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The best show in town was Sunday at Staples Center when the unbeatable Golden State Warriors lost to our Lakers, who have the worst record in the Western Division, 102-95. The Lakers led all the way and viewers on national television must have been wondering how this could happen. My answer is mind over matter. Their spirit was so strong that it overcame the gap between the teams. It was a joy to see Laker fans who have suffered through a difficult season remain loyal with their cheers. Even...
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...
I once dialed my friend and traveling companion, Chick Hearn and heard his wife on the other side of the line. “Francis,” I heard her say. “It’s Mitch on the phone.” Years later, someone told me she was the only one permitted to call him Francis. He wouldn’t answer to anyone else. That was his real first name but friends and millions of basketball fans who watched him on Laker telecasts and broadcasts knew him as the great Chick Hearn. But Marge was his lifelong love and he reserved a place for her where nobody else could go. Yes, Francis and...
As the Clippers ponder their decision about Blake Griffin they have to take into account the franchise’s history. They cannot escape the reality that there’s been a lot of trouble in the past when Donald Sterling was the owner. It’s always something with the Clippers, or so it seems. Sterling would refuse to honor contracts of coaches he’d fired. A lot of time was spent in court. A new era began with wealthy new owner Steve Ballmer and a coach, Doc Rivers, who had an NBA championship on his res...
By Mitch Chortkoff It's not a pleasant subject among NBA folks. But it can't be ignored. Teams hopelessly out of playoff contention can benefit from falling even further behind because the lower they go the better odds they'll have for the annual draft lottery. The Lakers are one of those teams. So some fans cringed among those who cheered when the Lakers went on a three=game winning streak in the last week. Included was a rout of a struggling Phoenix team which was held to only 22 points in the...
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."...
The Lakers announce their participation in the 127th Rose Parade®, designing a float titled Every Second is an Adventure for the annual celebration. The theme of the float represents the importance of each moment in basketball, capturing the excitement of last-second shots and dramatic finishes Lakers fans have and will experience. "The Rose Parade is a timeless tradition on New Year's Day and the Lakers are enthusiastic to celebrate the start of 2016 with the rest of the country in this...
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 We all know about the Clippers' history. They took a back seat to the Lakers for so many years. The Donald Sterling era was forgettable. But in the last few years they've become better than the Lakers. They hired Doc Rivers, a coach who has won an NBA championship. With Steve Ballmer, an energetic owner, they were a threat to go all the way last season but collapsed horribly in Game 6 of their second round series against Houston. Same old Clippers. That was the...
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...
The NBA champion Golden State Warriors will be in Southern California soon. The Warriors will have three exhibition games, against the Lakers in San Diego on October 17, the Clippers at Staples Center Oct. 20 and the Lakers in Anaheim on Oct. 22....
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 Before another NBA season begins soon let’s pause and honor two great players who helped make the league what it is today. Darryl Dawkins and Moses Malone died in the last few weeks. Both were giants who possessed extraordinary basketball ability. “Moses Malone was a fierce and noble competitor. He will always be linked with Laker playoff history” was a statement from the Buss family. “The NBA lost a giant and I lost a true friend,” said Clippers coach Doc River...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor When I was 28 I was assigned to the Laker beat at the L.A. Herald-Examiner by sports editor Bud Furillo. I was thrilled but I had no idea what was in store for me. Not only did I fly on the team plane where I got to know Chick Hearn very well but I occasionally filled in for the regular Dodger beat writer in the summer and that got me into the world of Vin Scully. This week Scully revealed he’s going to broadcast Dodger games again next season, his 68th year in t...
The NBA has released its 2015 preseason schedule that tips off on Friday, Oct. 2 and features three top international teams – Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul, Maccabi Haifa, and Paschoalotto/Bauru – traveling to the U.S. for six games against six NBA teams. Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul, a six-time Turkish League champion, will be the first international team to play in the U.S. this preseason, taking on the Brooklyn Nets on Oct. 5 at Barclays Center before meeting the Oklahoma City Thunder on Oct. 9 at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Maccabi Haifa, an Isr...
El SEGUNDO –The Lakers will open the 2015-16 regular season on Wednesday, October 28 at STAPLES Center when they host the number one pick of the 2015 NBA draft, Karl Anthony Towns, and the Minnesota Timberwolves, it was announced today. Highlights of the Lakers' home schedule include a Christmas day game against the Los Angeles Clippers; the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors on January 5 and March 6; LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers on March 10; and Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Th...
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...
Two former UCLA basketball players have been named to the all-summer league first team at the recently completed event in Las Vegas. Kyle Anderson of San Antonio, who averaged 22 points per game and Norman Powell of Toronto were honored. DeAngelo Russell, the Lakers’ first round draft choice, didn’t make the team. He had problems with turnovers throughout the week...
By Steven Lieberman Observer Reporter Every July, there is summer excitement brewing at the Toyota Sports Center, the Lakers headquarters and practice facility in El Segundo. No, it wasn't the news that stand-out players Brandon Bass and Roy Hibbert have recently been added to the Lakers roster. On Saturday, the excitement involved the 236 capable young women from all over the country trying-out to become a dancer for next season's Laker Girls dance squad. It was an open audition, a cattle...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor A sports columnist usually takes a stand on issues. The hope is the column will be read and whether or not the readers agree with the point they’ll have something to think about. As sports editor of the Observer I encourage my columnists to present their opinions too. We try to give readers an opinion they probably won’t get in our rival papers. But today it’s different. In doing research for this column in the last few days I realized I don’t feel strong...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor When I realized the deadline for this week’s paper was Wednesday and the NBA draft was Thursday I was quite disappointed. I wouldn’t be able to comment on the Lakers’ selection until the following week. Then I had an idea. There had been so much interest, so many conflicting rumors in what the Lakers were going to do that there would be considerable reader interest in a description of this process. So. Hopefully, I was right and you’ll read on, At the beginni...
By Mitch Chortkoff Sports Editor The Lakers have apparently lost a piece they were counting on to solve the puzzle created by compiling the worst record in their history. Kevin Love, the former UCLA star, says he’s going to remain with the Cleveland Cavaliers next season despite his inability to play in the current NBA Finals due to a shoulder injury. Love can opt out of his Cleveland contract and test the free agent market at the end of this month. The Lakers tried to acquire him when he l...
