ESPN NBA

A franchise long defined by Dr. Jerry Buss, Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant is coping with a dizzying array of injuries and changes. We examine with J.A. Adande:

 

The best argument for underclass players staying in college for more preparation is the fact that you can mention Damian Lillard and LeBron James in the same sentence. No, not that you can compare Lillard's game to LeBron's, but you can write this perfectly acceptable sentence: LeBron James for MVP and Damian Lillard for rookie of the year are the two easiest choices for this year's NBA awards.

Lillard lapped the field, averaging 19 points and 6.5 assists per game, because his game is so polished. It's so polished because he stayed at Weber State for four years. The Big Sky Conference might not be stocked with NBA-level talent, but the likes of Shaka Smart at Virginia Commonwealth and Brad Stevens at Butler have shown there are good coaches throughout college basketball. And going against well-coached teams with evolving defensive schemes forced Lillard to improve.

"Over time, playing in the same league and playing against kind of the same bunch of schools and teams starting to prepare for me every year, knowing me a little bit better each year, I had to adjust, because they knew me well," Lillard said late Tuesday night, after the Portland Trail Blazers lost to the Los Angeles Clippers. "Off the floor, my coaches, they held me accountable for every little thing: being in class on time, showing up early to practice, holding other guys accountable. So I think my role in that program and at that school, it was so huge and I had so much responsibility for four years that it prepared me for being able to play at this level.

"As [opponents] kind of got on to me, that’s when I learned to watch film. I saw that they were kind of forcing me to weaknesses at that time. Over the summers, my coaches, they were making me think the game: write down 10 things that you need to get better at and over the summer you need to really get better at it. I got to the point where I was staying over the summer, working with them with those things that I wrote down and the things that they wrote down. And when I came back the next season, teams were forcing me to do something that I had developed over the summer: pull-up jumpers going right. Quick finishes -- we called them Steve Nash finishes, little quick layups. Step-back jumpers. Just small stuff."

All the small stuff adds up to a complete game.

I'm in favor of players having the option to go to the NBA straight from high school; there's no need to deny the rare players who are physically ready to make the leap, and there's no point in wasting scholarships on players who have no interest in going to school. I'm also in favor of the NCAA doing away with its arcane amateur rules, which would make staying in college more financially feasible for these athletes who want that choice. Damian Lillard shows the benefits of waiting to go pro.

The NBA sure has taken a philosophical turn lately. It started with Isiah Thomas quoting Immanuel Kant and has spread to the point where we can’t even enjoy someone getting dunked on without the Protectors Of The Game wondering if we’ve lost our collective way by ascribing Great Meaning to such inconsequential plays.

Bob Ryan and I have had a mutually respectful relationship for more than two decades, but that didn’t keep us from a heated debate about the significance of LeBron James’ dunk on Jason Terry Monday night. I believe it was the standout moment of a fantastic game. Bob, uh, thinks otherwise.

That’s why I was so encouraged to hear LeBron’s comments to reporters in Cleveland on Wednesday, when he confirmed that dunk did matter. A lot.

"The fact that it happened to J.T. made it even that much sweeter," LeBron said, twisting the knife by using Terry’s initials rather than the moniker "JET." "Because I think we all know what J.T., and he talks too much sometimes, and I'm glad it happened to him."

Boom.

So yes, with a history dating back to the 2011 NBA Finals, there was an added meaning to the play. As if you couldn’t tell when LeBron stood over the fallen Terry and glared at him, drawing a technical foul.

Dunking is the best form of legalized aggression the game has. The NHL allows its players to settle their differences with fisticuffs. In the NBA you have to be more creative, find ways to assert your manhood within the context of the game, or risk suspension. No better way to do that than to dunk. (I still believe this Kobe Bryant dunk over Steve Nash was a belated statement of Kobe’s feelings about the 2006 Most Valuable Player voting.

No, I don’t deduct points for the height difference between James and Terry, just as the discrepancy between DeAndre Jordan and Brandon Knight doesn’t diminish the impact of that dunk. We chastise big men for bringing the ball down low where smaller players can swipe it; it’s fair game to go after guards when they step in where they don’t belong.

I understand that dunks don’t provide the answer to the essential question that frames any decision, transaction or development in the NBA, which is, "Can it help a team win playoff games?" I still enjoy them. I like home runs in baseball and kickoff return touchdowns in football; that doesn’t mean I think they’re more important than pitching and defense.

There are moments that resonate with us, when athletes show off their talent and skills and remind us why we pay to see them play the same sports we can watch in the park for free. What was Bo Jackson’s professional career if not a collection of those highlights? His demolition of Brian Bosworth was his version of an in-your-face jam. Bo hit .250 with 141 home runs in baseball and rushed for 2,782 yards and 16 touchdowns in football. Yet he’s still the subject of reverential documentaries.

The entire premise of sports is absurd, to borrow an existentialist phrase. Making a big deal out of dunk is no different than building massive stadiums where athletes play for millions of dollars. In that context, no amount of hyperbole can be considered excessive.

I’ll close with this rhetorical -- perhaps philosophical -- question: If a LeBron dunk in a game that counts doesn’t matter, then why do so many people clamor for him to compete in a dunk contest exhibition?

Even though he won’t be playing, the thought of returning to his old home at the Rose Garden in Portland is stirring the emotions in Brandon Roy.

Knee injuries have put his attempted comeback with the Minnesota Timberwolves on ice after just five games this season, just as his bad knees ended his time with the Portland Trail Blazers after five years. But at least he is traveling with the Timberwolves on this trip, something he didn’t do when the team visited Portland for the first time on Nov. 23.

“I’m excited to go back,” Roy said after the Timberwolves lost to the Lakers in Los Angeles Thursday night. “I don’t quite know how I’ll feel. I’m excited to go back and be in that building again. It was special. I had a lot of special moments there.”

None was more special than Game 4 of the 2011 first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks, when Roy scored 18 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Trail Blazers all the way back from a 23-point deficit for the win ... his last one in a Portland uniform.

That was my favorite performance by one of my favorite players, and this was the first time I had a chance to talk to him since I was glued to the television that day.
It didn’t take much to get Roy’s memories flowing and his eyes in that glassy “I reminisce, I reminisce” mode.

