scotsman13
Registered User
I hate L.A. ... and it's been a good couple months
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Kevin Hench / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 45 minutes ago
Okay, enough already. I'm actually starting to feel guilty for the giddy glee with which I've enjoyed the demise and dismantling of the Los Angeles Lakers. I'm losing my appetite for destruction.
Who am I kidding, this just keeps getting better and better. If you hate the Lakers like I hate the Lakers, this has been the Summer of Love.
It was a happy day when Shaquille O'Neal joined the Miami Heat. (Wilfredo Lee / AP)
I loved it that the Lakers arrogantly assumed the crown was theirs after they beat the Spurs. I loved it when the Pistons turned the Lakers into humiliated submissives, unable to do anything without Detroit's permission. I loved it when Shaq gave his Armageddon presser after Game 5 and made it clear that the best interior player in the game and the best perimeter player in the game would never play together again. I loved it when Phil Jackson's soft smile in his press conference said, "Thank God I'll never again have to try to rein in these two egos like a guy trying to tether two Goodyear blimps with one rope."
And on and on it's gone. Each headline adding to the unbridled joy of seeing a nemesis undone. Even the one Laker everyone likes — D-Fish — bolted.
The Germans have a word for taking joy in other people's misery: schadenfreude. (We have a term of endearment in the Bay State for people who take delight in others' suffering: it begins with "Mass" and it ends in "hole.") For years I've been afflicted with a specific form of schadenfreude, I call it Shaqenfreude. Yes, since 1996, I've lived for those rare moments when the Diesel has run out of fuel and the Lakers have failed miserably.
It was very hard to truly hate the '80s Lakers, but that's what makes Boston sports fans so special: we can step up and bring the hate even when the targets are clearly good guys — Magic, Worthy, Bernie Williams, Jeter, et al. But these latest Lakers were perhaps the most unlikable assemblage in sports history. Felony charges aside, these guys never met an interview they couldn't mumble their way through, clearly contemptuous of the media types who dedicate their lives to publicizing the players' product and thereby helping to line the players' pockets. And nothing upsets me more than a guy — or, in this case, two guys — trying to collect their ring on the backs of others. Think Wade Boggs riding on that mounted policeman's horse after the 1996 World Series. Yuck. So the Toxic Twins were joined by the Glove and the Mailman to form the crankiest quartet since the Sex Pistols.
So you see, for me, this last two months has been one long delirious fit of ecstasy.
May 13 — The day the clock stood still. Yes, Derek Fisher was able to catch, turn, rise and release in four-tenths of a second. Oy. That was that, the next month would just be a formality. But a funny thing happened on the way to the "Can you dig it?" orgy of self-congratulations that has become a Laker victory celebration.
June 6, 2004 — Before the most undeserving, entitled fans in the NBA, the Lakers got smacked in the mouth in Game 1 of the Finals, 87-75. Lakers fans are spoiled Philistines, reclining into their cushions, demanding to be fed grapes before they'll utter a decibel of approval (look for the worst fans in sports column, coming soon). Still, despite the Game 1 loss, everyone assumed we'd see a repeat of the '01 Finals against the Sixers when the Lakers blew off the first game and then swept the next four.
June 8 — And, sure enough, Larry Brown chose not to foul with a three-point lead in the waning seconds (are Bill Walton and I the only people in the world who understand that a guy has a much better chance of making a 3-pointer than of making a free throw, missing the second and having his team convert the putback?) and the series was tied.
June 10 — Pistons 88, Lakers 68. This is where I allowed myself to begin to dream, to hope. Maybe, just maybe this collection of surly, self-centered, me-guys could lose to a bunch of selfless we-guys.
June 13 — Pistons 88, Lakers 80. Even when it seemed obvious that the Lakers were dead after falling behind 3-1, I still had that Glenn Close in the bathtub feeling. Let's just make sure the monster is dead.
June 15 — Pistons 100, Lakers 87. Could it get any better than the Lakers being embarrassed in five games? Yup. Like the Fall of the House of Usher (the Raven guy, not the rapper guy), the Laker fortress began to crumble in front of our eyes at the postgame press conference. Shaq and Phil as much as said, "Don't let the door hit you in the face on our way out." It was like Christmas in June. Every answer a new present. This was sheer joy, a harbinger of the purge to come.
