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By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor What seemed very likely several weeks ago is now official. Jerry West is joining the Clippers. At 79, West still enjoys accurately evaluating players, a talent he's had since his playing days. Retirement isn't for everyone his age. West, a Laker great as a player, became the Lakers' general manager, engineered the trade that brought in Kobe Bryant and presided over six NBA championship years with the team. He left for Memphis, reportedly because of a financial...
Mitch Kupchak learned the General Manager business from Jerry West, then took over. He had good years but not many in his final ones with lowly Laker teams and now he’s been replaced. What about the new guy? First, remember Kupchak was a Laker player and then a general manager. It’s a huge difference that Rob Pelinka was an agent who had Kobe Bryant as a client and now he’s going to work for a team for the first time. It’s a different world. Agents make friends and enemies. When they negotia...
Would you believe? Would anyone believe? Awhile back a Georgia lawmaker, Gerald Greene (R-Cuthbert), was shot in the leg behind an adult entertainment store. Furthermore, Greene had several thousand dollars in donations for storm relief efforts in his pocket that the shooter didn’t get. Greene’s story claims he parked his vehicle and planned to walk to a nearby liquor store to buy lottery tickets. After being wounded Greene walked to the liquor store where the police found him. Greene des...
The Rams receiving approval to return to Los Angeles was named 2016’s top sports moment at the 12th Annual LA Sports Awards night at the Beverly Hilton. The LA Sports Awards are produced annually by the Los Angeles Sports Council to celebrate the greatest moments of the year in the Los Angeles/Orange County area. The Rams had played in the Los Angeles area for 48 years before moving to St. Louis prior to the 1995 NFL season. On January 12, 2016, team owners meeting in Houston voted 30-2 to approve the Rams’ application to relocate, ending the...
I went to Staples Center Saturday and Sunday nights. That’s no surprise since my job requires keeping up with the Lakers and Clippers. But the weekend had a special significance. The Chicago Bulls were in town. They’re not a great team but a good one. They’ve added free agent Dwayne Wade and I expected them to provide a test for the LA teams. Could they meet the challenge? The Clippers passed the Chicago test but the Lakers didn’t. The Bulls were tearing the Clippers apart early in the game bu...
It’s good to be a fan of an LA team so far in the 2016-’17 National Basketball Association season. The Clippers are 10-1 at this writing, the best record in the NBA. And they’ve been routing opponents, building several 30-point halftime leads. The Lakers can’t match that but as of Monday they had a 6-5 record and that’s encouraging considering their slow starts in recent years. They even had a three-game winning streak before losing at Minnesota Sunday. I credit new coach Luke Walton for doing...
Gail Goodrich is the greatest lefthanded guard the Lakers have ever had. He played on two NCAA championship teams at UCLA, then teamed in the backcourt with Jerry West on two Laker NBA championship teams including the 1972 squad that set the still-standing record of 33 consecutive wins. In 14 NBA seasons Goodrich averaged 18.6 points per game. Although he was the shooting guard and West handled the ball more often Goodrich managed to average 4.7 assists per game throughout his career. I bring...
The Lakers held the annual media day on Monday and opened training camp in Santa Barbara Tuesday eager to please their new coach. Luke Walton has already pleased them. In the off season since Walton replaced Byron Scott the young players who experienced a 17-65 season a year ago were pleased with his positive approach. Without question, Walton and the players bonded. The test, of course will be in how the team does when the wins and losses follow. Nice guy Walton, who encourages them, is great f...
The Lakers took awhile but they signed top draft choice Brandon Ingram this week. They also signed former top 10 draft choice Yi Jianlian, who played well for China in the just-concluded Olympics although the team lost all five of its games. Ingram is a candidate to succeed Kobe Bryant at small forward. Jianlian will try to earn a roster spot in training camp. The 6-11 Jilianlian hasn't done well while playing for four NBA teams since he was drafted by Milwaukee in 2007. He has averaged less...
Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan are future NBA Hall Of Fame players. Both have retired and both are properly being lauded for their accomplishments. But they are different kinds of people. Bryant embraced his last of 20 Laker seasons by agreeing to an elaborate tour where he willingly met with the media in his final game in every city. Duncan retired Monday after 19 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs. He treated his final season like the other 18. He played unselfishly, said goodbye and didn’t e...
If you follow the history of basketball a few things are perfectly clear. If your team expects to win a championship you need at least two superstars to complete the journey to the top. The Lakers had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson and Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. The Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA have Nneka Ogwumike and Candace Parker. Like any championship team every player on that roster plays an important role in that team's success. All 12 women on the Sparks roster are...
Until someone gets 12 championships on his resume I will continue to rank Bill Russell as the most valuable player in NBA history. He led the Boston Celtics to 11 championships While playing against the very formidable Wilt Chambelain. High on anyone ’ s list should be Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (six championships) Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant (five) and let ’ s not overlook Robert Horry (seven). When the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Golden State Warriors in Game Seven Sun...
When the Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship last season comparisons to the great teams of the past were heard. We hadn’t seen a shooter better than Steph Curry. The Warriors’ style of play was exciting. They had conquered the great Lebron James in the Finals. But soon NBA experts brought reality to the topic. Bill Russell had won 11 championships. Michael Jordan had won six, Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant five. Were the Warriors a fluke? Probably not. But NBA experts and fans wan...