Prior to that fourth quarter, Roy’s biggest impact on the series came when he expressed his disappointment about playing only eight minutes in Game 2. The Mavericks won two of the first three games, sliding the Trail Blazers toward the offseason, prompting Roy to finally relax and let go.

“I just went into that game like, ‘Who cares?’” Roy said. “I was loose. I just played.”

Roy checked in for the final time with 4:46 remaining in the third quarter, and a short time later Peja Stojakovic made two 3-pointers in a minute and a half to put the Mavs ahead 67-44.

“A fan was like, ‘Roy, you ain’t doing nothing,’” Roy said. “I’m like ‘Man, I just got in the game, we’re down 23 points and it’s my fault? Whatever.’”

At the end of the quarter, Roy took a 3-pointer that rolled around the rim and bounced in with a second remaining, setting the stage for the epic comeback.

“Coming into the fourth quarter, I’m like, ‘I’m going to be aggressive,’” Roy said. “Shots just started falling. Then I got even more aggressive, started making plays. I got loose.”

Roy made catch-and-shoot jumpers, pullup shots, driving layups. He was unstoppable. The crowd roared, thrilled by the scoring exhibition, enticed by the possibility that their Blazers could actually pull this off.

“I got chills myself,” Roy said. “Going into the timeout, I kind of got goosebumps.

“The closer we got, I just said, ‘Man, there’s no way we’re going to lose this game.’”

Roy made a short jumper to put the Trail Blazers ahead, 84-82, with 39 seconds remaining, then watched as a Jason Terry 3-pointer missed at the buzzer.

It turned out to be Roy’s last great moment of the many he compacted into his five seasons there, beginning with his rookie of the year season in 2006-07. The Mavericks won the next two games to finish off the series and launch their improbable championship run. The damaged knees that had reduced Roy to a bench player forced him to retire after the lockout ended in 2011. The Trail Blazers used the amnesty provision to take the remaining $64 million on his contract off their books, and he sat out the season.

He dropped by the Rose Garden once, on March 20, 2012, to watch former Blazers teammate and fellow Seattleite Jamal Crawford play on Crawford's birthday, but he mostly stayed away from the NBA. And while he was out, Roy watched replays of the fourth quarter of Game 4 on his iPad ... well, let’s just say more than once.

“It wasn’t the same, because nothing will ever be like that moment,” Roy said. “I mean, fans were cheering, my teammates ... and I really thought I could make every shot.

“Then you hear how the announcers are calling it. That made it a little bit better. When you’re going through it, you don’t quite know what they’re saying about it.”

Looking back, he acknowledges some points even came on bad shots, ones he can’t believe he attempted.

“When you’re in that zone, you take those kind of shots,” Roy said.

Roy won’t be in the game, let alone in that zone, on Saturday. At least he will be in the building. He’s hopeful that he can play again this season, but with his future not guaranteed, 27 games remaining on the schedule and the injury-riddled Timberwolves about to miss the playoffs for the ninth consecutive season, this could be Roy’s last time in Portland as a player, even an inactive one.

“This,” he said, “will be a little different.”

The Jerry Buss memorial service Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles was so, so ... Lakers. That’s the only way to describe it.
There were NBA legends, some random guy, fascinating stories, slight verbal jabs ... all playing out in front of a backdrop that featured 10 championship trophies.

NBA Commissioner David Stern called Buss, the Lakers owner who died at age 80 on Monday, “nothing less than a transformational force in the history of sports.”

Jerry West said Buss “has left a shadow over the entire sports world.”

Coming from the mouths of the league’s biggest names, it didn’t sound like hyperbole. And yet, mixed among the Hall of Famers such as West, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, plus future Hall of Famers Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, was an ordinary, previously unknown man named Greg Tomlinson. His name wasn’t even in the program; he was a late-minute addition requested by Buss heir Jim Buss.

Tomlinson spoke -- extensively -- for the common fan, unable to provide much insight into Buss other than the fact that Buss remembered him and his kids the second time they met. Guess any service that lasts more than 90 minutes will find room for all sides.

Memorial tributes can reveal as much about the speaker as the person being remembered. You heard the poignancy of Kareem, the intensity of Riley, the competitiveness of Kobe, the inclusiveness of Magic (who asked every current and former Laker to stand up and receive a round of applause). You even heard echoes of the rivalry between West and Jackson.

After West’s emotional speech, Jackson recalled the time West drove him from his introductory news conference in L.A. to Buss’ house for his first meeting with the owner, noting that on that day West “didn’t talk as long as he just did now.”

Jackson also brought up the time Bryant wanted to be traded, recalling the analogy Buss used to explain why he resisted: “If I had a diamond of great value, four or five carats, would I give up that diamond for four diamonds of one carat? No. There’s no equal value that we could get for you. A trade would not bring equal value to this team.”

It was telling that four people with whom Buss had parted ways during his ownership tenure – Riley, West, Jackson and O’Neal -- felt compelled to come back and pay homage to him. O’Neal’s presence was the most fascinating, since his breakup was the most acrimonious, with some derisive comments made by O’Neal in the media.

“There was never a problem between me and Buss,” O’Neal said before entering the Nokia Theatre for the service. “As you know, I do whatever it takes to get ratings up for the game. He’s a businessman, I’m a businessman. The day after I got traded, Dr. Buss was the first to call me to say, ‘I miss you. If you ever need me, talk to me.’ Everything I did was for marketing purposes.”

O’Neal made a positive step back into the fold when he showed up for the Jerry West statue unveiling during the 2011 All-Star weekend in Los Angeles. Buss was there, and he and O’Neal had a positive exchange that likely paved the way toward the upcoming retirement of O’Neal’s Laker jersey. Thursday, in a sign of the absence of hard feelings, O’Neal drew the biggest laugh of the day at his own expense.

“[Buss] gave me everything I wanted,” O’Neal said. “I wanted one [contract] extension. He gave it to me. I wanted a second extension. He gave it to me. I wanted a third extension. He traded me.”

