Now that the Lakers are officially in La La land I feel it is wholly apropos to put them on the proverbial therapists couch. I won’t talk x's and o’s because frankly you’d have to be a Basketball nitwit to believe that what you are seeing can be solved by a 40 year old point guard who can’t guard anybody. I won’t spare you what you can figure out at your local YMCA on a Tuesday, that when the young bucks hit the floor you walk it up and try to grind them down with your big homeboy “chicken grease”.At least at the YMCA we can grab our hamies and tell the young bucks “you wouldn’t have wanted to see me back in 93’!”, but the Los Angeles Lakers have to suffer through the embarrassment of a stubborn assed coach that can’t spell “adjustments” nor "Gasol".When will Phil Jackson learn to put his own ownership group together if he wants a piece of a club and to stop trying to leverage his rings? I mean you are just a really really successful employee when you boil it all down. Dwight Howard is playing his back into shape but the signs are when he is finally healthy he may be giving Mitch Kupchak the green light to see if he can get Kevin Love to LA and him where he wanted to be in the first damned place. It would be poignant and ironic if Howard leaves there having never really being sold on the premier franchise in all of sports but it was already established that LA would no longer be the home of dominant big men as long as “24” is still Alpha Dog. And I wouldn’t blame him, he’s young and he’s not in a healthy environment, like most kids he’s stuck in the middle between 3 adults who refuse to take a long realistic look at themselves. One of them wildly successful and the other 2 innovative in their own ways; two of them too good to be questioned, so much so that the Lakers may lose the one real asset they have moving forward. Mike D’Antoni and Kobe Bryant are A listers in the Basketball World, but like any other sport (where time matters) they are quickly losing their command on center stage.
Bryant, Nash and D’Antoni represent the “Cool Dad” Archetypes, and Dwight aint buying it
Kobe Bryant is that dad you see a lot nowadays; the Cougar Counterpart and just as annoying and clueless. Still in shape, he can physically get out there and whip your ass and he doesn’t mind letting everyone know it when company is over. He thinks he’s making a man out of you but it’s creepy and weird when he wears his medium “Under Armour” shirt to your High School Basketball Practice. You want to yell, “Hey Dad isn’t it enough all your records are up on the gym wall?!! Put a damned shirt on!” He wants you to be like him, but you have the sneaking suspicion he still wants to be like him so if you ever came close he’d hate you for it. He gets offended when your homies call him “Mr.” and he tries to inject what he did when he was your age into everything, you know you’ll miss him when you’re on your own but right now he’s crowding you. The 2008 Olympic summit was a Coup D'Etat whereby all of the games young stars colluded to join one another in targeted markets and Kobe was not included. In fact it was designed to assure the old guy didn’t sneak a “chip” in on his way out the door, one last nuggie to the chilluns. I’m sure when they sat around brainstorming the possibilities they all hushed up when he walked in the room; it wasn’t meant to further enrich him it was meant to end his reign. Thanks to LeBron’s PR disaster, small market owners wrath during the lockout and Dwight Howards indecision the best laid plans went up in one big clusterfuck. Now he’s in LA, the most glamorous consolation prize in sports, stuck with the Cool Dad in the tight shirt and the quirky dad trying his failed invention. That coup was rooted in camaraderie; it wasn’t set up for any of those guys to be dragging around a nucleus of old dudes like the one in LA. Kobe is a more flexible, well-conditioned version of MJ…the Wizards model, and he’s not going anywhere- he’s the Cool Dad with the cool house and if you don’t like it you can get the hell out. Don’t be surprised if Dwight would love to take him up on it by years end, or even worse…February.
Mike D’Antoni fits the second archetype; the cool dad who clearly isn’t cool anymore but tries too damn hard. Dantoni created something new and novel back in 2003 and like most Cool Dads who don’t get it he still thinks that shit is Cool, to your embarrassment. You want to say “Dad, everybody’s playing fast now and since Steve Nash’s MVP seasons EVERY TEAM went point guard centric-none of them Jeremy Lin and Steve Nash can stay in front of”. He’s cool when it comes to the regular season but when it comes to Big Boy Basketball he shows a stubborn Peter Pan quality; he don’t wanna grow up and like Kobe he wants to do it his own damned way. And he’ll win some games too, with lax defenses and crappy teams he’ll have you saying the Lakers are BACK, but to what? Is the question. He isn’t really hip you know, because if you’re old enough... You recognize him as Doug Moe 2.0 who couldn’t get it done with the aid of thin air and 1980’s caliber athletes. When the Athletes got bigger, stronger and faster Mike-D only saw more points but what he didn’t figure out is the best Athlete on the Floor (Jordan, LeBron) WANTS to shut you down. Russell Westbrook’s playoff heartbreak is there, and he isn’t going to let some 40 yr. old Yoga guy who can’t check him get in the way of him running up on Miami again. Nash is that cool dad that is actually cool, he isn’t obnoxious and overbearing, and you know he raised you gluten free because he actually loves you. He will make everything alright when he comes back because he’s a nurturer, and his sharing nature is as “Zen” as the Lakers are going to get for a long time. But he is what he is, and he’s as realistic about time as anybody in the league so if he’s lost something he won’t make Laker nation suffer. Dwight Howard, the kid in this drama will respect Nash, because he’s cuddly and throws pillow perfect lobs but that reverence will be the kind you have for the old guy at the YMCA who can still get run-patronizing. Dwight Howard knows what is out there because he’s in his prime, and he knows what he’s running with wont stand up once the young lions start hunting because he’s a lion. As a kid he can’t wait around until the Lakers rebuild around him when everyone is landing where the initial conspiracy assigned them to land- who is he going to move forward with Ricky Rubio? Young men like Howard have no problem hanging out for a little bit with 3 “Cool Dads” the problem is when the Cool Dads want him to hang out for the next two years while his buddies are out there taking over the league.
