaping maw.

The Laker’s glorious start didn’t last, losses tiptoed in and became streaks, the year ended with a couple of wins and a 23 and 10 record - good enough for 3^rd place in the west and on par with the east’s leaders. Still, it can hardly be termed "grand" and the team’s play especially pales alongside that of the Spurs, humble owners of a 29 and 4 record.  Our loss against them on the 28^th was demoralizing, the third panel in a triptych tailspin, addressed in a team meeting and supposedly remedied with Bynum’s return to the starting lineup, a convincing beat-down of New Orleans followed by a not so convincing win against the lowly 76'ers, a comfortable lead frittered away in the 4^th quarter, barely managing to hang on. I don’t even want to imagine Doug Collins winning at the Staples Center.

Last night, mulling notes from posts aborted (blogging’s lurked around the fringes lately), searching for clues to a wobbly drive train and watching in morbid fascination as the Spurs demolished the Thunder. We wouldn't beat this team in a seven-game series right now. I hate to say it but numbers don’t lie. And it got late and the temperature dropped and clouds rolled in again and hours were resolutely working against me but it finally appeared, buried in a stats line from yet another loss by one of the league’s worst teams. For your consideration, 22 points in 35 minutes from one Sasha Vujacic. Remember him? The Machine’s been gone less than a month but it feels longer to me.

I didn’t like the salary dump trade when it happened and I don’t like it any better now. As ludicrous as it sounds, Vujacic’s having a career season since his banishment to the land of the eternal Melo hopes. Rubbish you say, he was an annoying under-achiever, grating on teammates nerves, confounding his coaches, prone to the vainest of eyebrow-grooming gestures at the one place where he knew he was gold, the aptly-named charity stripe. Fine, but I’m eccentric and I can play these foolish games. He’s shooting with impunity, he’s defending, even rebounding and Avery Johnson is letting him roll.  Jackson always kept the kid on a short leash and you knew that wasn’t going to pay dividends. Read the local Jersey press and blogs, they’re lovin’ them some Vujacic and I’ve got to think we lost a little bit of an "X" factor, letting fly from his favorite corner then yammering at the opposition as he scurried back up the court, baiting them into the stupidest of retaliatory fouls. Meanwhile, Joe Smith has yet to touch the ball for the Lakers.

What’s this got to do with the remainder of our season? Nothing, I guess. Sasha’s not coming back and Jackson wouldn’t play him, even if he did. Nope, the Lakers will have to figure this out on their own and they will at some point though not tonight. It’s 24 hours since I first decided that a lack of Sasha equals a rudderless ship.  Tonight’s esteemed adversary was the .441 Grizzlies with the Lakers playing their usual Sunday guessing game. Final outcome, another listless loss, fits and starts continuing as the team tries to decide whether to return to a dominant inside-out game or continue letting Kobe try to rescue them with two or three working fingers. I’m hoping Andrew demands the game at some point, they could be giants still.

If any of you Spurs devotees are still following this drawn out mess, here comes the finale. Your excellent season will continue, the perfect storm will gather strength. The media may even take notice at some point and you’ll probably blow into the playoffs with home court advantage, maybe even the 72 and 10 season that everyone’s coveted since the Bulls did it fifteen years ago.  And then you’ll face the Lakers in the western finals and at some point, we will have flipped that cursed switch.  Bynum will swat away Blair’s teardrops, Pau will cancel out Duncan, Artest will start a couple fights, Odom will high-step coast-to-coast, Fish might nail a rainbow and Kobe will simply destroy and when all is said and done, you will have had your hearts torn out. Again. Howl in protest though you may, this is your greatest fear because you know there’s a couple things the Lakers are real good at - aggravating their fanbase and winning championships. We’ll steam off to the finals, Phil Jackson will get that 12^th ring and finally head home to Montana to write another book about the unceasing circle of zen and how he actually planned it this way. And long-suffering Gregg Popovich will uncork some wine and wonder if there’s still one more curtain call up His Smugness’s sleeve. After a lockout shortened season of course. And perhaps an asterisk?

CROSSROADS (Lakers/Spurs preview)

I spent Christmas Day at a family dysfunction on the ex’s side, a hearty mix ranging from crazed teens to bible-thumping grandparents (common denominator being plentiful booze), parading in a shouting mass in front of the HD Wall of Television. Such distractions tend to be a filter, leaving unvarnished truths seen as if through a picture window:  Steve Blake seemed to be the only Laker not wearing Kobe’s new Green Lantern shoes and Pau simply hasn’t looked right lately. There were warnings of a trap game before the embarrassing loss to the Bucks and equally convenient complaints about having to shed one’s Big-and-Tall Snuggies in order to play a little ball on Christmas. The latter didn’t seem to affect those hailing from the eastern quadrant of the country - the steadily improving Heat steam-rolled us four quarters straight.

In a previous post, I noted that the Spurs game on the 28^th worried me more than Miami. There’s an obvious long-running history between the Spurs and Lakers, I don’t know that I’d call it a rivalry in the hatred sense, there’s always been mutual grudging respect and not a lot of trash talking (save for that aimed at Bruce Bowen’s ever active scissor-hands back in the day). At any rate, offered up is SfS’s first and perhaps only game preview, X's and O's not being my strong suit. I’ll try and avoid whimsical references to the Ukraine’s favorite son. Whoops.

The Spurs simply weren’t themselves last season. They looked old, beat-to-crap, and never seemed to gain traction with off-season acquisitions Richard Jefferson and Antonio McDyess. DeJuan Blair was a second round steal and George Hill also showed rookie promise but by-and-large, the team limped through the season, managing to get to the second round in the western conference playoffs before being run-and-gunned by the Suns.