Bryant felt compelled to remind Jackson of the time he was asked for input on bringing him back, as if to say it would not have happened without him signing off. Bryant imitated his initial reaction by grimacing and swaying back and forth like Stevie Wonder at the piano.

Bryant said Buss looked at him and said, “Trust me.”

“And I did,” Bryant said. “And that has taken us to a whole another level and winning another two championships.”

Bryant stepped down from the stage as Magic Johnson made his way up. They stopped and embraced. As one observer noted, all 10 of the championships won by Buss were represented in that hug.

Johnson brought the service to a rousing crescendo, urging everyone to stand and cheer.

“This is a celebration of life,” Johnson said. “This is a celebration of success. We shouldn’t be sad.”

“Please, Buss family, do not ever sell the Lakers,” he implored. “And win more championships.”

The character of this memorial was uniquely Jerry Buss, from the star power to the subtle machinations playing out beneath the surface. It spoke to his ability to draw people together, even in the afterlife.

Kobe Bryant cares about the All-Star Game more than each and every one of the fans who cast 1,591,437 votes for him to start in it a record 15th time cares about the All-Star Game. That’s strange, because the All-Star Game is supposed to be for the fans, while for the players it’s usually a weekend of camaraderie, sponsor tie-ins and maybe a little chance to showcase their skills. Not for Bryant. For him, it’s another opportunity to win.

He doesn’t just show up to All-Star Games, he competes in them.

“When have I not competed?” he says.

You could scratch your head until you’re bald trying to come up with the answer to that one. I’ve even seen him compete when he’s injured, challenging ballboys or media members in shooting competitions before games he couldn’t play in. (Watch him revel in making a reporter do 200 pushups after Bryant sank a left-handed shot from halfcourt).

It explains why Bryant ranks among the NBA’s all-time greats, and how he has whittled the choice of greatest All-Star performer down to two: Bryant and Magic Johnson.

Bryant has the most points in All-Star game history, and he shares the record for All-Star Most Valuable Player awards. Today will be his 14th start, the most of anyone (he also was voted into the starting lineup in 2010 but couldn’t play because of an injury).

Magic has the most All-Star assists and has won the MVP twice, half as many as Kobe. Magic could have had more for himself, if he hadn’t been dedicated to setting up Ralph Sampson in 1985 or enabling Tom Chambers of the SuperSonics, the local favorite, to win it in Seattle in 1987. David Stern said Saturday that his favorite All-Star memory is Magic winning the MVP in Orlando in 1992, three months after Magic announced he was HIV-positive.

Both Kobe and Magic brought the right combination of playoff intensity and charity game showmanship to the All-Star Game. Magic pushed the ball upcourt, forcing his teammates to fill the lanes, daring the opposition to keep pace. Kobe plays lock-down defense and goes at opponents with ferocity when he has the ball.

“In those situations you don’t have to worry about zone coverages or double-teams,” Bryant says. “You just get a chance to go at a guy. It’s fun for me to be a part of.”

He might be the only one who thinks the game is the most fun part of All-Star Weekend. By the time tipoff finally arrives on Sunday evening, most folks are ready to head out of town. There have even been some snide remarks about Bryant’s effort from his fellow All-Stars, who in the past have adopted the attitude, “If Kobe wants that MVP so badly, he can have it.”

He’s never thought that way. If you’re going to be the one holding that trophy at the end of the day, you’ll have to beat him out for it. Last year that mentality resulted in a concussion and a broken nose when Dwyane Wade fouled him on a drive to the basket, and it led to a national referendum on LeBron James’ heart when LeBron passed off while Kobe was daring him to shoot at the end of the game.

Bryant shares the MVP record with Bob Pettit, who won his four awards in a seven-year stretch between 1956 and 1962. Bryant’s four are spread over 10 years, from 2002 and 2011. He emerged as the best on a court filled with the best for a full decade. The last one seemed to be a message to the likes of James, Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin -- who will be All-Star fixtures for years after Bryant is gone – that he hasn’t left the stage yet.

“It may have a little bit to do with it,” Bryant says. “But for me I’ve been that competitive about the game since I was 18. I don’t know, it’s just the way I’ve been.”

There’s a basketball game on the schedule today. That’s all Kobe Bryant needs to hear.

This week revealed the true fault with the Lakers. I mean fault in the fissure sense, like the cracks in the earth’s crust running underneath California that occasionally cause the ground to shake. It’s not so much the differences in personality between Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard, it’s the difference in the stages of their careers.

Kobe is in win-now-at-all-costs-even-if-it-means-a-shortened-lifespan mode. Howard has to weigh all the pros and cons of his upcoming free agency, when he’ll have to make the most important decision of his career. A championship isn’t Howard’s only concern. Nor should it be.

Howard, 27, is about to determine where he’ll spend his prime years ... and whether he’d be willing to forsake millions of dollars to spend them with someone other than the Lakers. The irony is the injuries he’s going through now could help the Lakers’ chances of keeping him for the long term. If he’s worried that his body is breaking down, that the back surgery last year and the shoulder problems he’s encountered this season won’t allow him to regain his prior dominance, he would be advised to take the extra contract year and the more than 30 million additional dollars he would receive by re-signing with the Lakers.

But wouldn’t you want your body to heal properly before you had to choose, so you wouldn’t be making a decision based on fear? If you were Howard, wouldn’t that take precedence over a regular-season game in February? People like to believe they’d be all about team and championships. Those people haven’t been in a position of turning down $30 million.

What about loyalty? Yeah, what about it? Loyalty to a place he just got to? The same team that tried to trade Pau Gasol, then asked him to come off the bench even after he brought two more banners to Lakerland? What about that whole saga sends a signal to Dwight that he’ll receive eternal gratitude if he sucks it up now and plays through the pain?

The little media back-and-forth between Kobe and Dwight that played out over the past couple of days won’t preclude them from coexisting on the court when they have to. But it does reveal their different approaches, and it’s hard to win when people stand in different philosophical corners.

Kobe and Shaq didn’t get along, but at the start of the last decade they both were consumed with the same thing: winning championships. Shaq had his humongous contract, Kobe had already been given a fat, six-year extension. They squabbled over the means, but their end goals were the same. That’s why they got three rings together.

