It doesn’t get much better than this.
Chic Hearn might have the only job that’s better than this (he has the best job in sports, actually). Continuing a great tradition, I am taking over as sports editor of the Guardian.
As I begin to get slightly more comfortable in the Guardian sports office, where the television sits among rubbish and leftover food, I would like to tip my cap to former sports editor Isaac Pearlman, who ran this section of the paper quite smoothly.
Soon enough, I’m going to be attempting to inform all students here that UCSD sports are actually competitive against the stronger Division II teams in the nation. And, soon enough, I will realize how few students read even the headlines of the Guardian.
In my first column as sports editor, I’m going to talk about one of the greatest things that the sports world has to offer: the Lakers.
The boys in purple and gold are back in the finals just like the handful of Laker faithful imagined in October. The NBA’s newest dynasty has reached the final step again, which “”Laker fans”” wait for to bring out their jerseys and flags. Shaq and Kobe went through the league’s toughest competition in the Western Conference, which basketball fans in Portland, San Antonio and Sac-town had recurring nightmares about every spring.
To all Laker-haters: Bring me all your shots and I’ll swat them away the way Shaq sends back a point guard’s floater in the lane.
The Lakers have all you need to be a dominant team in sports, and I’ll admit that Lakers’ owner Mitch Kupchak may have gone out and put some money down, but he didn’t buy a championship (or even two or three of them).
This Laker team that we watch fend off opponents in the NBA playoffs is the same team that got swept out of the postseason countless times by the league’s biggest disgrace, the Utah Jazz. Shaq, Kobe, Derek Fisher, Robert Horry and Rick Fox, the core of the latest Lakeshow, were also the nuclei of the Lakers who completely fell apart and shriveled away when a challenge faced them.
What’s the difference? It’s not money, favorable referees or any other excuse that Sacramento can think of.
Shaq, Kobe and the rest of the Lakers learned that they can use each other to win. The talented squad realized that when they mixed correctly, there was no team that could beat them four times to eliminate them from the playoffs.
As evidenced by this past series against the Kings, the Lakers make you beat all five guys on the court, not just one or two. Neither Shaq nor Kobe played with the dominance they had once shown during a long; seven-game series, but the Lakers still came out on top.
Say what you want about the Lakeshow and think what you will, but you will never be able to cover up the beauty and dominance of the purple and gold.
Oh, and to the guy with the Kings flag in his window of Revelle College’s Discovery Hall: You’re lucky I didn’t have gold paint to cover your window with.