Luke Walton called Steve Kerr last Friday afternoon. “I have good news and bad news,” the Golden State Warriors’ assistant coach told the head coach. “Start with the good news,” Kerr said. “The Lakers have offered me their head coaching job,” Walton said. “That’s great,’ replied Kerr. ‘I’m so happy for you. What’ the bad news?” “The bad news is I took it.” That conversation sums up the fact that Walton, who played for the Lakers in nine mostly successful seasons and had a 39-4 record this seas...
When I wrote Anatomy Of A Disaster four years ago I had no intention of repeating it the next season. But readers were so fed up with the Lakers’ demise they requested it. Then we had last season, 21 wins and 61 losses, the worst record in the franchise’s history. And now this. Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse it did. The Lakers lost for the 62nd time last week, climaxing their worst season in the franchise’s 68-year existence. It was also their 11th straight loss to the Clipper...
• 48,527: Minutes played through April 7, 2016, the sixth most in NBA history • 33,521: Career points, third on the NBA’s all-time scoring list behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387) and Karl Malone (36,928) • 5,640: Points scored in the NBA Playoffs, third most in NBA history behind Michael Jordan (5,987) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (5,762) • 81: Points in a 122-104 victory against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006, the second-highest total in NBA history behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962 • 50: Twenty-four career 50-point game...
The remarkably successful Special Olympics World Games, held in Los Angeles last summer, was named the top sports moment of 2015 at the 11th Annual LA Sports Awards, held last weekend at The Beverly Hilton Hotel. The LA Sports Awards are produced annually by the Los Angeles Sports Council to celebrate the greatest moments of the year in the Los Angeles/Orange County area. In other award presentations, Blake Griffin was honored as 2015 Sportsman of the Year and the FIFA World Cup Champion U.S. Women’s National Team was named Sportswomen of t...
Laker great thanks assistant coach Bill Bertka By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor Sometime next season the Lakers will add a statue of Shaquille O’Neal at Staples Center to those of their other former great players. The group includes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Jerry West. The statue will portray O’Neal flying through the air for a dunk. The 7-1, 325 pound O’Neal, who has starred for several NBA teams, says that if he’s selected to the Basketball Hall Of Fame he’s chosen to go in as a Laker. O’Neal, now a key member of Direc TV’s...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor Basketball fans admired Jerry West when he was in his 20s and 30s. First, he and Elgin Baylor were superstars who introduced the NBA to Los Angeles. Then in 1972 he and Wilt Chamberlain led Coach Bill Sharman's Lakers on a 33-game winning streak, which has never been equaled, and then the NBA championship. Finally, West became the Lakers' general manager and presided over six more championship years. He made the most spectacular front office decision in Laker...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor It was 1996 and I was in Honolulu covering the Lakers' training camp. It was an especially important one because General Manager Jerry West had made a spectacular move which resulted in the acquisition of rookie guard Kobe Bryant and center Shaquille O'Neal. In the first few days of the camp I found O'Neal to be outgoing, easy to interview, establishing the foundation for a friendship we have to this day. Bryant, who had been a high school phenom with no college...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor Kobe Bryant and Luke Walton were teammates on the Lakers for nine years. Bryant says he's not surprised that Walton has done so well this season filling in for Steve Kerr as coach of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors. Bryant saw Walton's potential many years ago. "I often told him you're the next Phil," said Bryant, who of course was comparing his teammate to their then-Laker coach, Phil Jackson. "You were both average players with a messed-up back."...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor This is Los Angeles. The Lakers have won 16 NBA championships. The Dodgers haven’t won a World Series since 1988 but they’ve won their division the last three years. LA fans expect quality. And why not? Our teams can afford what it takes to produce winners. But what’s happening now can’t be happening. Can it? The Dodgers have new owners who had the highest payroll in baseball history in the just-concluded season. But the team wasn’t real good. There were obvi...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor The Lakers’ annual goal used to be winning the NBA championship. They succeed 16 times to become one of the elite franchises in league history. That was then and this is now, The Lakers haven’t won a playoff game (not a championship but one game) in the last three seasons. They were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs, then didn’t qualify, then didn’t qualify again last season when they had a franchise low of 21 wins and 67 losses. Here we go again. The...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor At the start of another Laker season General Manager Mitch Kupchak told the media last week this would be a season of laying a foundation. “Every season the Lakers have hopes of winning a championship,” Kupchak began. “But realistacly we’re developing DeAngelo Russell, Julius Randle and Jordan Clarkson this season. Then, hopefully we’ll add free agents next season.” The plan is to build up to being a championship contender. But when? Kupchak’s speech was ho...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor In a few months Kobe Bryant will begin the 20th season of his remarkable Laker career. Next season he won’t have a contract. So what does he do? There are four ways he can go – retire, sign another Laker contract, play in a foreign country or sign with another NBA team. Piecing together information I’ve received from numerous sources, I’m ruling out that he’ll cash in as a free agent and play for another NBA team. The NBA salary cap is soaring and even though Ko...
