Cliffs Notes Version: Bill Plaschke on the Lakers Clinching the West

Same guy, same annoying, cutesy writing. Here is a trimmed down version of his column on the Lakers clinching the Western Conference.

From Finished to Finals.

From Loons to June.

From Shock to Awe.

No more punch lines, just punch…

No more laugh track, just tracks….

Whoever they play… the Lakers will not have home-court advantage.

But for the fourth time, they will have home-run advantage.

Nobody's season...

Nobody's season...

Last summer, remember, Bryant's prayer was that he leave everyone.

Now, his prayer is that everyone follow him.

How did this happen?

How did this happen?

If you don't think … then you haven't been watching.

If you don't think … then you haven't been listening.

So did the San Antonio Spurs. So did the rest of the NBA. So did we.

Now go read the column.

Done?

Didn’t you pretty much get the tone, style and point with 80+% of the words missing?

Why I Can't Stand Bill Plaschke

It's because of lines like this, in his latest column, about the Lakers game 1 win and, more specifically, Pau Gasol.

With his frumpy hair and delicate gait, sometimes he looked like a bird. With his long thin arms spread wide, other times he looked like a plane.

In the end, though, he looked like Super You-Know-Who, scoring 36 points with 16 rebounds to lead the Lakers to a 128-114 victory over the Nuggets in their first-round playoff opener.

Gee I didn't see where that was going.

It was a day of class, with Rick Fox bringing out the ball to start the game.

It was a day of crass, with some Lakers fans chanting, "D-U-I" when Carmelo Anthony shot his first free throws.

It was a day of sass, with Coach Phil Jackson, during pregame interviews, impulsively calling out Shaquille O'Neal for never getting his proper sleep during the playoffs.

But mostly, it was a day of Gas.

Hey! I get it! You RHYMED! How clever!!!!

I hate you.

Remember When Dennis Rodman Played For the Lakers?

Barely, right? I mean, I think it was an SI cover, but he only ended up playing 23 games.

Over at SI’s Hot Mustard, they have Maroon 5 lead singer and ex-Maria Sharapova banger Adam Levine’s all-time Lakers team. There’s one glaring terrible terrible selection….

Point Guard: Magic Johnson
Shooting Guard: Kobe Bryant
Small Forward: James Worthy
Center: Shaquille O'Neal
Power Forward: Dennis Rodman
Sixth Man: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

"I'm such a big Laker fan that it hurts me to say that they have no chance at winning this year," says Levine. "But it is kind of cool that the Lakers are underdogs now because its easy to be a fan when you're on top. My all-time team? I'm going with Shaq at center because you can't go too vintage. Kurt Rambis had a lot of heart but Rodman will give you more rebounds. Kareem or Wilt as my sixth man? Damn, that's hard. I'm going with Kareem but it's too hard, man."

It is. It is too hard. Why don’t you take a nap you big Laker fan. What’s too vintage? Pre-1980? I am by no means a Lakers fan, so I don’t profess to have the history of the team down. Anyway, my team would be:

PG – Magic Johnson
SG – Kobe Bryant
C – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
SF – James Worthy
PF – Elgin Baylor
Bench:
G – Jerry West
G – Gail Goodrich
C – Shaquille O’Neal
C – Wilt Chamberlain
C – George Mikan
F – Jamaal Wilkes
F – Michael Cooper

No, no Kurt Rambis Adam. Not even close. I’d still have Rambis way in front of Rodman though.

I’d give the edge to Kobe over Jerry West, but can understand people starting West. Shaquille at center is of course okay, but to me part of this has to encompass length of service, right? Kareem was a Laker for 14 years, 5 Championships, and 3 MVPs. I’m not sure how I’d rank Wilt, Shaq, and Jabbar all-time in the context of their NBA careers, but purely as Lakers, I’m going Jabbar, Shaq, then Wilt.

Dennis Rodman played 23 games for the Lakers. Baylor is arguably the best forward in league history before the 1980’s and Larry Bird joined the league. He was a dominant scorer and rebounder (27.4 PPG / 13.5 RPG, career). If you say that Baylor was really a small forward, then I’d start him over Worthy.

Spurs Not a Dynasty Because They Never Stopped That Tsunami

Jack McCallum is holding all sorts of things outside of the Spurs control against them to determine that they do not meet his arbitrary meaning of the word “dynasty”. It’s all in his column, “Hold off on the 'D' word.”

All right, let's get all the reasons we would not consider the San Antonio Spurs one of history's most successful franchises out of the way immediately.