June 18 — It's official, the Phil is gone. Perhaps the hyper-literate Jackson had read Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy and knows the dangers of sleeping with the boss' daughter. I've never read it, but I did see the movie with Monty Clift and Elizabeth Taylor (A Place in the Sun) and I think Phil is doing the right thing by fleeing to the ranch in Montana. Somehow I doubt Jeanie will follow him. Anyway, the last time Phil was associated with a loss as lopsided as his Finals farewell was when he supported Bill Bradley in the 2000 Democratic primaries.
Late June-early July — The once unthinkable is happening: the Lakers are actively shopping Shaq. Why? One story gurgling its way through the rumor mill has it that Dr. Buss asked Kobe what it would take to re-sign him and Bryant said, "Make it my team." The open secret was that Shaq wanted to get paid and the Lakers were skittish about shelling out for the extension it would take to make those big ol' bones happy. But moving Shaq was gonna be about as easy as turning around an aircraft carrier at your local marina. As days and weeks went by without a clear destination emerging I started to worry that Shaq and Kobe would do one of their semi-annual kiss-and-make-ups and I'd have to start dreading another Laker run to glory. But then came the great news: Shaq was heading to Miami.
July 14 — What could be better than Shaq being driven out of Tinseltown? How about Lamar Odom returning to the site of his last drug suspension and the Lakers being saddled with Brian Grant's woeful contract? Hey, the Lakers were stuck. There was no way they were going to get market value for the Big Aristotle. Mitch Kupchak probably did as well as he could. But the bottom line is the Lakers are not a legitimate title threat next year. Woo-hoo!
July 15 — Derek Fisher signs with the Warriors. The cherry on the Laker-hatin' sundae.
July 20 — When the Daddy pulled his Diesel-powered truck into Miami this past Tuesday it capped the most spectacular six-week period of Laker Hating in history.
The sheer euphoria of watching the Lakers unravel has been so consuming that it has actually taken my mind off how bad the Celtics are.
Story Tools: Print Email
Kevin Hench / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 45 minutes ago
Okay, enough already. I'm actually starting to feel guilty for the giddy glee with which I've enjoyed the demise and dismantling of the Los Angeles Lakers. I'm losing my appetite for destruction.
Who am I kidding, this just keeps getting better and better. If you hate the Lakers like I hate the Lakers, this has been the Summer of Love.
It was a happy day when Shaquille O'Neal joined the Miami Heat. (Wilfredo Lee / AP)
I loved it that the Lakers arrogantly assumed the crown was theirs after they beat the Spurs. I loved it when the Pistons turned the Lakers into humiliated submissives, unable to do anything without Detroit's permission. I loved it when Shaq gave his Armageddon presser after Game 5 and made it clear that the best interior player in the game and the best perimeter player in the game would never play together again. I loved it when Phil Jackson's soft smile in his press conference said, "Thank God I'll never again have to try to rein in these two egos like a guy trying to tether two Goodyear blimps with one rope."
And on and on it's gone. Each headline adding to the unbridled joy of seeing a nemesis undone. Even the one Laker everyone likes — D-Fish — bolted.
The Germans have a word for taking joy in other people's misery: schadenfreude. (We have a term of endearment in the Bay State for people who take delight in others' suffering: it begins with "Mass" and it ends in "hole.") For years I've been afflicted with a specific form of schadenfreude, I call it Shaqenfreude. Yes, since 1996, I've lived for those rare moments when the Diesel has run out of fuel and the Lakers have failed miserably.
It was very hard to truly hate the '80s Lakers, but that's what makes Boston sports fans so special: we can step up and bring the hate even when the targets are clearly good guys — Magic, Worthy, Bernie Williams, Jeter, et al. But these latest Lakers were perhaps the most unlikable assemblage in sports history. Felony charges aside, these guys never met an interview they couldn't mumble their way through, clearly contemptuous of the media types who dedicate their lives to publicizing the players' product and thereby helping to line the players' pockets. And nothing upsets me more than a guy — or, in this case, two guys — trying to collect their ring on the backs of others. Think Wade Boggs riding on that mounted policeman's horse after the 1996 World Series. Yuck. So the Toxic Twins were joined by the Glove and the Mailman to form the crankiest quartet since the Sex Pistols.
