How easy is it to be a Lakers fan?

Founded in 1944, the Minneapolis Lakers got off to a great start, winning five championships in six years from 1949-1954. Such Hall of Fame players as George Mikan and Jimm Pollard starred for the team during this time.

The Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960. Not much changed in regards to getting Hall of Fame talent. Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain... the list goes on. The championship well they had enjoyed back east dried up, however, and L.A. was only able to go to the NBA Finals six times in the next ten years.

The cursed Boston Celtics and Bill Russell kept thwarting Wilt and Company.

Finally, a whole sixteen years after their last championship, the Lakers won in 1972.

But the 80's were really the glory years for L.A. They won it all in '80, '82, '85, '87, '88 and '90. Boy, those teams were good. Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Bob McAdoo, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott, A.C. Green... the list goes on.

If you were a kid in the 80's, the Lakers were the team to cheer for.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and gradually, these Lakers greats retired or moved on, one at a time.

Thankfully, in 1996, the organization was able to pay a young Shaq to come to L.A. for a seven-year, $122 million contract. And then they were able to trade Vlade Divac for the rights to rookie Kobe Bryant in 1997.

It took a couple years, but once the organization was able to sign Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson, the Kobe and Shaq Lakers won three consecutive championships from 2000 to 2002. Times were good.

But tragically, Shaq and Kobe couldn't get along, and Shaq ended up going to Miami to win a championship with Dwayne Wade, a moment that must have pained Lakers fans everywhere.

L.A. has not won a championship since then, but having "The Black Mamba" Kobe Bryant breaking records and being the class of the NBA must have soothed the souls of troubled middle-aged men wearing yellow Lakers jerseys everywhere.

But once again, things threatened to fall apart, as last summer, Kobe said he wanted to be traded. This move had a big chance to sink the franchise for a long, long time.

Thankfully, Lakers third-year player Andrew Bynum suddenly bloomed into the second coming of Wilt. Kobe quickly changed his story, and everyone was happy in Lakers-land again.

But the ol' Lakers-style good fortune really smiled on Los Angeles last Februrary, when ex-Lakers great Jerry West, now managing the Memphis Grizzlies, traded his star forward Pau Gasol to them at virtually no cost.

And now the Lakers look all the world like they're the favorites to win their fifteenth NBA championship this June.

Wow. Even during the down years, Lakers fans still had Kobe Bryant to cheer for. Any Hawks or Knicks fan would kill for that.

The Lakers are a team of short-term, relatively painless downs and long-lasting, extremely high ups.

It's easy to root for a team that always wins. That's why the Red Sox, Yankees, Spurs, Lakers, Red Wings, Celtics, Patriots and Colts lead their respective leagues in jersey and ticket sales.

But that's like choosing to only adopt children who are straight-A students, captain of the football team, head cheerleader, and never talk back.

But heaven forbid they flunk their chemistry test or take the car without asking. Then they're back on the street.

There's something very rewarding about supporting a team through bad times, as well as the good.

It's more akin to raising a child from birth, through the terrible twos and that time they set the curtains on fire to late nights worrying where they are and hoping they're not doing drugs.

Why do parents do it? They do it for the times their kid wins the spelling bee, for the time she gets an A on her science project. They do it for the day he graduates from college and she gets a great job.

I'd argue the bad times make the good ones that much sweeter.

That's what it is to be a fan, in my opinion. No one respects the guy wearing a newly-purchased Hawks jersey over the white shirt and tie on the front row of Celtics/Hawks Game 6 last week. But watching the die-hard New Orleans fan who has followed the team since the Charlotte days enjoy a playoff series win for the first time in decades brings a smile to your face.

It's not easy to watch the team you love stink. BYU football in 2003-2005 was not a good program. Quarterback John Beck played poorly at times, and losses came pretty frequently.

That said, I saw a lot of potential in Beck. Enough so that I defended him against the many BYU fans who were calling for his head.

And you know what? In 2006 he led the team to an 11-2 record, while posting huge numbers. After being drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the 2007 NFL draft, he looks to be the starter at quarterback this fall.

That is awesome.

So don't stop supporting your team just because things don't look good right now. Their fortune will turn around. Maybe not this season, and maybe not for ten seasons, but someday.

And then you'll be glad you stuck around.

Game thoughts, continued

Upon reviewing my post from last night, I realized I need to give credit where credit is due.

Kobe was incredible. 34 points, eight rebounds, six assists on 11 of 18 shooting is a great performance. Some of the shots he hit were just mind-boggling. And he did it without alienating his team by trying to do it all himself. My knock of Kobe has never been that he doesn't have the skills... in the past, I've criticized him for taking bad shots and not playing smart.

Seems he's fixed that.

Other thoughts:

Deron was 5-5 from the 3-point line on the night. Three of them came in the last 30 seconds of the game. Uh, Deron? Maybe you could have shown some of that when it mattered.