The Lakers traded for Howard even though he wasn’t clamoring to come to L.A. They knew he was in a contract season. They shouldn’t be surprised if his agenda doesn’t completely mesh with everyone else’s. They shouldn’t be angry if he does what’s in his own best interests.

It was the first question you asked when you saw Kobe Bryant finished with 14 assists against the Utah Jazz Friday night. You repeated it when he had another 14 assists against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday. Will he keep passing this much?

It feels like a stretch, like when we were asked to buy the quirky character actor Steve Buschemi as the leading man/gangster on “Boardwalk Empire.” Passing isn't Kobe's thing. Scoring is. You know how LeBron James scored his 20,000th point a year younger than Kobe did? Well, LeBron was four years younger than Bryant when he reached his 5,000th assist. If we can borrow the promotional hashtag Bryant uses on Twitter, you can #countonkobe to shoot.

But I believe Kobe will stay in this pass-oriented mode the rest of the way because traditionally he has pushed the scoring envelope in the regular season, then played more team-oriented ball in the playoffs…and with the Lakers margin for error eliminated by losing 25 of their first 42 games, every game is like a playoff game from here on out. That’s why he’ll stick with what’s working.

Over the course of Bryant’s career, the statistical differences between Kobe in the regular season and the playoffs are negligible. There’s a 0.1 difference in the scoring average. Assists are the same. Usage rate drops a percent in the postseason. It’s the anecdotal evidence that changes dramatically. In the playoffs, Bryant’s shot selection improves. You don’t hear those passive-aggressive complaints about the ball not moving from his teammates. The ultimate confirmation comes from the Larry O’Brien trophy. No one can win five championships by playing selfishly in the postseason.

Howard Beck, the New York Times writer who used to cover the Lakers for the Los Angeles Daily News, first came up with the notion of the different mode for Kobe in the playoffs, and on the last day of the regular season in 2004 Beck elicited this description from Phil Jackson:

"Sometimes [Bryant] needs to overwhelm the rest of the ballclub's necessity. ... As we get into the playoffs, that'll dissipate, because he knows that he's got to put his ego aside and conform to what we have to do if we're going to go anywhere in the playoffs. Any player that takes it on himself to do that [play for himself] knows that he's going against the basic principles of basketball. That's a selfish approach to the game. You know when you're breaking down the team or you're breaking down and doing things individualistic, you're going to have, you know, some unhappy teammates ... and he knows these things ... intuitively, I have to trust the fact that he's going to come back to that spot and know that the timing's right. The season's over, things have been accomplished, records have been stuck in the books, statistics are all jelled in, now let's go ahead and play basketball as we're supposed to play it."

It’s why Bryant, who has gone for 50 points in one out of every 50 games on average in the regular season, has done so only once in 220 playoff games. And it’s why he has had more assists than field goal attempts in the past two games.

From the first day of training camp, Bryant theorized that this sudden collection of superstars with Steve Nash and Dwight Howard could work together because each player did different things, so they wouldn’t step on each other’s toes. It turns out the key wasn’t doing different things, it’s about doing things differently, stepping out of comfort zones, adapting to suit this team’s needs.

"It’s trying to evolve and figure out what we need as a ballclub and taking a lot of pressure off Steve to have to be the playmaker all the time," Bryant said. "Instead of me being a finisher, just really facilitating."

It’s fascinating to hear Bryant and Nash, who both came into the league in 1996, talking about altering their approach after all of these years and accomplishments. And yes, it does speak to the desperate place the Lakers have reached.

"It is a big difference for me and it is a big change," Nash said. "It’s something that I have to adjust to. Very rarely did I get the ball and catch and shoot in my career."

A bit later, he said, "It’s not going to be the same that it was in Phoenix for me. It’s going to be different. And I have to accept and embrace that and try to help any way that I can."

Steve Nash as a spot-up shooter and Kobe Bryant as a passer. We didn’t envision this when this team came together. We also didn’t envision a 19-25 record with the All-Star break around the corner. If you want to know how this will play out over the next three months, look back at Bryant’s playoff games over the past 16 years.

The two best assists of the sports weekend won’t show up in the box score. They didn’t help a team win a game. They did something much more important. They gave a little moment of happiness to a child who has been through the worst extremes of horror.

It started when Los Angeles Clippers guard Chris Paul took a break from warming up for his game against the Washington Wizards and dribbled over to the baseline, where 8-year-old Isaiah Marquez-Greene was standing with his father, Jimmy Greene.

Isaiah was a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., when a gunman went on a shooting spree that rattled the nation on Dec. 14. Isaiah heard the shots. His sister, Ana, was in a classroom three doors down the hall. She was one of the 20 children killed that day, along with six adults. Ana became one of the most identifiable victims because of a video in which she sang while Isaiah played the piano. For many outsiders it was the first time they could attach a name, face and voice to one of the victims. A memorial Facebook page, Remembering Ana Marquez-Greene, gained 93,000 followers.

Isaiah had been invited by the Los Angeles Kings to participate in their season-opening Stanley Cup celebration earlier in the day. He had stood in a similar spot in Staples Center, flanked by his parents and former Kings greats Marcel Dionne and Rogie Vachon, holding the championship banner that was about to raised to the upper reaches of Staples Center.

Some seven hours later, with the Kings’ ice covered by the Clippers’ court, Isaiah’s sports fantasy weekend continued. Kings players Anze Kopitar and Willie Mitchell had come by the hotel room and brought the Stanley Cup with them. He had a Kings t-shirt and an all-access Kings staff credential hanging from his neck. He had an autographed hockey stick from Anze Kopitar. He got an autographed Paul jersey and a set of red, NBA-logoed wristbands and headband from Clippers equipment manager Pete Serrano. And now Paul had a request.

“Do you know how to play defense?” Paul asked.

Isaiah shook his head. Paul tried again, but he couldn’t lure Isaiah on the court to guard him. So he came up with a different idea.

“Okay, give me a pass and I’ll make the basket, get you an assist,” Paul said.

He gave the ball to Isaiah, who heaved a pass back to him. Paul gathered himself on the “LAC” logo on the court, took an extra moment to concentrate, then elevated and took a jumper that dropped through the net.

