One thing you should know about me before I go on is that I
have been a Los Angeles Lakers fan for several years now, much to the
disappointment of my close friends and family.
Another thing I should say about myself is that I don’t believe I am a
traditional fan and by that I mean, I seem to have more allegiance to
individual players I enjoy watching, rather than a specific team. I live in Oregon where we have not had a
truly successful Portland Trail Blazers team since the Clyde Drexler, Cliff
Robinson, and Terry Porter days. And
back then I considered myself a fan of those players, even if I was just about
5 or 6 years old.
As I got more into basketball and particularly the NBA, I
started to branch out my fan base to other players in the league. When Clyde Drexler went to the Houston
Rockets it got me watching Hakeem Olajuwon, or Akeem depending on the year of
the basketball card you may have, and I grew into a fan of his finesse style of
play around the rim. I also became a
huge fan of the Orlando Magic team that boasted an incredible roster of
Anfernee Hardaway, Dennis Scott, Nick Anderson, Horace Grant and of course
Shaquille O’Neal. As I watched them
develop into an almost unstoppable force in the NBA, and unfortunately lose to
the Houston Rockets in the 1994-’95 NBA Finals against some of my other favorite
players, I was stunned when Shaquille O’Neal left Orlando in the 1996-’97
season for the Los Angeles Lakers.
This is one benefit of not having an intense devotion to a
single team because instead of experiencing unnecessary agony and grief over
Orlando’s loss of arguably one of the most dominant forces the NBA has ever
seen, I simply started watching him as a Laker while continuing to cheer for
Anfernee Hardaway on the Magic. Many of you may know that the 1996-’97 season was also the first
of Kobe Bryant’s career in the NBA and it couldn’t have come at a better time
for me as a fan. Naturally I was
watching a lot of Laker games and quickly saw the incredible potential of Kobe
to be an amazing player, as well as hearing about all the media hype
surrounding this teenager coming directly from high school into the NBA.
Over the years I have been so lucky to watch some of my
favorite players win NBA Championships, specifically the Lakers battle against
the Blazers on many occasions in the playoffs while my die hard Blazer fan
friends watch in disgust. The most
current phenoms in the NBA are undeniably Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Dwight
Howard, Kevin Love, Carmelo Anthony, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant to name
a few. Out of this short list I tend to
want to cheer the most for Dwight Howard and Kevin Durant. Dwight Howard now finds himself in a similar state that Shaq was in
while playing with the Magic. He is
currently the most dominant center in the NBA, he is a dream for the media due
to his extroverted personality and sense of humor, and he is considering
joining the Los Angeles Lakers as his next team in his NBA career.
One would think that as a Lakers fan, or more simply a huge
fan of Kobe and Derek Fisher (former Laker), that I would be excited that a
great basketball player like Dwight would join the team of my favorite player
today. Well you would be unfortunately
mistaken. There has been so much
controversy over his impending trade and a lot of it has to do with how he has
conducted himself with the organization and the media. It has been well documented that Dwight had
many issues with the Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy and allegedly spoke enough
of his concerns to management, that Stan was eventually fired this year. On top of that, Dwight has essentially
demanded a trade to the Brooklyn Nets which has fallen through the cracks. He continues to say that he will not sign
another contract with the Magic and the team has explored options with the
Rockets and Lakers most recently.
Here is my concern…the Lakers are in such a spotlight with the
media that should Dwight come to L.A. he will most certainly continue to cause
organizational issues, since there is apparently no such thing as bad
press. Should Dwight get traded to L.A.
it would mean that Andrew Bynum, the Lakers current big man, would be sent off
to another team, and the two of them are nearly the same player. Both have extreme height and length in a
league that is lacking in the center position, both are major drama queens but
when Dwight complains he does so to the media where as Bynum simply stops
playing hard and doesn’t join team huddles during timeouts, both are somewhat
injury prone and most importantly both have a year left on their
contracts.
As much as I would like to see the Lakers improve their
athleticism with the addition of Dwight, I don’t think it would improve their
overall effectiveness in the league.
They may be better suited with keeping Bynum who they are learning how
to better manage his emotions as opposed to bringing in a new talent that has
already shown he has the means and determination to drive out staff he does not
appreciate.
Having said all of that, I will certainly embrace the
addition of Dwight when it happens, since I do believe this trade will happen and he does live in L.A. in the summers and will be much more in the
limelight, where his talents belong. I
also expect that this will happen before the next season begins and that a year from now the same discussion will occur, only in L.A., since he will not sign an
extension until he is a free agent next year so he can earn a larger financial contract.
The thing to remember as you read this and likely have accusations in your mind about me being too soon to forget his media mishaps and too willing to embrace his skills, is that superstar athletes have the benefit of being able to act inappropriately off the court, and sometimes ridiculously inappropriate, and yet still manage to win over the hearts of the nation as they put the masses in awe and wonder with their athletic prowess. This is consistent through NBA history from Wilt being infamous for having sex with some 2,000 women, to Michael Jordan having had an affair, to the rape charge that Kobe Bryant faced not all that long ago. All in all, Dwight Howard has not committed any offenses as close to any of these just mentioned and the memories of his actions over the past several months will hopefully be replaced by numerous NBA Championships for him, Kobe and Nash…do I dare say 3 peat. I had to throw that last bit in for my Blazer fan friends who probably hate me right now.
The thing to remember as you read this and likely have accusations in your mind about me being too soon to forget his media mishaps and too willing to embrace his skills, is that superstar athletes have the benefit of being able to act inappropriately off the court, and sometimes ridiculously inappropriate, and yet still manage to win over the hearts of the nation as they put the masses in awe and wonder with their athletic prowess. This is consistent through NBA history from Wilt being infamous for having sex with some 2,000 women, to Michael Jordan having had an affair, to the rape charge that Kobe Bryant faced not all that long ago. All in all, Dwight Howard has not committed any offenses as close to any of these just mentioned and the memories of his actions over the past several months will hopefully be replaced by numerous NBA Championships for him, Kobe and Nash…do I dare say 3 peat. I had to throw that last bit in for my Blazer fan friends who probably hate me right now.
Images taken from these pages respectively: http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2012/07/11/dwight-howard-orlando-magic-brooklyn-nets/, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/525529-tony-parker-manu-ginobili-and-the-50-most-exciting-backcourts-in-nba-history, http://www.aolnews.com/2010/07/01/without-lebron-cleveland-would-channel-orlandos-pain/, http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3458420, http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/255970-can-trades-keep-howard-in-orlando, http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1680&bih=955&tbm=isch&tbnid=Ta5caFCD-Fm4HM:&imgrefurl=http://jockpost.com/imagine-dwight-howard-jerseys-picture-gallery/&docid=LMA6DAIQFrIDbM&imgurl=http://cdn.jockpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/dwight-howard-lakers.jpg&w=450&h=566&ei=s40ZUJPjDcTV0QHu5YGQAw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=181&vpy=127&dur=2332&hovh=252&hovw=200&tx=102&ty=149&sig=100526067145634536499&page=1&tbnh=151&tbnw=125&start=0&ndsp=41&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:73
Go Blazers.
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