The funny thing about great teams is how little imagination they have when it comes time to fall apart. There hasn't been a great team that has crumbled with its dignity intact since Cheech and Chong. And the demise always progresses along a familiar path: Games are lost; fingers are pointed; blame is cast.

	The Lake Show dynasty is on life support.

Sometimes names are named, and sometimes they're not. When they're not, the corrosive effect is intensified, since whining generalities hack off everybody within earshot. Better to say -- and I'm pulling names at random here -- "Derek and Devean and Brian and Samaki and Rick are making my eyeballs bleed," than to say, "Some people aren't pulling their weight."

Even worse, imagine a guy named ... oh, let's give him a wacky one ... Kobe, that's it ... let's say this Kobe gets in front of the microphones and notebooks and says words roughly translated as, "There are guys who aren't named Kobe who aren't holding up their end, and these guys should be thankful for the opportunity I continue to give them."

Let's say there's another guy named Shaq who's saying the same thing.

The message, of course: Hey, minions, you're blowing it, but listen up. Time's running out on you.

You mean Devean George decided not to be John Havlicek, after all? Well then, it must be his fault.

Like all great demises, by the time it reaches this point the team's in the toilet, and everybody's so busy trying to find someone to blame they can't figure out how to fix it. Scoring 80 points is an unmanageable task.

This is all just prelude to set up the real point here. The Lakers have become nothing more than setup and metaphor. The real message of the season, revealed here in question form, is this: Wouldn't it be great to have Byron Leftwich on your team?

This guy didn't win the Heisman and he didn't win a national championship, but he comes away from the college football season with the inaugural Best Teammate Award. Leftwich, the tackle-sized Marshall quarterback, played on one leg and played when he probably shouldn't have, and that's exactly the point.

Byron Leftwich put a lucrative NFL career in jeopardy to lead his teammates to the glories of the GMAC Bowl. Has there ever been a better teammate than that? Willis Reed at least had an NBA title on the line when he hobbled around in 1970, and Kirk Gibson just had to swing a bat and hope for the best.

Leftwich got carried from huddle to huddle by his linemen earlier this season, and he played the fabled GMAC Bowl like a guy who left his walker back at the room.

This is not a guy who would talk down his teammates, or big-league 'em, or refer to them as nameless incompetents. When you make that mythical list of Guys You'd Want On Your Team, go with Leftwich. And if you planning on being one of his linemen, work on the lats.

This Week's List

We all have our own sense of humor when it comes to sports, and here's one that makes me laugh every time: Isiah Thomas gives the sign for a technical foul when he wants a timeout.

You'd think the zone defense would make the world safe for at least one more Oliver Miller: A little-noticed trend in the NBA is the utter and complete disappearance of the fat guy, or even the moderately chubby guy.

How are you ever going to get anywhere if you keep making sure you go nowhere?: After the Nuggets traded leading scorer James Posey, it was justified in some parts by the age-old argument, "Well, they weren't going anywhere with him, either."

Down 'round Texas way, when they break their hand washing a truck, they make up a wild story about a motorcycle: Jeff Kent, Southern California-raised, has been practicing his Texas twang for the past decade.

Technological question: Doesn't anyone have footage of Hideki Matsui doing something other than taking batting practice?

Just for the heck of it: Anderson Hunt.

As a WSU grad, here's a message for Mike Price: Thanks for all the great work; now stay away from the Rose Bowl.

It's well-known that guys with big noses don't get the prime roles alongside Mark Gastineau in the remake of "The Sting": Jose Canseco is reportedly getting a nose job in the hopes of becoming an actor, preferably an action hero.

Twelve years ago, there's a good chance Doc would have been the one out of a job: Horace Grant v. Doc Rivers goes to Rivers, unanimous decision.

The judge's first idea was to keep the ball intact and split the two parties -- literally: The two jokers fighting over Barry Bonds' 73rd home run ball each get half the profits.

So, to get this straight, someone dumb enough to pay $1 million for a $10 baseball would now pay $2 million because two whiny brats wasted public time and money to decide who owned it?: Reports in the Bay Area suggest the publicity surrounding the legal dispute may have raised the potential price of the ball to $2 million.

And finally, just in time for the holidays, a reminder of what matters most in life, from one of America's leading romantics: A scathing story about the "real" Kirby Puckett in Tuesday's St. Paul Pioneer Press included the quote from Laura Nygren, Puckett's mistress -- "Eighteen years of my life were wasted. In 18 years, we went to no dinners, no movies. There were no actual birthday or Christmas presents. He gave me money at Christmastime. After years of bugging him for a gift, he did buy me a vibrator one year."

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tim.keown@espnmag.com.