Hatin!

The Lakers got Pau Gasol. Think about thi line up in the fourth quarter of a play off game: Derek Fisher, Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, and Andrew Bynum. That, folks, is a team that not too many people are going to want to match up against. It also allows me to do something that I haven't been able to do with proper fervor in quite awhile. That is hate the Lakers. I have log disliked this franchise, especially when it was Shaq and Kobe together. Now that the Lakers are almost certain to have homecourt in the playoffs(I hope I can jinx them)it is going to be much easier to really hate this team the way I used to when they were making shots with .4 seconds on the clock. As I told you when we started this blog hating a team can be almost as much fun as loving a team. The Lakers are like the Yankees of basketball because they are never very bad for very long, even over the last few years when you knew they couldn't win it all they were making it to the playoffs. Kobe is just a very unlikeable guy on top of that. I never liked Shaq, but the Fredo move Kobe pulled was something that not enough people have held on to.
Add to all of this that the Lakers always have the press's undenying admiration and adoration. They will be all over them again, and referencing the Showtime Lakers enough to make you think that Chevy Chase might show up wearing 99 for a game. Jack sitting on the sidelines is entertaining because I like Jack, I just wish he was flying over another cuckoo's nest. What a terrible play on words. Anyway, I am sure that Bill Walton will end up commentating some of these games and just gushing like a proud mother when her little boy has brought home the prettiest girl in school. Except Bill's teeth will actually harder to look away from than anything on the court. Going back to things that have just been flat out forgotten, does anyone remember the press talking about how much Kobe was going through when he was going through the Eagle, CO trial? How does a man on trial for something like this get sympathy from the press? Because he plays for the Lakers. That is one reason that seems plausable to me.
Add to all of this that for some reason I have never really been able to get behind the ideal of cheering for Pau Gasol and this is genuinely a big development. Pau never really got me excited though he is a fundamentally sound player who seems to do all the right things. The whining about being Memphis for the last couple of years didn't help. Your in Memphis, eat good BBQ go to Blues shows adn enjoy your millions of dollars. Players who whine their way off of teams have always aggrevated me because it's really hard to like someone who bitches about making millions of dollars. I would gladly sit on the bench for the worst team in the league and collect the league minimum check. I would make a career out of it. I would be making more than 95% of the population to be a member of an organization that plays a game. So if you are a guy with a max or near max contract shut your damn mouth and play the game. You are paid absurd amounts of money. Pau's whining falls into this category.
All of this brings me back to my original point. I really don't like the Lakers, but when they weren't a title threat they were too innocous to really give teh full treatment. Now I can really get back to hating them the right way. This season has been a real boon for such activities with the resurgence of the Celtics too. Now all we need is for the Knicks to be good again...
The Captain signing off for now...