Paul wasn’t finished.

“Do you know who Grant Hill is?” he asked Isaiah.

Another head shake.

“Grant Hill is one of the greatest players ever to play basketball,” Paul said. “I’m going to have you pass to him to see if he can make a basket.”

Isaiah fed Hill, who took his familiar, wide-legged jump shot and made it.

Hill ran over, looked down at Isaiah’s feet and noticed his Fila shoes, the same brand Hill wore during his glory days with the Detroit Pistons.

“It’s the Fila connection!” Hill said as he slapped five with Isaiah.

Three hours later, Isaiah was standing in front of Hill’s locker, holding the game ball that had been signed by the Clipper team. That he was still standing at all at the end of this long, emotional sports Saturday that began at 7 a.m. with a rehearsal for the Kings' pregame ceremony was an impressive feat on its own. His father kept waiting for that inevitable cranky crash kids go through and it didn’t happen, not even after 12 hours, an NHL and NBA game had passed. Greene's wife had long since returned to the hotel room. Their son kept going. At one point, energized by a 16-ounce soda he inhaled during the Clipper game, he proclaimed: “I feel like running back and forth across the court 15 times.”

In other words, he felt like doing kid things. I don’t know how that’s possible for a child who has been through an experience that would a war veteran would consider traumatic. But if there’s a word that I’d use to describe Isaiah it’s undaunted.
When he met Fox Sports West sideline reporter Jaime Maggio, she told him the hardest part of her job is holding the heavy microphone and then handed it to him.

“It’s not that heavy,” he said.

None of our burdens are that great, none of our challenges that difficult compared to what Isaiah and his family have been through.

“We’re still trying to wrap our minds around it,” Greene said. “What’s going on, how we’re doing. It’s a moment-to-moment thing. There really hasn’t been healing. There’s still very much grieving and confusion and loss. In the midst of that, our faith is very strong and always has been. We know that [Ana] is with our Lord. And that gives us comfort.”

For one day they also had relief, thanks to a couple of sporting events and the people behind them. It started with the governor of the Kings and chief executive officer of their parent company AEG, Tim Leiweke, who wanted to find Sandy Hook families with a hockey connection and invite them as a way of honoring the victims. AEG spokesman Michael Roth came up with two families with kids who played in youth hockey leagues. One family declined to participate; the Marquez-Greene family decided to accept the invitation and make their first trip since the tragedy.

“For my wife and I, it’s tough,” Greene said. “We’d love for our daughter to be here to experience this all too. We think about her all the time. But that being said, it’s nice to get away for a weekend and have a distraction.”

That’s supposed to be the purpose of sports, isn’t it? Except lately they hadn’t done a very good job of it. The tales of the nonexistent girlfriend of Manti Te’o and the long-awaited tell-all by Lance Armstrong even managed to overwhelm the buildup to the NFL’s conference championship Sunday -- which itself was headlined by an investigation into an alleged sexual assault that involved San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree.

Saturday brought better news. The NHL made its lockout-delayed season debut. Chris Paul returned for the Clippers after missing the previous three games with a knee injury. And an 8-year-old boy was there to take it all in, smiling repeatedly.

“I’m glad to see him here enjoying the games,” Greene said. “What kid gets to be in bed with the Stanley Cup? It’s really cool, the experiences they’ve let him be a part of.”

Gradually, his family is reconnecting with the world at large. It's coming in steps. Greene said he hasn’t watched television in a month. This was the first time the family has traveled since the tragedy.

He and his wife, Nelba, had to wrestle with a particularly devastating soul-searching because they had only returned to Connecticut in August, after spending the previous three years in Canada. They had chosen that neighborhood in part because during a visit to Sandy Hook in May they saw a schoolwide art project that celebrated the peaceful nature of the town. They made their decision based on safety, and wound up feeling they had placed their children in harm’s way.

But Greene made a discovery in the wake of the tragedy. After seeing the response of the community, the way former strangers pulled together, he realized that Sandy Hook had not been the wrong choice. It was the right choice. The community formed a group called Sandy Hook Promise which is dedicated to continued conversation, not silence, to honoring, not forgetting.

“It’s much more important to be open and available,” Greene said. “To have all the conversations around the pertinent issues: gun violence, access to mental health services and safety in public places.

“We really feel like Ana was incredibly loving, incredibly talented, intelligent girl. Going forward, we want to go forward in love. Not in divisiveness, me on my side of the political aisle, you on yours. We’ve really got to come together. Because this isn’t a political issue. It’s a human issue.”

Humans. That’s what they all were distilled to on Saturday. Not hockey players, not basketball players, just people showing care and concern for an 8-year-old boy.

“I heard he hadn’t smiled since the incident occurred,” Chris Paul said. “Having a son of my own and having a daughter…I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t imagine. I was just happy that he could be here and have a good time.”

To help the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School visit MySandyhookfamilyfund.com

LOS ANGELES -- Not many teams could make a rivalry more intriguing with a pair of blowout games. With the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors, it gets more intriguing the wider the margin of victory.

Sure, the Clippers’ 115-89 beatdown of the Warriors on Saturday was about as suspenseful as a Bazooka Joe comic. But with a menacing glare from Mark Jackson, a hard foul from David Lee, and Chris Paul’s memory and eye for detail thrown in the mix, there was just enough to make you want to fast-forward to their fourth and final meeting Jan. 21 -- and hope they’ll collide again in the playoffs.

The Warriors were the only team that could claim two victories over the Clippers this season, and no other squad enjoyed the process as much as the Warriors did in their 115-94 victory Wednesday night in Oakland, during which the Golden State bench rejoiced at a Blake Griffin shot that hit the side of the backboard and Jackson joked about Griffin’s acting skills.

Saturday was the Clippers’ turn for repayment, with compounded interest. Despite having played a long, emotional game against the Lakers the previous night, they spurted to a 35-12 lead after the first quarter, expanded the lead to 28 points in the second, and were throwing alley-oops to DeAndre Jordan off the backboard and from half court while parading to a 39-point lead in the third.

It was enough to get Jackson to spend a good portion of a timeout glaring in the Clippers’ direction.