If the Lakers win another NBA championship this season, they should be required to ship the trophy to Memphis. The Gasol for Kwame trade would have been vetoed in every fantasy league in the country if someone had tried to pull it off. I know Pau isn't exactly dominating this series (20 and 5 last night), but he does a lot for the team.

1. Now Lamar Odom is the third option on the team and not the second one. He's MUCH more comfortable in that role, as evidenced by him going off for 19 and 16 on 7-10 shooting.

2. The Lakers can now effectively play an inside-out game where if Kobe is double-teamed, he can kick it in to Gasol for an easy bucket, and vice versa. Before the trade, L.A. couldn't do that.

3. Gasol's post presence also allows the Lakers' shooters to get more wide-open looks, ie. Fisher, Vujacic, Walton, Radmanovich.

It was the trade of the decade, in my opinion. I was discussing it with a friend of mine, and he suggested that maybe there needs to be some kind of veto system for trades in the league. Maybe a rule where if 80% of the owners are against a trade, David Stern doesn't let it go through.

Problem is, Stern's ecstatic that the Lakers and Celtics are back on top (through questionable trades). He just about said as much on TNT last night before the game.

So I don't ever see it happening. I'll just add it to the list of ideas that would be good for the league that Stern will never consider. He's too busy fixing broken replay rules, I guess.

Second verse, same as the first

Losing is one thing.

Losing because Derek Fisher plays 300 times better tonight than he ever did for Utah last season,

Losing because two of the Jazz's "stars" can't hit a shot to save their lives,

Losing because the Jazz can't hold the Lakers to under 60% shooting as a team,

Just flat-out irritating.

But I could deal with the loss except for two things.

First, the record needs to be set straight regarding Derek Fisher's time in Utah. Apparently TNT commentators Kevin Harlan and Doug Collins cannot be bothered to do any research.

According to them, Fisher came to Utah, led a resurgence of the team and was the key factor in them getting to the Western Conference Finals last season. Then his daughter got cancer, he asked Jazz owner Larry Miller to be released from his contact so he could live closer to better treatment options for her. When coming back to Utah as a Laker, heartless Jazz fans boo him like the trash they are.

This is a gross misrepresentation of what happened.

The real chain of events are as follows:

Fisher complained about coming to Utah when he was traded here from Golden State. He played horribly while with the Jazz, with the exception of ten combined minutes against Golden State in the second round of the playoffs. He wanted out of Salt Lake.

This sums up his time on the court with the Jazz:




Tragically, his daughter did get eye cancer, and he approached Larry Miller about getting released from his contract with the Jazz so she could get better treatment than was available in Utah.

Here's the problem: Fisher's daughter is receiving treatment in New York City. Los Angeles is closer to New York than Utah is... how?

And besides, Salt Lake City's Hunstman Cancer Institute is a very highly-rated cancer-treatment hospital.

Now he's the starting point guard for the juggernaut Lakers, shooting over 10% better from the 3-point line and generally playing like an All-Star.

Things I cannot prove but strongly believe:

A.) Fisher used his daughter's cancer to get out of Utah.

B.) Fisher was dogging it while playing for the Jazz. He simply didn't care enough to play hard, and his stats showed it. The man was getting the exact same looks in Salt Lake as he is in L.A. A veteran player doesn't suddenly drop 10% off his field-goal percentage and then regain it one season later for no reason.

And Fisher wonders why he was booed in Salt Lake.

The second thing, a 43-16 free-throw disparity in favor of the Lakers, wouldn't bother me as much except for a couple things:

Harlan and Collins spent the entire night telling us how the Jazz play physical and foul a lot, so OF COURSE there's going to be a free-throw disparity.

What they missed is that while the Jazz commit a league-leading 24 fouls per game, they are fouled 23 times per game, which is good for third place, only 0.7 fouls less than league-leading Denver.

In essence, the Jazz don't often give up easy layups on defense, but they take it to the rim on offense, too.

Problem is, tonight, they weren't getting any calls on these drives to the basket. Utah scored 58 points in the paint and shot 16 free throws total. In a game where the Jazz were within eight points of the Lakers with three minutes left in the fourth quarter, that's pretty significant.

Hopefully they will get the whistles in Salt Lake, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, and finally, Boozer has these next two games against L.A. to stop me from starting my "Trade Carlos" campaign. Shooting 3-10 from the field and grabbing an astounding eight rebounds isn't doing much to stop me, buddy.

Playoffs thoughts

The Hornets are for real. I've picked against them in both rounds of the playoffs so far, and they're two wins away from making it to the Western Conference Finals.

Again, I will never bet on sports.

But I've never been more happy about a prediction of mine going down in flames. A healthy Spurs team getting knocked out in the second round? It's like Christmas!

And David West is cementing himself as one of the up-and-coming stars in the league. He's quick, strong, and has a very reliable 16-17-foot jumper. I'd take him over Boozer any day, and to those who believe West is nothing without Paul, I say that's ridiculous.

In other news, Orlando is a talented, but stupid, team. Howard, Turkoglu, Rashard and Nelson (somewhat surprisingly) are great players and have a bright future as a team.

