Battlefield Los Angeles. That’s what it’s going to be like every time the two teams from L.A. clash. On one side you have the reputable Lakers with the leading scorer in the NBA with his twin tower allies. On the other you have the former laughingstock of the league, but this year they’ve stocked up on weapons.
Adding the best point guard in the league and a legitimate wing scorer after picking up a proven champion, the Clippers are now a sure shot to take over L.A. fans and sports stations everywhere are hyping them up, even the players, “Lob City” “Lob Angeles” are just two names that I’m getting sick of hearing.
While the Clippers go through the season proving that they are a real contender in the west, the Lakers have been struggling to get by and crack the top 8. As Clipper fans will claim that L.A. now belongs to them, Laker fans continue their “We have championships and Kobe” argument. The question of which team owns L.A still hasn’t been answered clearly and it won’t be until the playoffs.
As Kobe said, “Please, we’ve got five championships. . . . Rival come from the playoffs.” Kobe’s got a point. It’s the regular condensed season. Who cares who wins between the Lakers and Clippers? Well, it matters because each win will help provide a playoff berth, but everything should be taken with a grain of salt in the regular season; especially this one.
What matters is what happens in the playoffs. As exciting as the Clippers are, the Lakers still have three quarters of the regular season to get things straight before heading into the postseason which they won’t miss. However, what Kobe is also saying is, hey, we’re the Lakers and they’re the Clippers, come on, let’s be real. Sorry Kobe, but the truth of the matter is that there’s no doubt that the team of the future is the Clippers (if they can keep everything intact, you know those Clippers love messing things up!)
But it’s a tough pill for Kobe to swallow, so he had to defend himself and his team with the only thing they have, the past. Which is exactly what Laker fans have to let go in this Clippers-Lakers argument. I know, it’s hard to forget about those glory days with Smush running the backcourt, throwing halfcourt lobs to NBA sensation Kwame (he was their version of Blake for those young freshman who don’t know who Kwame is, and Smush was the Laker’s version of CP3), but it’s time to watch the present and be faced with the truth.
The Laker’s offense is crap. Sure Kobe leads the league in scoring, but asides from him they can’t get any consistent play from their bench and role players. And before we get into any discussion about not giving it to the post enough, the Lakers lead the league in post usage. It’s what the bigs are doing with the ball that counts, not how many times they get the ball. I’m not going to go in-depth about the Lakers offense, as I’m sure Mike Brown will fix that in the upcoming months by watching game tape, because Mike Brown’s specialty is game tapes. I know, sounds exhilarating right? Boy the Lakers sure did make a great hire, getting game tape master and sending their candyman Odom away for free! This is going off on a wild tangent, but the main point is this, L.A belongs to no single team.
It is shared by a proven champion and an up and coming contender. The answer to who is going to rule by the end of spring will be discovered then, but as of now, the future looks bleak in L.A. but on the other side, the sun has just began to rise (is this an implication that I think Nash is coming from the Suns to the Lakers? Yes, yes it is, and the Lakers won’t be in the playoffs? Yes, I do think so.)
