One piece at a time

As a red-blooded American male, I’ve always had a love affair with cars. Even as a little boy my favorite toys were Hot Wheels. Quite ironic that when I misbehaved Mommy Dearest would use the two foot lengths of plastic tracks to whip my ass when I deserved it….and I deserved it on a regular basis. My favorite car was the Red Baron, it was a custom body painted bright red with a stainless steel German WWII helmet for a roof, it looked almost like an on field cart that you see on the sidelines at college football fields so often these days, but with a beefy open air engine. I loved that damn car. I have a inkling to go on Ebay right now to re-capture a piece of my childhood.

Despite my admiration of the beauty of automobiles, I never got into working on them. I built models in my youth…you know, the kind that required painting each individual part and using plastic cement to assemble them. I must’ve done twenty or so all told. Suprisingly, I never acquired a taste for racing or NASCAR, but the dramatic ending a Talladega recently was pretty cool.

Of all the cars I love, the 63 Cadillac holds a special place in my heart, something about the sleek lines, aggressive looking grill and of course, those fish tails on the rear end…like icing on the cake.

Another one of my passions is music. I grew up in the early 80’s as a hard rock loving Southern California kid who worshipped Eddie Van Halen, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. Then rap burst onto the scene with Run-DMC, Eric B & Rakim and Public Enemy and I was hooked like a trout on a line. As a city boy, I never gave country music the time of day, it seemed foreign to me but that all changed after 9/11. The Dixie Chicks sang a song during the Concert for America that touched my soul at the time. I was entranced by the sound of their voices, drawn like a moth to a flame. The song was called I Believe in Love and it opened a whole new world of sound for me. I felt like Morgan Freeman's character Red in The Shawshank Redemption when Andy played the Italian opera over the loud speaker. I immediately went online and downloaded a copy of it and several other songs from the Dixie Chicks. To this day, I really have no use for the majority of country music, the twangy up-beat cuts annoy me for the most part….In my humble opinion, country should be borderline painful and slow in tempo, (think Patsy Cline, who my mother played endlessly during my formative years, she did nothing for me at the time but now I love her music). The exceptions to this self imposed slower tempo rule are Hank Williams Sr. and The Man in Black, Mister Johnny Cash. I could listen to any record these two made over and over again. I never would have thought that possible ten years ago.

I digress.

Believe it or not this blog is about the Lakers and how they were transformed back into a championship calibur team…A Cadillac - One Piece at a Time.

Once upon a time, Los Angeles took winning rings for granted. As a kid I watched Magic Johnson literally redefine basketball and make watching each and every Lakers game an event. Later, we had Shaq and Kobe and all the role players needed to rule the NBA three straight years in a row, but all was not well in Camelot. This town wasn’t big enough for both players egos so one of them had to go.
As it turns out ,The Big Egotistical’s mouth made the decision easy for Lakers owner Jerry Buss. Shaq actually asked for a trade, which was just what the good Dr. Buss wanted anyway. Shaq was knee deep into the business of burning bridges at the time by criticizing management and mouthing off through the press.
Kobe Bryant was younger and played a more exciting style of ball than Shaq, so O’Neal was quickly shipped off to Miami for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler (who has since made a few All-Star teams with the Wizards), a draft pick (which turned out to be Jordan Farmar) and Bob Marley.

The next off season, rasta man Brian Grant was tossed aside, Butler was shipped off to Washington for Kwame “Brick- up” Brown (Kwame never met a lay-up he didn‘t try to brick), who was later sent to Memphis for Pau Gasol. Ending up with Gasol, Odom and Farmar for The Big Lip-Flapper isn’t too shabby but I’m getting ahead of myself again….continually digressing, sorry.

Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson and Derek Fisher are the only remnants of the 3-peat squad. And both Fish and the Zenmeister took a leave of absence before coming back to don the purple and gold. The foundations for this latest Lakers group came through the draft and trades. The lottery picks started with Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic, Andrew Bynum and Farmar. Prodigal son D-Fish, who was originally drafted by the Lakers the same year as Kobe, came home due to his daughters eye condition, followed by the barely noticed at the time yet brilliant in hindsight acquisition of former UCLA Bruin Trevor Ariza in exchange for Brian Cook and Maurice Evans.
Who you ask?…Exactly my point.
Another Lakers steal.

Josh Powell was signed to replace Energizer Bunny Ronny Turiaf after the disappointment in last years NBA Finals and has been a pleasant surprise for the Lakers, hitting his midrange jump shot consistently and willing to bang bodies down low. Vladimir Radmanovic was jettisoned to Charlotte in what seemed like a salary dump for college stud Adam Morrison and defensive minded Shannon Brown who looked like a toss in to make the salaries match up….only, I think Brown was the target all along and his play of late has again made the Lakers scouting team look genius. Cro-magnon blackbelt DJ Mbenga has even contributed impressive minutes off the pine this year. Sun Yue is the import from China who represented his country in Biejing this past summer but can’t get much court time in Phil Jackson’s triangle offense and barring injury it should remain that way.

-One piece at a time, Mitch Kupchak and the Lakers find their way back to the upper echelon of the NBA.

-One piece at a time is how Kobe Bryant crawls out from under the huge shadow cast by Shaquille O‘Neal.

-One piece at a time is how Phil Jackson passes Red Auerbach.

-One piece at a time is how good teams become great.


One GAME at a time…is how championships happen...I hope.

Win or go home.



I love this game.