That said, I've never seen more botched possessions late in one game than last night when they played the Pistons on Game 2 of their series. Bad passes, tough shots, dumb decisions... the Magic had a very, very good shot at winning that game and apparently had no desire to.

Down 2 with around two minutes left, over 15 seconds on the shot clock, Magic have the ball. What do they get out of the possession? Hedo jacks up a long three with a defender right in his face. Shot misses terribly.

Another possession later on, Rashard drives in and attempts a corkscrew up-and-under layup around two Pistons players. No good.

I could list at least three other horrible plays the Magic ended up with in the last five minutes.

Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy was beside himself with frustration. Can't say I blame him.

Gas prices

Everyone hates high gas prices.

News organizations love reporting that gas prices are climbing. I just watched ten minutes of CNN and the news anchors spent that time worrying that the price of oil could reach over $200 a barrel in the next two years.

Bad news sells. Bad news gets ratings.

What we don't get much of is analysis.

I've got my own vague understanding of what makes gas prices rise and fall, but I'm wondering what you can tell me.

Sports fandom

What makes someone a fan of a particular team?

This is something I've been wondering about recently, as a friend of mine (from Utah) is a "Jazz-first Lakers fan" and one of my cousins (also in Utah) is a hardcore Lakers fan.

In my opinion, here are the circumstances in which you can become a fan of any sports team:

1. You attended the school (if it's an NCAA team), or your parents attended the school.

2. You live in the state the team is in.

3. If you live in a state that doesn't have a professional team (ie. Utah and the MLB or NFL), you can adopt any team you want.

That's it. Now, I'm not saying you can't like other teams. When the Patriots won their first Super Bowl, I liked the team. Doesn't mean I watched all of their games or bought a Patriots hat. Same with the Suns. I like the team (moreso before they got Shaq), but I don't call myself a Suns fan.

I despise bandwagon fans. People who are suddenly diehard Red Sox fans (starting around October 2004) make me roll my eyes. Yankees fans who live in Seattle are posers.

Part of being a fan is sticking with your team even when things are bad. If you're just around for the good times, it's like you married someone and only live with them after they win the lottery.

In this way, I admire Cubs fans. An old roommate of mine is a diehard Cubs fan. He was born a good eight decades after they won their last World Series. Can't accuse him of jumping on the bandwagon.

Assuming the Jazz win an NBA championship sometime in the next ten years, I guarantee the year following said championship will result in the number of Jazz fans doubling.

BYU fans who attended home football games during the horror years of 2002-2004 are true fans. Those who showed up last season, after the 11-2 2006 season, not so much. Same will be true for many who come to games this upcoming fall.

I saw a lot more Utah Ute flags on cars in 2004 than I do today.

If you can think of other rules for becoming a fan of a team, let me know what you think.

Catholics and baptism for the dead

A recent order from the Vatican prevents the release of parish records to the LDS Church.

CNS reported the Vatican had "grave reservations" about the LDS Church's practice of posthumous baptisms by proxy, a practice in which the names of the deceased are baptized into the LDS faith so that they may be united in the afterlife with LDS families, if they so choose.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I feel the need to comment on this issue.

"Posthumous baptisms by proxy" is called "baptisms for the dead" within the LDS faith. The definition given above is accurate, but I've run across a lot of confusion about the practice.

We believe everyone needs to be baptized to return to live with God. Jesus taught, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3:5)

Many of God's children have been born and died without ever having the opportunity to hear about Jesus, let alone be baptized. In God's mercy, He gives everyone a chance to do both.

After death, those who have not heard about Jesus or been baptized will be taught the gospel and then given the choice as to whether they want to accept Him and baptism or not. Because after death we don't have bodies, those individuals who want to be baptized after they die cannot receive the ordinance themselves.

That's where baptism for the dead comes in. Members of the LDS church can be baptized in proxy for those who have already passed on. Those who accept this baptism receive all the blessings that come from that, and can return to live with God.

Thos who don't accept Christ or baptism are not required to do so. Freedom to choose is sacred.

Now, here's where I don't get what the Catholic church is doing.

Why bring it up now? Baptism for the dead has been going on for over 150 years. LDS church members have been using Catholic parish records for this practice for almost as long. Suddenly it is offensive to Catholics?

Where's the harm? The Catholic church obviously doesn't believe baptism for the dead has any efficacy. For them to have "grave reservations" about what we're doing makes no sense unless they think baptisms for the dead actually mean something in the afterlife.

This isn't about adding to our membership numbers. Official records of the LDS church never count dead individuals as part of the living membership.

If someone wanted to make my great-great-grandpa a Wiccan or Muslim by performing some kind of ritual, this wouldn't bother me in the least. In my opinion, such a ritual would make no difference in my great-great-grandfather's eternal salvation.

So I don't get it. And to a lot of LDS church members with Catholic ancestors, this is a major problem. They want to be the ones to help their family members have this opportunity to be baptized. And the Catholic church is preventing them from doing that.

Today is not a good day in Mormon/Catholic relations.