Conquering Lakers Ride in Triumph

Like conquering Roman warriors returning home, the Los Angeles Lakers rode double-decker buses Monday in a triumphant parade through a downtown crowd estimated at 550,000 fans. All that was missing were the vanquished 76ers being dragged in chains behind the chariots of the champion Lakers, who won their second consecutive NBA title and predicted a third to come.

“We told y’all last year we were going to do it again,” exulted Kobe Bryant before the crowd that converged outside Staples Center, home to the Lakers. “We did it again. We’re going to get another one next year. Back to back to back!”

The huge crowd proved once again that in a town where people stayed home to celebrate the millennium, only the Lakers in victory can trigger such a massive and euphoric gathering. Fans lined the streets and then followed the parade south on Figueroa Avenue to Staples Center, where bare-midriffed Laker Girls pranced, bands played, politicians spoke, and in an unprecedented display of casualness, Mayor-elect James Hahn traded a tie for a Laker T-shirt.

While air hoses shot out a blizzard of purple and gold confetti--an L.A. version of ticker tape--tens of thousands of people fanned across streets and parking lots, standing on newspaper vending boxes and hugging trees that they climbed for a better view. Meghan Hartman, 9, jumped up and down to boost her chance of eyeing Kobe Bryant. She had skipped school--with her teacher’s blessing--and endured a 90-minute ride from Aliso Viejo with her parents and brother.

These were die-hard fans, spending hours waiting in the sun--it was 83 degrees at noon--for a quick glimpse of the triumphant players riding the buses. The crowd included fans who could never afford a ticket to a Laker game, but went wild buying up the Laker banners that have shimmied from car windows along streets and freeways for two weeks. These were the devoted team disciples who paid $10--and sometimes the scalpers’ $40--to watch the final game on video screens Friday in Staples Center.

Shortly before noon Monday, scores of fans jostled one another to catch sight of a favorite player as the caravan began, nearly an hour late.

Parade organizers bragged about how smoothly the operation went. The parade was allocated an hour and 15 minutes to travel its 12-block route, but it only took half an hour. Fans would have been happier with a slower pace, with many grumbling that they barely caught a glimpse of team members because the buses raced by so fast. Others said the Lakers’ entourage aboard the buses made it difficult to tell the players from the friends, relatives and hangers-on squeezed into the top deck.

“Where’s Kobe?” was the forlorn plaint heard after the buses whizzed by.

“Kobe’s my boy, and I didn’t even see him,” said Phyllis Williams, 50, of Crenshaw, sporting a Dr. Seuss-style hat and a No. 8 Kobe Bryant jersey. “He has to be on there. I can’t believe I missed him.”

Still, this crowd was pastoral compared to the much smaller, much more violent group that gathered outside Staples Center last year when the Lakers won. Vandalism, window-breaking and car-burning marked last year’s celebration, and the specter of that trouble hung over the vast crowd Monday.

“I just hope people act like they got some sense,” said Charles Noonie, 70, who made the trip Monday from his 2nd Street apartment to the parade route in his motorized wheelchair.

Police officers contained the crowd, estimated by the LAPD at more than half a million, by lining motorcycles tire to tire in front of fans. Truckloads of officers, riot gear within reach, preceded the team along the route. Four people were arrested for minor disturbances, and a television station news van was vandalized. Nine people were taken to hospitals, mostly for heat-related problems. One woman suffered a broken leg after being hit by a vehicle but she was expected to be released from the hospital, according to a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman.

The most riotous thing about this gathering was the costuming: purple sunglasses, purple and yellow T-shirts, purple and yellow hair, purple and yellow plastic horns, bare chests inked with the words “Go L.A. Lakers.”

Clyde Guines, 20, of Riverside and Austine Howell, 23, of Los Angeles were bedecked in matching foot-high Afro wigs, white Laker jerseys and gold spandex shorts, as if twins from a low-budget 1970s movie.

“We’re just sporting a little bit of that old school look,” Guines explained. The struggling actors also hoped it would boost their careers. Fans loved it. The two were kept busy with requests to pose for photographs.

Businessmen in suits and ties spent their lunch hour alongside fanatics in purple and yellow who had planted themselves along the parade route before dawn.

Hours before the team drove by, Johnny Lopez, 31, of Long Beach, his wife, Melissa, 32, with Johnny Jr., 5, and Giorgio, 11, camped out on blankets. The boys, decked out in Laker team jerseys, snacked on Fritos.

“I called in sick today,” Lopez said, prepping his video camera. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

“Kobe is awesome,” added Giorgio. “Someday I want to be just like him.”

There was lots of hero worship on display. “Kobe is just gorgeous,” said 14-year-old Carmen Lopez, wearing a Laker jersey tucked into a pair of overalls.

“I tape every game,” said the eighth-grade basketball player. “I watch them over and over again so I can study every move.”

Lopez confessed that her secret wish was for Kobe to pick her out of the crowd and shout out a special hello. “I’d just die,” she said.

Noonie, the veteran of half a dozen Laker victory parades, reminisced about a time when team identity wasn’t overshadowed by individual players. “Everyone contributed to the game,” he said.

On the elaborate stage built for the celebration, Laker announcer Chick Hearn continued his familiar duties, introducing the players one by one. Each made brief, some sweet, comments. “Thank you, Chicky,” said Rick Fox before commending the crowd on its good behavior.

“I don’t want to call you all fans; I want to call you all friends,” Laker center Shaquille O’Neal, boomed into the mike before breaking into an impromptu rap.

“Throw your hands in the air! Wave ‘em like you don’t care!” said Shaq, loping downstage, waving his arms in the air, the giant sound system playing the melody to the hip-hop song “It Takes Two.”

The intoxicating sense that they could win the title again next year invaded his lyrics: “Everybody say three-peat! Say three-peat! Say three-peat!”

“Oooh baby, he’s my Sugar Shaq,” said Phyllis Riley, 55, with a raise of her eyebrows. She skipped lunch to get a glimpse of the Laker center. “I just love him.”

Even Mayor-elect Hahn was lusting for more Laker victories, tying them to his own hope for an electoral repeat. “If I get eight years, I want eight national championships,” Hahn declared.

By 1:30 p.m., the rally was over and all the waiting and watching for players was done.

“It was faster than last year,” said Thomas Kao, 43, of West Covina who also works downtown. “It’s pretty exciting what they achieved--it’s like a Hollywood ending.”

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Times staff writers Ofelia Casillas, Hang Nguyen and Sam Farmer contributed to this story.