[ReDIRKulous]

Poor, Poor Pitiful Lakers
Whiny LA More Hateable Than Ever
Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com - Posted: 12/5/03
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By Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com
Poor, poor pitiful Lakers. Poor, poor pitiful Lakers.
You want to know something more offensive than overdogs who brag? It’s overdogs who whine.
This may be the most star-studded unit in basketball history. As proof, we offer the way their security is handled on the road: The NBA generally assigns visitors to Dallas one local cop to handle security. On occasion, a Tracy McGrady or a Scottie Pippen will require one additional cop.
The Lakers? They get three additional Dallas cops – plus five of their own traveling LA cops!
So it’s a special group. Yet because of the way this group whines and dramatizes and showboats, it is also an especially hateable group.
Two days in a row, Karl Malone has taken digs at Mark Cuban and the Mavs’ free-agent bid for him this summer. In San Antonio earlier this week, Shaquille O’Neal offered a take on Tim Duncan receiving a one-game suspension for bumping a ref: ‘If I would have did that, I would have gotten 10 games, you know that. It's us against the golden boys."
Is that right? Geez, Karl Malone through a purposeful elbow into the face of Steve Nash in Thursday's manhandling of the Lakers, and not only didn't he get 10 games suspension, the refs barely noticed he'd done it! Gosh, it must be tough being a Laker. First you get lied to. Then you are a second-class citizen compared to the ‘golden boys.’
We have no idea what either of these demented fellows is talking about. Dallas’ attempt to lure Malone via free agency was sincere, and if anything, the Mavs were too honest. They let Malone know that Alonzo Mourning was their primary target, and that they’d also like to have Malone. Heck, we wish they would’ve fibbed to Karl and let him think he was No. 1 all along, because then, when Mourning wussed out, nobody would’ve been the wiser and Malone would’ve been a Mav.
And since when are the Lakers anything but the NBA’s golden boys? From boy toy Wilt to logo-boy West to Kareem to Magic to Shaq to Kobe, the Lakers have long been the league’s sexiest and most glamorous club. Vanessa Williams marries them, Paula Abdul dances for them, Jack Nicholson lobbies officials for them. The Lakers do television, they rap, they make movies, they even get to dominate Court TV.
Mark Cuban’s Mavs have done a brilliant job making American Airlines Center a place to see and be seen. But life in LA is different, and it saddens the soul to hear that Karl and Shaq are having such a tough time of it there. The other night at a Lakers game, Jessica Alba sat courtside. A couple seats down sat Tobey Maguire. Maguire is ‘Spider-Man.’ Jessica is ‘Dark Angel’ and ‘Honey.’ If Tobey and Jessica showed up at a Mavs game, Laura Miller would give them keys to the city. If they showed up in San Antonio, either of them could be elected mayor.
But in LA? Where opponents are dishonest and unfairly favored? Alba is nobody, Maguire is only almost somebody and the world revolves around the inequitable treatment provided to Lakers players who deserve better.
The Mavs are liars?
The Spurs are pets?
Poor, poor pitiful Lakers.
Poor, poor pitiful Lakers.