Lakers Take Their Show on the Road

I think we can all see by the Lakers’ display in New York last Sunday that this is Shaq’s team. Take notice Kobe, you need the big man. It’s time to get along and play like the champions you are supposed to be. Deal with the fact that you need each other, drop the egos, stop the whining and start the winning!

W.J. CUNNINGHAM

Pasadena

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Seeing Kobe play hurt during a brutal winter Eastern road swing while Shaq sits out with a sore foot leaves little doubt as to who the rightful leader of the Lakers is.

JOHN COMINSKI

San Clemente

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Have you seen how selfish Kobe is these days? When most of his teammates decided to sit out the Eastern road trip, Kobe actually went out every night, hurt, and left his guts on the floor. Someone tell this egomaniac that he should be more of a team player and sit in the locker room when he’s hurting.

MORGAN BROOKS

Riverside

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After glancing through my TV listings for the coming week, I find out that once again, a Laker telecast is being shown on a delayed basis. With the Internet and cable/satellite TV, who’s going to wait a full hour just to see a game they already know the result of?

What makes this even more stupid is: 1. Channel 9’s delaying the game for a 30-minute exercise in glad-handling and “analysis” disguised as a pregame show, and even worse; 2. the very fact that the following night’s game is being shown live at 5, so viewers won’t switch to TNT’s telecast. By comparison, Clipper telecasts are almost always shown live on the same station, regardless of how bad the team is!

Is it that the Lakers simply believe (foolishly) that a delayed telecast will get a larger audience at 5:30 or 6, when more people are watching?

Or, is it that Channel 9 doesn’t want to preempt a rerun of Jerry Springer at 4, which draws an audience three times that of the Lakers, thus making more money for the station? (Of course, if it weren’t for the Lakers, Springer and police chases, Channel 9 would be off the air by now!)

Judging by the Lakers’ dysfunctional behavior on and off the court this season, the team would fit in perfectly on “Springer.”

JANETTE McCLELLAND

Inglewood

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Dear Phil:

You appear to be in some sort of Zen-induced trance, bewildered by the rapidly deteriorating state of your ballclub. Here’s some non-cosmic advice:

1. Sit Kobe and Shaq down and tell them to knock it off.

2. Tell Kobe if he continues to play MJ basketball for four quarters instead of just the last one (when we need it), you’ll sit him down.

3. Tell Shaq to spend a few bucks on a personal trainer and play intimidating defense or you’ll sit him down.

4. Tell J.R. Rider the triangle’s not big enough for him, you, and your Zen master--and if he doesn’t shape up you’ll give him a ticket on the next plane out of town (which he’ll probably miss).

I hate to give free advice to someone who makes $6 million a year, but what the heck.

SKIP USEN

Santa Monica

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Now I see what made Jerry West sick while working with the Lakers.

ANTHONY BERARDWELL

North Hollywood