• They never had to win a championship against Michael Jordan, a notorious spoiler of the Clyde Drexler Trail Blazers, the Charles Barkley Suns, the Gary Payton SuperSonics and the John Stockton-Karl Malone Jazz.

Just so I’m clear, we’re penalizing the Spurs for not beating a Bulls team that they never really played? Duncan was in the NBA for 1 year during that stretch, and he was a rookie. I mean, those were pretty much different Spurs teams with different players. Tim Duncan was in high school when that run started in 1991. Tony Parker was like 9. Eva Longoria was like 16, if that helps. Just to beat this point to death, you’re not allowed to play in the NBA when you’re 9.

Also, Michael Jordan played 5 complete seasons (excluding Wizards years, which didn’t happen, his injury filled ’86 year, and the ’95 half year) that a team other than his won the championship. The only year he had a team at all equipped to make a run, was 1990. So I thinks it’s fair to say that effectively 1 team in NBA history meets this criteria. The 1990 Pistons.

• They play in a league diluted by expansion.

This could be said of a lot of teams. I disagree with it, generally, being a good point. They also play in a league with a ton of foreign players, unlike your old-timey teams can say. Or even 80’s teams. Foreign players are also good now. There was expansion a couple years before and during the Bulls run too, if you want to go there.

• Their first title, in 1999, occurred in a lockout-shortened season.

So? It’s not like they handed the title to the regular season wins leader. They played the good half of the season, with the playoffs. Shouldn’t we penalize the team for things that they can remotely control. Obviously it wasn’t a fluke, since they won 3 more.

• Their most recent championship came against what was surely one of the worst Finals teams ever, LeBron James' individual brilliance notwithstanding.

True, but does that mean that they weren’t good enough to beat another great team? Didn't they come out of a strong conference? How is any of this their fault?

That’s all of Jack’s reasons. Those reasons sucked.

Let's just not bring up the "D" word. The Spurs are not a dynasty. They haven't suggested that about themselves. To me, a dynasty means this: A team must win more than half the championships over a decade and be considered the clear favorite in most of those seasons. A decade is a random measure, of course, but dynasty-dom has to be demonstrated over an extended period of time; the Mings, after all, lasted from 1368 to 1644.

The Yao Mings? Ha!

(Not the Yao Mings.)

Oh.

In my view, only two franchises truly qualify as a dynasty -- the Boston Celtics, who, absurdly, won 11 championships in 13 seasons from 1957 to 1969 during the Bill Russell days, and Jordan's Chicago Bulls, who won six titles in eight years (the franchise's only championships) from '91 to '98.

So why wouldn’t the 1980-1989 Lakers be a dynasty? 10 years, 5 championships (in the first 9 years), and they made the finals 8 times in those 10 years.

Overall, the Celtics have won 16 titles (though a contemporary cynic would have to note that not a single one has come since '86). That career record is challenged only by the Lakers, who have 14 championships, five of them when the team was in Minneapolis, which was the dominant franchise in the NBA's first decade. But the Lakers have never had a true dynasty. They won five titles from '80 to '88, a tremendous achievement to be sure, but they clearly shared the decade with the Celtics, who won three titles in seven seasons.

Okay no dice for the 80’s Lakers I guess. Then by that measure, didn’t the Bulls “share” the period of 1991-1998 with the Rockets? Because Jordan was retired? Or is 3 titles your arbitrary "sharing" minimum? Wouldn’t you say then that Bulls were not a dynasty (shared with Houston), but Jordan was in some way? Who cares, this is stupid.

Also, you do realize that you just penalized the 1980's Lakers, despite meeting your criteria, because they had really good adversary in the other conference . However, you penalized the Spurs above for not playing a good enough opponent this year. So to be a dynasty you need to win 5 championships in 10 years to satisfy Jack McCallum (and be what he considers to be a "clear favorite"), but there better not be a good team that wins a few championships in the 5 that he's allowing you to lose to still qualify for dynasty status....make sense? Those teams he's okay with winning during your dynasty better not be favorites too often! I mean, isn't it better if you lose a few championships to a great team, like Boston, than if there was no Boston in the East and they still won 5 of 9? Also, they were 2 for 3 against Boston in the finals! My head hurts.

What if the Spurs win next year, to make your 5 in 10 mark? Do the '07 Cavs diminish that? Or did they "share" too much of the 10 years with the Lakers, because they won 3 (like the 80's Celtics). I'll be watching you McCallum! To be clear, I'm not arguing for or against the Spurs, specifically, I just hate Jack's reasoning here. I guess I am arguing for the 1980's Lakers.

Dynasty? Depends how you feel like defining it. Then once you define it, it depends on other things you feel like qualifying it with.