Bryant, Nash and D’Antoni represent the “Cool Dad” Archetypes, and Dwight aint buying it
Kobe Bryant is that dad you see a lot nowadays; the Cougar Counterpart and just as annoying and clueless. Still in shape, he can physically get out there and whip your ass and he doesn’t mind letting everyone know it when company is over. He thinks he’s making a man out of you but it’s creepy and weird when he wears his medium “Under Armour” shirt to your High School Basketball Practice. You want to yell, “Hey Dad isn’t it enough all your records are up on the gym wall?!! Put a damned shirt on!” He wants you to be like him, but you have the sneaking suspicion he still wants to be like him so if you ever came close he’d hate you for it. He gets offended when your homies call him “Mr.” and he tries to inject what he did when he was your age into everything, you know you’ll miss him when you’re on your own but right now he’s crowding you. The 2008 Olympic summit was a Coup D'Etat whereby all of the games young stars colluded to join one another in targeted markets and Kobe was not included. In fact it was designed to assure the old guy didn’t sneak a “chip” in on his way out the door, one last nuggie to the chilluns. I’m sure when they sat around brainstorming the possibilities they all hushed up when he walked in the room; it wasn’t meant to further enrich him it was meant to end his reign. Thanks to LeBron’s PR disaster, small market owners wrath during the lockout and Dwight Howards indecision the best laid plans went up in one big clusterfuck. Now he’s in LA, the most glamorous consolation prize in sports, stuck with the Cool Dad in the tight shirt and the quirky dad trying his failed invention. That coup was rooted in camaraderie; it wasn’t set up for any of those guys to be dragging around a nucleus of old dudes like the one in LA. Kobe is a more flexible, well-conditioned version of MJ…the Wizards model, and he’s not going anywhere- he’s the Cool Dad with the cool house and if you don’t like it you can get the hell out. Don’t be surprised if Dwight would love to take him up on it by years end, or even worse…February.
Mike D’Antoni fits the second archetype; the cool dad who clearly isn’t cool anymore but tries too damn hard. Dantoni created something new and novel back in 2003 and like most Cool Dads who don’t get it he still thinks that shit is Cool, to your embarrassment. You want to say “Dad, everybody’s playing fast now and since Steve Nash’s MVP seasons EVERY TEAM went point guard centric-none of them Jeremy Lin and Steve Nash can stay in front of”. He’s cool when it comes to the regular season but when it comes to Big Boy Basketball he shows a stubborn Peter Pan quality; he don’t wanna grow up and like Kobe he wants to do it his own damned way. And he’ll win some games too, with lax defenses and crappy teams he’ll have you saying the Lakers are BACK, but to what? Is the question. He isn’t really hip you know, because if you’re old enough... You recognize him as Doug Moe 2.0 who couldn’t get it done with the aid of thin air and 1980’s caliber athletes. When the Athletes got bigger, stronger and faster Mike-D only saw more points but what he didn’t figure out is the best Athlete on the Floor (Jordan, LeBron) WANTS to shut you down. Russell Westbrook’s playoff heartbreak is there, and he isn’t going to let some 40 yr. old Yoga guy who can’t check him get in the way of him running up on Miami again. Nash is that cool dad that is actually cool, he isn’t obnoxious and overbearing, and you know he raised you gluten free because he actually loves you. He will make everything alright when he comes back because he’s a nurturer, and his sharing nature is as “Zen” as the Lakers are going to get for a long time. But he is what he is, and he’s as realistic about time as anybody in the league so if he’s lost something he won’t make Laker nation suffer. Dwight Howard, the kid in this drama will respect Nash, because he’s cuddly and throws pillow perfect lobs but that reverence will be the kind you have for the old guy at the YMCA who can still get run-patronizing. Dwight Howard knows what is out there because he’s in his prime, and he knows what he’s running with wont stand up once the young lions start hunting because he’s a lion. As a kid he can’t wait around until the Lakers rebuild around him when everyone is landing where the initial conspiracy assigned them to land- who is he going to move forward with Ricky Rubio? Young men like Howard have no problem hanging out for a little bit with 3 “Cool Dads” the problem is when the Cool Dads want him to hang out for the next two years while his buddies are out there taking over the league.
