Yes, they don’t even tip their first round series off until Sunday afternoon, but Kevin Durant and his Oklahoma City Thunder have already lost round one to the Phil Jackson and the Los Angeles Lakers. And even the $35,000 fine that the NBA levied against Jackson for his comments won’t blunt the effect.
That’s because Durant, [...]
An excerpt from my book, Jerry West, The Life And Legend Of A Basketball Icon, recently released by ESPN Books.
It was 50 years ago this month, in April of 1960, that Jerry West was drafted by the Minneapolis Lakers. The draft wasn’t a big deal back then. Al Attles, who would be taken in the [...]
Of all the situations spawned by the internal division of the Los Angeles Lakers, the dealings with Andrew Bynum seem the weirdest.
That was Tex Winter’s description of the coaching staff’s relationship with Bynum. Not mine. And that was almost two years ago, well before Winter suffered a debilitating stroke.
At the time, the Lakers were nursing [...]
Former Lakers and WVU coach Fred Schaus has passed away. In his honor I’m excerpting a part of my new book, Jerry West, The Life And Legend Of A Basketball Icon, from ESPN Books:
One clue to Jerry West leapt out at me from a 50-year-old photograph, both comical and telling in its intensity. The photo [...]
Jerry Buss celebrates the remarkable 30th anniversary of his tenure owning the Lakers.
When I was a kid, I never quite understood what the saying “what goes around comes around” meant exactly. Things happen in circles, I decided, still not sure what that meant. When I got a little older, my perspective changed. I upgraded my opinion to “Things happen in cycles.” Later – as I matured a [...]
There’s much consternation in Lakersville these days. A lot of it centers on the team’s iffy defense.
Assistant coach Kurt Rambis is the team’s defensive coordinator, so to speak. Yes, the Lakers do trap a bit, but that’s kind of the window dressing of what they do.
Their basic problem defines what Rambis has chosen to do [...]