So you see, for me, this last two months has been one long delirious fit of ecstasy.
May 13 — The day the clock stood still. Yes, Derek Fisher was able to catch, turn, rise and release in four-tenths of a second. Oy. That was that, the next month would just be a formality. But a funny thing happened on the way to the "Can you dig it?" orgy of self-congratulations that has become a Laker victory celebration.
June 6, 2004 — Before the most undeserving, entitled fans in the NBA, the Lakers got smacked in the mouth in Game 1 of the Finals, 87-75. Lakers fans are spoiled Philistines, reclining into their cushions, demanding to be fed grapes before they'll utter a decibel of approval (look for the worst fans in sports column, coming soon). Still, despite the Game 1 loss, everyone assumed we'd see a repeat of the '01 Finals against the Sixers when the Lakers blew off the first game and then swept the next four.
June 8 — And, sure enough, Larry Brown chose not to foul with a three-point lead in the waning seconds (are Bill Walton and I the only people in the world who understand that a guy has a much better chance of making a 3-pointer than of making a free throw, missing the second and having his team convert the putback?) and the series was tied.
June 10 — Pistons 88, Lakers 68. This is where I allowed myself to begin to dream, to hope. Maybe, just maybe this collection of surly, self-centered, me-guys could lose to a bunch of selfless we-guys.
June 13 — Pistons 88, Lakers 80. Even when it seemed obvious that the Lakers were dead after falling behind 3-1, I still had that Glenn Close in the bathtub feeling. Let's just make sure the monster is dead.
June 15 — Pistons 100, Lakers 87. Could it get any better than the Lakers being embarrassed in five games? Yup. Like the Fall of the House of Usher (the Raven guy, not the rapper guy), the Laker fortress began to crumble in front of our eyes at the postgame press conference. Shaq and Phil as much as said, "Don't let the door hit you in the face on our way out." It was like Christmas in June. Every answer a new present. This was sheer joy, a harbinger of the purge to come.
June 18 — It's official, the Phil is gone. Perhaps the hyper-literate Jackson had read Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy and knows the dangers of sleeping with the boss' daughter. I've never read it, but I did see the movie with Monty Clift and Elizabeth Taylor (A Place in the Sun) and I think Phil is doing the right thing by fleeing to the ranch in Montana. Somehow I doubt Jeanie will follow him. Anyway, the last time Phil was associated with a loss as lopsided as his Finals farewell was when he supported Bill Bradley in the 2000 Democratic primaries.
Late June-early July — The once unthinkable is happening: the Lakers are actively shopping Shaq. Why? One story gurgling its way through the rumor mill has it that Dr. Buss asked Kobe what it would take to re-sign him and Bryant said, "Make it my team." The open secret was that Shaq wanted to get paid and the Lakers were skittish about shelling out for the extension it would take to make those big ol' bones happy. But moving Shaq was gonna be about as easy as turning around an aircraft carrier at your local marina. As days and weeks went by without a clear destination emerging I started to worry that Shaq and Kobe would do one of their semi-annual kiss-and-make-ups and I'd have to start dreading another Laker run to glory. But then came the great news: Shaq was heading to Miami.
July 14 — What could be better than Shaq being driven out of Tinseltown? How about Lamar Odom returning to the site of his last drug suspension and the Lakers being saddled with Brian Grant's woeful contract? Hey, the Lakers were stuck. There was no way they were going to get market value for the Big Aristotle. Mitch Kupchak probably did as well as he could. But the bottom line is the Lakers are not a legitimate title threat next year. Woo-hoo!
July 15 — Derek Fisher signs with the Warriors. The cherry on the Laker-hatin' sundae.
July 20 — When the Daddy pulled his Diesel-powered truck into Miami this past Tuesday it capped the most spectacular six-week period of Laker Hating in history.
The sheer euphoria of watching the Lakers unravel has been so consuming that it has actually taken my mind off how bad the Celtics are.
