The Los Angeles Lakers Should Be Ashamed of Themselves

Yeah I said it. Commence to send all Kobe, Bynum, and any other irrelevant Laker hatemail to ed@edthesportsfan.com but you know what I don't care, this display of basketball has become downright preposterous to watch, and if I was a Laker fan (thank God I'm not) then I'd really be questioning the heart and soul of my team.

Let's state the obvious first, isn't this supposed to be the team that was supposed to go straight through to the finals and be the dragon slayers that should've beaten the Celtics last year? I mean, they do have Andrew Bynum back right? Oh wait, they do have Trevor Ariza back right? The Lakers go 11-deep with ease, yet they look lethargic (I'm looking at you Derek Fisher) and more importantly than that, they seem disinterested. What the hell???

I remember when I watched Remember The Titans last week and the two main players, LB Julius Campbell (Wood Harris) and Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) got into it on the field. Bertier screamed at Campbell about reading a play, and called him selfish. Campbell's retort:

"Attitude reflects leadership, captain."

Is there anybody in Laker land listening? Kobe...I'm talking to you buddy.

Its a reason why I really like LeBron way more than Kobe, its because he makes his team play hard, makes them believe in each other, and he's a selfless player. Its his natural personality to be that way. Everything from Kobe seems contrived, planned, and mimicked (i.e. I stole all my mannerisms from MJ). Kobe will win something though, he will win Best Actor in his upcoming "documentary" by Spike Lee.

Ok let me stop, that ain't the point. The point is this, the Houston Rockets are a very good team, and maybe I'm selling them way short, but they don't have their two best players on the court. Their best player is a marginal shooter (Artest) and their best post defender is probably about 6'5" (Chuck Hayes), and they are getting abused beat by a man that has half of the athletic ability than the Lakers frontcourt has (Scola) collectively. Aaron Brooks couldn't even make my fantasy basketball team this year. Yet, this Rockets team is on the brink of maybe the biggest upset in years. Yes, this is bigger than the Sonics losing to the Nuggets, or the Warriors beating the Mavs, this is odds-on favorite to win it all and they are one game away from the conference finals. Plus the other team lost its 2 best players. I'd say its a major upset.


Even Phil Jackson deserves tons of blame for this, I think he thinks that he's been in so many of these games that he'll be able to rally the troops and bring home the bacon once again. However, I know that the worst people to deal with are those folks who really don't give a f*ck. They don't. They have nothing to lose. These are your Houston Rockets, and they're coming to play ball, period. If the Lakers had any heart, they'd do something about it. Will they? Or is it already too late?

Am I going to hard on these boys? I mean, I am a Laker hater, I'll admit it. But I try to do a good job of recognizing the real. Pau Gasol is the best player on the Lakers, yeah I said it. He's out there balling, he should be getting 40 a night real talk. The collection of PG's on the Lakers have been a haphazard crew to say the least. Is Andrew Bynum even alive out there? He seems like a walking corpse for real. Shannon Brown's been a big surprise, Ariza's been pretty good, but Kobe...Kobe...Kobe...ok, maybe he's been leaving it on cruise control for too long. I get it, he's going on 31 years of age in August and he's saving his body a bit, I get it. But look, he's going to the line just 6 times a game? Really? He's got arguably the 2 best on the ball defenders in the league guarding him and he can't make plays to get other folks the ball. I dunno, his teammates gotta step up, but he's gotta step up.

My wish? Sigh...I really want Houston to win, because I'm just not a Laker fan. I'm honest at least. Sadly, in my heart I'd almost rather see L.A. win so they could play Cleveland for the Grand Finale. Come on L.A., show me what you got.

-Ed.
www.edthesportsfan.com