Lakers Disappoint, Time for Memories

Magic Johnson in the 1987 finals

Magic Johnson in the 1987 finals

Sports Saturday

I’m a Steve Nash fan and was hoping that, by being teamed up this year with Kobe and Dwight Howard on the Los Angeles Lakers, he’d be in the hunt for his first championship this year. But the Lakers have proved to be the NBA’s biggest disappointment. They would be out of the playoffs altogether if the playoffs began today, and even if they squeak in, I can’t see them getting out of the first round against the San Antonio Spurs or the Oklahoma Thunder.

One can’t feel too sorry for the team, however, as they have won more than their share of championships. To blunt the pain that Laker fans are experiencing, here’s a poem that takes us back to the glory teams of the 1980’s. That’s when Los Angeles, led by Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and Kareem, played as beautiful a style of basketball as the game has ever seen. I think the small forward mentioned in the following Garrett Hongo poem is Worthy. Gorgias, by the way, was a Greek rhetorician skilled in the art of persuasive speaking.

Enjoy the memories.

 The Cadence of Silk


Garrett Hongo

When I lived in Seattle, I loved watching

the Sonics play basketball; something

about that array of trained and energetic

bodies set in motion to attack a more

sluggish, less physically intelligent opponent

appealed to me, taught me about cadence

and play, the offguard breaking free

before the rebound, “releasing,” as is said

in the parlance of the game, getting to

the center’s downcourt pass and streaking

to the basket for a scoopshot layup

off the glass, all in rhythm, all in

perfect declensions of action, smooth

and strenuous as Gorgiasian rhetoric.

I was hooked on the undulant ballet

of the pattern offense, on the set play

back-door under the basket, and, at times,

even on the auctioneer’s pace and elocution

of play-by-play man. Now I watch

the Lakers, having returned to Los Angeles

some years ago, love them even more than

the Seattle team, long since broken up and aging.

The Lakers are incomparable, numerous

options for any situation, their players

the league’s quickest, most intelligent,

and, it is my opinion, frankly, the most cool.

Few bruisers, they are sleek as arctic seals,

especially the small forward

as he dodges through the key, away from

the ball, rubbing off his man on the screen,

setting for his shot. Then, slick as spit,

comes the ball from the point guard,

and my man goes up, cradling the ball

in his right hand like a waiter balancing

a tray piled with champagne in stemmed glasses,

cocking his arm and bringing the ball

back behind his ear, pumping, letting fly then

as he jumps, popcorn-like, in the corner,

while the ball, launched, slung dexterously

with a slight backspin, slashes through

the basket’s silk net with a small,

sonorous splash of completion.

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