“What you’ve got to do as a coach, as a player, is just let it soak in and remember it,” Jackson said. “That’s all. Mark it down with permanent ink and ... we’ll see ya. We’ll see ya. Nothing upset me. They earned the right to celebrate the way they played. Just a good, old-fashioned, heavyweight championship stare-down, that’s all.”

The Clippers tried to avoid saying there was any extra motivation behind this performance. Not even from Matt Barnes, their emotional sergeant-at-arms.

“The most important thing was we wanted to get a win,” he said.

He and his teammates attributed this performance to simply wanting to play better against a divisional opponent that had already beaten them twice ... although Paul noted that: “The first time they beat us here, you would have thought they’d won the NBA Finals, you know what I mean?”

Yeah, we know.

The Clippers followed that game with a home loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, causing them to reassess their approach. They credit those losses with giving them the mentality to win 17 consecutive games. They actually learned to prepare for games in the same manner in which Jackson is trying to get his squad to think.

“In order for us to get to where we want to get to, we have to treat every game like a big game,” Jackson said. “We can’t let our guards down. We can’t think, ‘OK, we’ll stumble into a victory.’ We’ve got to play with force.”

These two teams are learning what it’s like to be considered targets.

It used to be the only thing that could connect these teams was adjacent seats at the draft lottery. Nearly halfway through the 2012-13 season, they both can be regarded as upper-echelon teams in the Western Conference. Only three games separated them entering Friday night, and they fully expect to know each other down to their Social Security numbers by the time this is over.

“If we plan on getting where we plan on getting, we’ll see them down the road,” Jackson said.

The Warriors still have the 2-1 series lead. Griffin might still be a little sore from the two-handed shove Lee gave him as he attempted a fast-break alley-oop. For a series with such little history, there suddenly is a lot to keep in mind.

“We remember,” Griffin said. “Wednesday’s game was pretty fresh in our mind. They outplayed us and they deserved the win.”

As a result, “We knew they were going to come out and go after us,” Jackson said. “We did not respond tonight.”

I doubt that will be the case next time. What I do know is I can’t wait to see what’s next.

It was Jamaal Wilkes’ night to be honored. Anyone who wants to get better at basketball was the beneficiary.

Wilkes saw his golden No. 52 Los Angeles Lakers jersey retired Friday night, receiving a framed version to take to his house and a giant replica to gaze at every time he goes to Staples Center. It was in a media session beforehand that he offered something back, dispensing the wisdom he acquired from John Wooden at UCLA and the knowledge he gained from 12 NBA seasons with the Lakers, the Golden State Warriors and the Clippers.

As I transcribed the news conference, I saw DeMarcus Cousins playing again after his latest incident and I wanted to email the MP3 file of Wilkes directly to him. Cousins has 10 times more talent than Wilkes, but if he wants to have half of Wilkes’ career accomplishments (short bio: four championships, Hall of Fame), he’ll need to process the game in the same selfless, intelligent manner.

All you have to do is ask Wilkes, as did one Lakers beat writer who wondered what advice he would give the current underachieving Lakers team.

“My message would be: Five, 10 years from now, whatever you feel now, five, 10 years from now, you’re going to look back and feel differently,” Wilkes said.

In other words, don’t get caught up in the daily drama. Think of what’s most important.

“I learned at a very young age, you can debate who’s better, but you can’t debate who won or lost,” Wilkes said. “So that’s where my priorities went. And I played with some pretty good players along the way. I like to think that they made me better and I made them better, because I was able to adapt to different situations and be a good influence in the locker room.”

It says something about the stature of the Lakers and the retired-jersey company Wilkes now keeps that he could feel this emotional about something that occurred after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“This is pretty high,” Wilkes said. “Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, these guys ... they’re all in the Hall of Fame, for one. I think it says a lot about the Laker tradition that they’ve had some basketball players, and I’m one of them."

Wilkes was asked about the 1981-82 Lakers, one of three Los Angeles championship squads on which he played.

“We had a real sense of pride in our team’s success,” Wilkes said. “Of course we had issues going on, all the time. Undercurrents. But we never let it get in the way of our objective, which was to be the best in the NBA and to represent the city of L.A. as best we could.”

Fellow jersey retirees Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and James Worthy joined Wilkes on the court during the halftime ceremony. It was just as impressive as the group that presented Wilkes at the Hall of Fame: Abdul-Jabbar, Rick Barry, Magic Johnson and Bill Walton.

The most noticeable absence from these ceremonies was Wooden, who died in 2010.

“I would thank him for what he meant in my life personally and what he meant to all of us,” Wilkes said. “From a basketball point of view, in my opinion, he was just a genius the way he taught the game."

Wilkes said one of his greatest assets he gained from Wooden was his adaptability, the ability to go from being a ball handler in Golden State to playing without the ball in L.A. He won championships at the tail end of the UCLA dynasty in college and was there for the dawn of the Lakers' dominance of the NBA in the 1980s.

“I played power forward my first three years in the league,” said Wilkes, who is 6-foot-6 and weighed a willowy 190 pounds during his playing days. “The only way I could do that was understanding certain nuances about the game against bigger guys and learning how to emphasize what I did well against what I didn’t do well. So I would thank [Wooden] for that. And I would also thank him for the philosophy that I think about all the time, for different reasons and different things. Just thank him for being committed to teaching young people. That’s what he saw his first mission was, being a teacher.”

The connection Wilkes developed with Magic Johnson, well, that couldn’t be taught. Seemingly once a game, Wilkes would shake free from his defender and go to the basket, and Magic would deliver a fastball of a pass that Wilkes corralled in his mitt-like hands for an easy layup.

“It wasn’t anything that we talked about,” Wilkes said. “It was something that we all tuned in to, spiritually. We just knew it would be there.

“I learned early on with Magic to watch him all the time. He could make passes most point guards couldn’t. We had our early understanding. I knew it was going to be there, and he knew I was going to be there. We had a lot of success with that play.”

Wilkes also managed to score 14,644 points with that funky-looking shot of his. He had an explanation for that, as well. It dates back to when he was a 10-year-old in Ventura, Calif.