This year’s been a whole different deal, Duncan’s channeling Ponce de Leon, Jefferson’s located his confidence, Manu’s the wily points leader and Parker’s showing why he's still an elite point, dishing 7 dimes a game. Undersized Blair’s been starting at center in short effective minutes with Bonner and McDyess filling in the gaps. The big off-season move was bringing in Tiago Splitter who’s been parked under the overseas umbrella for some time. He came to the team the worse for wear after a busy year of Brazilian ball capped by FIBA and a thigh injury. He’s being integrated gradually at a little over 11 minutes per game. Coach Popovitch has these guys playing with purpose, a few clunkers here and there but their league-leading start can’t be ignored, even if it sometimes seems that way with the media blitz that is the Heat and the entitlement that too often sabotages my own beloved Lakers.

L.A. reloaded in the off-season, hoping to deliver a fourth 3-peat for Phil Jackson in what he’s consistently termed his last stand. Fish re-upped his contract as did Shannon Brown. Steve Blake and Matt Barnes signed on for a pittance, Theo Ratcliff for even less. We got a couple good projects in Caracter and Ebanks but they’ll likely see their minutes reduced to a shiny spot as the season progresses. With Andrew Bynum recovering from knee surgery in painfully slow fashion, Odom slid back into a familiar starting slot and the team was off and running - an impressive start to the season until the wheels started wobbling. We’ve now taken up residence in a series of back-to-back losses buffered by win streaks that keep us looking solid in the standings, if not the eyes of seasoned observers. The oft-mentioned on-switch is in serious need of attention, we’re currently five games back from the Spurs and the question of home court advantage starts to loom.

A few random observations, sans typical bullet points, headings or other things organizational:

The game’s on Spurs turf, the Lakers need to show up early and not let the crowd get carried away. I don’t know what shape Bynum’s really in but if there ever a time for him to get the starting nod again, it would be now. Use the Bynum/Pau tandem to control the paint, take advantage of the Blair size mismatch, go strong to the basket. The Spurs are masters of the pick-and-roll which has historically been a hurdle for the Lakers. - they’re too often a step slow with rotations, getting burned on the back end. Communication and trust are key. Ball movement looms large - Parker’s an active distributor and there’s a myriad of options with Manu, Jefferson and Duncan. The Lakers on the other hand have been a bit stagnant lately, I’d like to see the triangle flowing again, hoping for better reads, more effective screens, less loading up on one side.

Bench-wise, Bonner’s been deadly from outside as has second-year guard Hill. The Lakers’ Killer B’s have fallen off the map a bit lately and need to get their mojo back. Odom on the other hand has been one of the Lakers’ bright lights lately - whether he starts or plays 6^th man, he needs to continue cleaning the glass and splitting the seams.  Motivation - in the aftermath of the Heat loss, Kobe appears to be extremely pissed off. There’s not a lot in the way of direct quotes from practice but he participated quite strenuously from all accounts and Ron in particular is acknowledging the message. While on the subject of Artest, one of the good folks over at PtR mentioned the ‘can’t teach height’ adage and added the hope that Blair would switch off Odom to guard the corpse of Ron Artest. My own sincere hope would be that Ron catches wind of this before game time. That's motivation!

SEASON OF THE WITCH

One of my earliest memories is standing by the side of the road in a small New England town, around age 4, with my older brother and his wiseacre friends. I hear the wail of a fire engine, ask where it’s going. There’s a witch in the woods, comes the answer. I run home sobbing in abject terror. The deepest fear is often anticipation.

There’s a percolating sense of malaise in Laker Nation lately, whispers and gnawing doubts across the cyber universe, are these our championship Lakers? Third place in the west isn’t bad but probably not what Phil Jackson had in mind when he announced his grand last stand. Pau’s got tired legs, Ron’s trying to explain why he still doesn’t get the triangle and Kobe’s putting up circus shots, annoyed about the lack of team energy. You’ve got to pick up every stitch. Lesser teams aren’t going to hand you their hopes on a platter.

After the loss to the Bulls the other night, the press reported that Phil was unfazed and equally ambivalent about the likelihood of it being his last coaching experience at the United Center. Girlfriend Jeanie Buss however, tweeted that he was in a BAAAD mood, made worse by people in Chicago acting like it’s his funeral. "We may never see you again". Who are we supposed to believe, Phil at the podium or Jeanie giving a personal side? Easy answer, we love the game absolutely but can’t help putting a dramatic spin on it, it’s the reason after all for articles, editorials, abstractions in every form of social media and of course, fantasy leagues.

I’ve been an unapologetic fan these many years and don’t mean any doom. It’ll all be fine and after hand-wringing and blame (it’s Sasha’s fault for his .08 seconds of uneventful play), we usually band together in forms of unity. Still, I do think the battery’s having a hard time holding a charge, the oil’s dirty and the cylinder’s aren’t firing all that smooth. A good friend and ardent Spurs fan floated the theory that we’re just mind fucking with everyone. I responded that playing like crap isn’t Montaigne. (actually I used the mind fucking term but spell check just changed it to the father of modern skepticsm - kind of ironic, doncha think?). When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see? Some other cat, looking over his shoulder at me.

Sunday, the Lakers on the second of their six-game roadie, barely eking out a win against the lowly Nets. Pau says he wasn’t getting any calls, Ron shot 1-for-7, our bench was thoroughly outscored and Kobe’s still pissed about the excuses. Next up, Washington, Indiana, Philadelphia and Toronto with an aggregate win percentage of .374. Why does that worry me? Bynum’s supposed to be back in action at some point and I was supposed to be rich and famous. Christmas Day brings the improving Heat and the pick-and-roll Spurs visit on the 28^th, currently playing the best ball in the league. I think I hear sirens, must be the season of the witch.