Dave's Thoughts of the Day: February 22nd

Fellow Lakers fans, can you calm down please?  This team is STILL not good enough to make the playoffs. 

In fact, I bet my co-worker a fried chicken meal that they would not make the playoffs.  If they get in, I'll pay up.  It wouldn't be a bad outcome, I suppose, but even if the Lakers made it, what is their ceiling?  2 playoff wins?   I'm not sure, fellas.

My buddy Andrew and I are organizing a Spring Training trip in March.   Here's an interesting wrinkle:  What if the Suns play a home game during the same weekend?  I'm going to go in and buy tickets to that if they're in town.  The Suns are pretty bad, so prices for the game would be decent.  More to come on that one...

I had a wild Happy Hour last night with said buddy Andrew.   We really pounded beverages and seafood out there.  It got loopy.  

Some of that loopiness carried into the podcast last night.  I said "I missed the intro I should have been here!"   That's not what I was *supposed* to say.  I meant to say "Was that the intro?  I should have been here!"  It's a reference to the Wings song "C Moon."

Junk Man hates Wings... he hates Paul McCartney.  I think he likes Buffalo Wings, though.

Can you imagine that Buffalo used to have an NBA team?  They were called the Buffalo Braves... with the powder blue unis... it was a bitchin' idea.

That same team today is the Clippers and they moved out here in 1984.  In 2013 they got their ass handed to them by the Spurs.   I'm telling you, the whole "Lob City" is good for old fun and games but if they don't have the meat and potatoes offense to go with it they will get done in very quickly.  I'll be honest: I didn't see the game, but I can only imagine it went like any other game LAC plays against rugged competition.

That yields a big misconception about the "Showtime Lakers" of the 80's.  Everyone thinks all they did was run fast breaks up and down the floor, but that was a means to an end.  First of all, every fast break was predicated by great defense, good pressure from the likes of Michael Cooper and Byron Scott, and then later on Mychal Thompson and A.C. Green.  This isn't unlike what the Heat do today:  defense breeds offense.  Secondly, at least half of the Lakers' possessions were strict half court sets in which the ball was fed into the post, meaning Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

As long as I'm at it, I need to express how spoiled we all were as basketball fans to see the Lakers execute a fast break so well in those days.   3 on 1's were automatic.  Ever see most teams attempt a 3 on 1 today?  it's just a joke... either the ball gets fumbled out of bounds or the wing man is so slow to react that it reverts to a transition 3 point shot... or even worse, it reverts to a half court set.  That's not what the fast break was meant to do!!

We're celebrating my Grandparents' wedding anniversary this weekend.  I'm so blessed to have them both (the ones on my Mom's side) still alive and well.   Certainly they are doing well for their age, as they each approach the age of 80.

I also would say that in life, age is relative.   To pose an example... John Wooden died at 99, but he was with it until the very very end.   He never really gave me the impression that he lost any part of his wit.  The man was a true legend.  On the other hand, Mike Francesa is still in his 50s and he is about one stage away from being senile.  It really makes me think.

Short posting today due to the other items, but hope you have a great weekend!