A City of Winners

OK, they won. They won big-time. They won going away. The Los Angeles Lakers are repeat champions of the NBA. Our team has re-arrived. And in the late spring haze there is easy talk of dynasty, albeit by sideline talkers who will not be donning the shiny shorts and squeaking shoes to make it happen yet again on the wooden floors of autumn.

By extension, all Laker fans feel like winners, even those without car flags. It’s a good feeling. And that feeling will spill throughout the city today with a downtown celebration where total strangers exchange comradely high-fives.

From the L.A. fan’s perspective, it’s been a fun and wonderfully satisfying 4-1 series. Philadelphia’s 76ers were gutty and played until they had nothing left. They just couldn’t beat the superlative basketball served up, night after night, by the team led by the dominating Shaquille O’Neal and the he-is-everywhere Kobe Bryant. Both men had the good sense to put early season tensions behind them. Quite a payoff.

The most lasting trophy of this latest championship may be the opportunity for all of us to see, through this finally unified team of disparate players, a message about this great place in which we live. And if you don’t buy that all of the cosmic meaning, and we’re not sure we do either, how about just a loud and heartfelt cheer for a job well done: Yea, Lakers! You’ve done L.A. proud.