The magic of Jack won’t save the Los Angeles Lakers this season. Mr. Nicholson, the famed Hollywood actor and his ever-devoted faithfulness to the Purple and Gold, won’t be good enough to rescue the Lakers from mediocrity next season as well. The year after that could also be some sleepless nights for Lakers fans.
But eventually the franchise will get it right. However, rebuilding takes time. There is a process that many loyal followers of the Lakers don’t understand. First, they need to understand that the Los Angeles Clippers are going to be a dominant team for a long, long time to come. Secondly, they need to know rebuilding is painful.
And the final pint is that no one is sympathizing with the Lakers these days. Things happen in cycles. This is life. There are going to be some good moments. There were will be anxious times. There will be some incredible highs like winning 16 NBA titles. There will be some lows like how the 2013-14 NBA season unfolded for the Lakers. Life is unapologetic.
So what makes the mystique of a sports team invincible to the casualty of reality?
Just like families all across the globe that stare down the inevitable transition of raising a child into manhood or womanhood, transition is not always easy to endure when you’re in the middle of dealing with it. But you learn to deal with it. You learn to adapt. You learn to take in the situation and face reality head on. Good parents don’t run from this equation.
They understand that life has its seasons. This lesson also applies to sports and sports teams. The key thing is when you’re going through a crisis is not to panic and compound anxiety with a bad decision. Lakers’ fans are in panic mode all over the place. People are jumping off the bandwagon after a couple of mediocre seasons.
What those fans have failed to realize is that there has been a dramatic shift in the NBA. It’s called parity. The UCLA men’s basketball program certainly can identify with this. The landscape around the league is not the same anymore. We have as many as six teams from the Western Conference that are good enough to make it to the NBA Finals.
The talent level is spread pretty evenly across the board. And every year it’s harder and harder to grind through 82 games and get into the postseason. The reality for the Lakers is that this is not the era of “Showtime” with cast members Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and James Worthy. This isn’t the “Triangle Trifecta” that featured Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson and Shaquille O’ Neal that dominated the league for a couple of seasons.
This isn’t the “Lake Show” that starred Kobe and versatile man Pau Gasol, guys who made it to the NBA Finals three times and came up with the league crown twice. This is a different time, a much different era. It’s funny how times flies and how people can quickly forget about your accomplishments.
The Lakers are just a couple of years removed from winning their last title. Now people call them bums. The Lakers are still great franchise. It is just that everyone else has gotten a lot better. The Clippers, now taken seriously as title contenders now that Doc Rivers have taken over the head coaching reins, have rolled to the postseason the last couple of seasons.
Oklahoma City Thunder, with dynamic duo of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, has already made a trip to the NBA Finals. The dreaded San Antonio Spurs stay consistent. Mark Jackson has Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors believing they can beat anybody. And they can! The Portland Trailblazers are coming up.
The Houston Rockets found gold when they landed James Harden and Dwight Howard. The harsh reality for the Lakers is they are doing the chasing to catch up everyone else in the league instead of the other way around. Kobe, who is still among the Top 3 players in the league today, is likely going to retire in two years.
The Lakers have to make preparation to move on, which they have started to do. They’ve started the process of moving in another direction with the recent extension of general manager Mitch Kupchak, which gives the team a steady hand. Personnel matters, however, is a different story. Outside of guard Kendall Marshall and shooter Nick Young, the Lakers have a long way to go to get talent to compete for a NBA title.
And that could translate into a long dry spell of being mentioned in the championship conversation.
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com