“I began playing with older guys,” he said. "I was going from the 9-foot hoops to the 10-foot hoop, and of course they wanted to play on the 10-foot hoops, and they would block my shot every time. I just learned to hold it back until the last minute. And I never realized I was doing anything different until I got to UCLA. And even then I wasn’t sure I was doing something different."

His sophomore year, Wooden went up to him at practice and asked Wilkes to shoot shots from around the court. Wooden rebounded.

“What I remember about that is every pass was just perfect,” Wilkes said. “And I said, ‘I could get used to playing with this guy.’”

After about 40 shots, Wooden noted that the shot was released with the proper backspin on the ball.

“He said he thought about changing it, but my setup and my finish was textbook. He decided to leave it alone, and I’m so glad he did,” Wilkes said.

Wilkes is a reminder that it isn’t how you play basketball, it’s how you think basketball -- even how you come to appreciate it spiritually.

Cousins and everyone else should take note.

There were two successful reclamations displayed at Staples Center, and while the Lakers’ five-game winning streak is noteworthy, the Clippers’ 14-game run is historic. The Lakers had stalled coming off the line and needed to be jump-started. Ultimately the first two months of this season will be a mere blip in their banner-laden archives. The Clippers over the years were a wayward satellite that threatened to spin out of Earth orbit if they weren’t reeled back in. This is the result of a major, multi-year endeavor.

The Clippers franchise won only 19 games the 2008-09 season. The delayed debut of Blake Griffin gave them hope and excitement, but nothing close to a winning record. The trade for Chris Paul reset the standards and gave them grandiose visions. In quiet conversations they’ll tell you they are targeting a championship this season, and the only reason more people aren’t agreeing with them is because they’re the Clippers.

They’ve been so futile for the vast majority of their 3 ½ decades in Southern California that whenever they do launch a successful run the only historical comparisons to be made are from the franchise’s days as the Buffalo Braves in the 1970s. That’s the inertia Paul had to reverse.

He and the Clippers are pushing the Braves further back into the recesses of history now, the latest being the franchise-record winning streak that now belongs to this 2012-13 Clipper squad that just won it’s 14th game in a row. Their 112-100 victory over the Denver Nuggets, coupled with the Oklahoma City Thunder’s loss to the Miami Heat earlier gave the Clippers the best record in the NBA at the end of a long Christmas basketball day. The Clippers had never held the NBA’s best record as late as Thanksgiving. I doubt they’ve even had the best record on Halloween.

So while the early returns on Steve Nash’s return have him delivering every thing the Lakers hoped for, they still have only a .500 record to show for it.

The Clippers are 22-6. Things are different, exactly as Paul wanted them to be.

“I know what the perception was,” Paul said. “I know that if I came on a road trip to play here in L.A., we felt like we were going to win.”

With that, he shot a glance at Griffin, as if to say, “No offense.”

“We want guys to know when they play us, they better get some rest before the game. They’re going to be in for a dogfight.”
Just don’t expect it to be a fight to the finish. The Clippers have the league’s best point differential this season, winning games by an average of 10 points. Yes, not only are the Clippers a winning team, they’re a dominant team.

So again, we need to start thinking of them in different terms, superlative terms, such as this nomination from Nuggets coach George Karl:

“I think Chris Paul right now -- I know this might sound crazy -- I think he’s the defensive player of the year. I think he’s an incredible defender. I think he gets the ball, causes pressure.”

Here’s the case: a large degree of the Clippers’ success is turnovers. They lead the NBA in both turnovers forced per game, and points off turnovers. And Paul is their chief thief, averaging a league-high 2.7.

He had three more Tuesday night. At this point the ball is starting to find him, the way a hockey puck seems to magically wind up on the sticks of the greatest scorers. A wayward Javale McGee pass bounced right to Paul, and the Clippers were on their way to another fast break.

He also makes the plays that don’t help his stats, like when he got to Corey Brewer at the same time as an outlet pass. In a subtle bit of positioning, Paul wasn’t at risk of picking up a foul, but close enough to stop Brewer in his tracks, bring the Nuggets offense to a temporary halt and allow the Clipper defense to set. They wound up forcing a jump ball between Blake Griffin and Ty Lawson, which went exactly the way you’d expect it to.

Paul as defensive player of the year makes more sense than Paul as Most Valuable Player, if only because the Clippers’ strong bench play dilutes Paul’s impact on the game, leaving him well below the statistical measures of Kevin Durant and LeBron James . His statistics in Clipper victories are actually worse than in Clipper losses, including a two-point dip in his scoring average.

His numbers Tuesday were a pedestrian 14 points and eight assist. Just be aware that he was on the court when the Clippers blew the game open, stretching the lead from three points to 20 points in the second quarter. Just know that he’s been presiding over the best basketball this franchise has ever played for an extended run.

Coach Vinny Del Negro called Paul the catalyst.

“Chris has a great pulse of the game. His assist-to-turnover ratio…just his command of the game is as good as any. He puts us in situations where we have the ability to execute on both ends.”

It’s just the right mixture of commanding and following (or as Nelson Mandela would call it, leading from behind). Note how Blake Griffin still has the honor of having his name called last when the starting lineups are introduced. Or how Paul goes along with others’ suggestion for dressing in Men in Black costumes for Halloween. Or donning a ridiculous sweater along with Griffin and everyone else when that was the theme for Christmas.

Interesting that Paul struggled a bit to describe exactly how he wanted to alter the course of this franchise. It’s almost unnecessary. You can see it in his play. You can hear it in a sweater that, no lie, jingled when he moved.

Shhh. Hush, Lakers. Not a word. The more they talk lately, the less sincere and solutions-oriented they sound.

Their justifications for firing Mike Brown and hiring Mike D’Antoni aren’t holding up. Their insistence that the return of Steve Nash will solve their losing ways doesn’t fit their post-game assessments of what’s going wrong. In short, they are not a team of their words.

General manager Mitch Kupchak said one of the reasons the Lakers opted for D’Antoni instead of Phil Jackson was because D’Antoni “plays the way we see this team playing and our personnel executing, the guys that we have on this team.”

