It\'s amazing how things change so quickly. A month ago everyone was saying how the Lakers couldn\'t win on the road, they had no heart, they didn\'t play defense, Pau was soft, and Fisher was done. And there was certainly a fair amount of evidence to support these claims.
But the truth is the Lakers benefited from these criticisms and shortcomings and became a better team as the playoffs wore on. Now, they\'re the 2009 NBA champions, an accomplishment which will remain etched in stone for eternity. To me, the turning point was winning Game 3 at Denver, a game the Lakers trailed throughout and yet found a way to win in the fourth, displaying the toughness that many thought they didn\'t have.
Obviously, Kobe and Phil add to their already brilliant, Hall of Fame careers and one of the most enjoyable things I\'ve ever witnessed as a sports fan has been watching Kobe\'s progression, developing from someone who played to shoot to a leader who plays to win.
In other news, Pau more than held his own against Dwight Howard and actually outplayed him in several stretches. It helps when your big guy can actually hit a shot from outside 10 feet, let alone a free throw.
But to me, the biggest difference between last season and this one for the Lakers was the improved play of Lamar Odom and the emergence of Trevor Ariza. Odom was a presence in the paint and Ariza was a clutch three-point machine. Meanwhile, Odom did pretty well from beyond the arc himself.
And speaking of clutch threes, the Lakers probably still win the series, but who knows what happens if not for Derek Fisher nailing the biggest shot of the postseason at the end of Game 4. I love how it\'s not just Kobe and Phil, but also Fisher, who came into the league with Kobe in \'96, who\'s a tie-in to the Lakers\' championship teams from earlier this decade. It\'s funny. The Lakers didn\'t have Fisher for three years in between these title runs and did nothing special in any of those three.
Anyway, the Los Angeles Lakers are the best team in the National Basketball Association for the year 2009. Feels great to say. Feels even greater coming off the heartbreak of last season. And for me, this run started right after last year\'s finals, with the Olympics, where Kobe\'s U.S.A. team and Pau\'s squad from Spain met in the gold medal game, one of the best basketball contests I\'ve ever seen, with both guys having great games and neither backing down from the other, despite being teammates. In fact, when the U.S.A. and Spain played in the preliminary round, Kobe knocked Pau on his ass and then walked right over him instead of shaking his hand.
After seeing that, and how Kobe was obviously going to step up his determination and competitiveness even more this year, I knew us Lakers\' fans had a special season in store. And the fact that I know I was there through it all, from the ground up, much as my fellow Lakers\' fans on this board were, whether it was a preseason game against Oklahoma City, a regular season game with the Clippers, the Lakers stopping the Celtics win streak on Christmas, Kobe scoring 61 at the Garden, the Lakers being the first team to win at Cleveland, and course, all the great moments of the postseason, right to the point where Bill Russell of all people handed Kobe the MVP trophy, is what makes me feel fantastic about the Lakers winning.
When you absorb the agony of your team losing, that\'s when you truly deserve to revel in the thrill of them winning.
Go Lakers!
