NORTHWEST PASSAGES

What papers in the Seattle area are saying about the series:

JIM MOORE, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

--”If George Karl is a car alarm, [Del] Harris is a dial tone.”

--”[Kobe Bryant] might come up big in this series but also can be very, very small.”

“Given the chance, Detlef Schrempf will eat [Robert Horry] alive.”

JOHN McGRATH, TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE

“In a postseason media guide that covers more ground than Shaquille O’Neal’s shoes, the Los Angeles Lakers devote two full pages to the superhuman deeds of executive vice president of basketball operations Jerry West.

Sometime between his evolvement from the best basketball player in the world to the best general manager in the world, Jerry West became an accomplished golfer with a three handicap.

“Jerry,” the guide informs, “once shot a 62 at the Bel Air Country Club, a course record.”

Guess the Lakers forgot to include West’s swimming the English Channel, composing concertos at the age of 6 and that memorable morning he fed a crowd of several thousand with five loaves and two fishes.

I’ve got a theory on why one of the most successful franchises in pro sports history is loathed outside of Los Angeles, and it has to do with the fact that not only did the world’s-greatest-player-turned-world’s-greatest-basketball-mind shoot a 62 at Bel Air, but that the Lakers find it necessary to publicize it.