He also said they jettisoned Mike Brown after five games in favor of D’Antoni “because I think what Mike (D'Antoni) is going to run is more suited to the talent on this team.”

Except the talent on this team includes Pau Gasol, and D’Antoni has little use for him. Gasol has played less than 30 minutes in four of his past five games. (He played 40 minutes in three of the first six games of the season.) He is limiting Gasol’s play even though, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Lakers have been better with Kobe Bryant and Gasol on the floor together than with Kobe and Dwight Howard out there. (On the season, lineups featuring Gasol and Bryant are outscoring opponents by 29.6 points per 48 minutes, compared to 10.8 points per 48 with Bryant and Howard).

D’Antoni kept Gasol on the bench in the fourth quarter Sunday while the Orlando Magic kept intentionally fouling Dwight Howard away from the ball. If the Magic were willing to go to such extremes to nullify Howard, why not replace him with one of the game’s better big men? Apparently, D’Antoni is that unconvinced that Gasol can do what his offense asks.

Gasol, who sat out the Rockets game with tendinitis in his knees, wasn’t an option Tuesday when the Houston Rockets started grabbing, holding and hacking Howard. Once again the Lakers went from leading to losing when Howard took up residency at the free throw line. It gets back to matching personnel with coaching: D’Antoni’s system is predicated on tempo offensive efficiency. It doesn’t take into account the game grinding to halt and his team shooting below 70 percent from the free throw line.

“It wasn't just about me missing free throws toward the end of the game,” Howard said afterward. “We have to do a better job defending.”

Even if we accept that -- and it’s accurate to say Howard’s missed free throws don’t account for the 74 points the Lakers have allowed in the past two fourth quarters -- it puts the Lakers into a hole from which Nash can’t pull them out. Nash will improve the offensive flow and alleviate Bryant from the double duty of both scorer and decision-maker (he’s decided to call his own number a lot more of late). But let’s just say defense isn’t Nash’s forte. You can expect more cases of Howard helping out on someone else’s man, which means more players on the weak side are left unchecked, which means more stats like the 21 offensive rebounds the Rockets had Tuesday night.

“A lot of this will change when Steve comes back,” D’Antoni said on Sunday.

Not enough of it. Nash won’t make the team better defensively, nor will he make Howard a better free throw shooter. Which means he won’t make any of the proclamations coming from the Lakers any more accurate. It would be better if they didn’t say anything at all.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Clippers got Chauncey Billups back. They got an addition to the W column after nothing but L’s in their previous four games. The only thing they didn’t restore is their mojo, their “it” factor, their style of play that had people ready to place them among the league’s elite.

It will take more than one field goal from Billups and a 101-95 victory at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves to earn that label. Great teams don’t lose four games in a row in the first place, just as great teams don’t watch one opponent grab four consecutive offensive rebounds in a single sequence.

Both the losing streak and that play, when Minnesota’s Malcolm Lee took rebound after rebound while the Clippers observed like election day volunteers, speak to a lack of resolve on this team. Billups’ long-awaited return from the torn left Achilles’ tendon he suffered on Feb. 6 gave them another wise veteran on the court, and not unimportantly a guy who can make nearly every free throw he takes. But he won’t solve the team's defensive issues or the type of effort under the boards that led to Minnesota outrebounding them 52-35 Wednesday night.

Billups provided only seven points, making his first 3-pointer and then getting the rest from the free throw line. If nothing else, his mere presence serves as a reminder of the effort he put forth to get back on the court, and of the reasons he wanted to be with this team again. Perhaps that can reignite the pilot light that blew out.

“I still know that I have a burning desire to win,” Billups said. “Being here with these guys, I feel like we’re close to that.”

“That” is the feeling he experienced winning a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. There are moments when it doesn’t seem so farfetched with this group, particularly because they match up so well with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat. And then there are the losses to Cleveland and Golden State and New Orleans, and the two quarters they lost to the Timberwolves on Wednesday night.

The good Clippers can get buried. It just might take the wisdom of Billups to excavate them. He’s kind of like The Wolf in “Pulp Fiction,” with his way of stating the obvious and making it seem profound.

“Obviously it doesn’t happen overnight, so getting back out of that is not going to happen overnight,” Billups said. “You’ve got to play yourself out of it. It’s not just snap your finger and now we’re back playing great. You’ve got to play yourself out of that. You’ve got to practice good habits, you’ve got to do other things to just slowly start to turn the corner.”

Perhaps they turned it when DeAndre Jordan grabbed Billups’ missed shot, then dropped a bounce pass to Blake Griffin for a dunk that put the Clippers ahead by five with three minutes to play and finally made it seem as though they had control of the game.

Those are winning plays. An offensive rebound of their own rather than the 21 -- yes, 21 -- they allowed to the Timberwolves. They also seem to have come to the realization that sitting back and watching their reserves carry them to victory, which happened several times as they won eight of their first 10 games, can provide a false sense of security. Bench players tend not to do as well on the road, and bench superiority matters less in the playoffs, when starters play more of the minutes.

The Clippers’ strong bench could even become a detriment. Billups’ return meant multiple adjustments, from Chris Paul’s son having to vacate his seat next to his dad in the postgame interview room to Willie Green remaining affixed to the bench the entire game after starting the first 14 games. Eric Bledsoe played only 14 minutes. And there will be even more shuffling when Grant Hill is ready to play, presumably next month. Players inside the locker room and around the league have wondered how coach Vinny Del Negro will manage to keep everyone happy.

Those who do play need to remember what constitutes a good basketball team.

“We kind of sometimes get too spread out and worry too much individually instead of playing together and getting after it,” Griffin said. “And we can’t always rely on our second team like we did in that stretch. They did an unbelievable job for us. It was great to see us pull it together and get that win, but we still have to do a much better job of anchoring down on defense.”

Del Negro said, “We’re going to stay the process, we’re going to stay moving forward, staying together and I want this team to continue to build, and we’ll get better results if we have that mentality. If we don’t stay together and we let all the outside influences affect us, then our work ethic becomes poor and we don’t have the chance to be the team I think we can be.”

There is still a chasm to be covered, the gulf between what they and the people who watch them imagine, and the team that’s playing on a regular basis.