By The Sports Kid
07/12/04
It's baseball season. The Dodgers are in the N.L West race. Gagne blows his first save in 84 straight. And nobody cares? These things are huge and nobody seems to know about them or seem to want to talk about it. The Lakers are once again hogging the media attention.
So what the heck? I'll step aside from the baseball world and write about the very surprising roller coaster ride that has been the off-season of the Lakers.
Again the Lakers are having another off-season that has a lot of people talking. Last year, because of the signing of ?Gary Payton and Karl Malone, The LakeShow had the title in the bank, right? Wrong. They thought they were going to win it for sure, as if they were playing a game of poker (and yes I have been watching too, too much World Series of Poker), and you have a trip aces. You think you have everybody beat, so you go all in. But Larry Brown and the Pistons have a better hand with a Full House so they also go all in (too, too much World Series of Poker), Brown and the Pistons win the hand and take the championship. The Lakers on the other hand, lose basically everything--Phil Jackson, maybe Shaq, maybe Kobe, Fisher, and the list goes on, the price of going all in.
If the Shaq-for-Odom-Grant-Butler-future-draft-pick deal goes through, the Lakers will be getting three former first rounders. But none of them can replace O'Neal, especially Brain Grant.
Another possibility is for Kobe to sign with the L.A. Clippers. But there is still a chance that he will resign.
If both O'Neal and Kobe leave the Lakers, it has been rumored that he will sign with the San Antonio Spurs.
Rudy Tomjanavich will not be as good as Jackson, but he does have two titles in 12 years of experience.
We all thought that last year's Laker off-season was one of the best better. Everybody thought they were headed in the right direction. Maybe they lost the directions or the map to having great off-seasons--because so far the Lakers off-season has been horrible. Simply ugly. Even Laker fans must admit. Nothing is official yet, but the Lakers look like they're headed to a very long season.