Thrice as Nice for Lakers and Fans

You’d think they had never done this before. But no: Fans performed their own three-peat on Friday, converging on downtown, giddy in purple and gold, celebrating the Lakers’ third straight NBA championship as if it were the first.

A crowd, estimated by Los Angeles police at 150,000, swept south from City Hall, where the festivities began in the morning, down Figueroa Street and across parking lots in front of Staples Center where the Lakers took to the stage. They carried Laker pennants, video cameras, dazed babies and an undying enthusiasm.

“It never gets old when the Lakers win a championship,” said Taylor Ogata, an 18-year-old University of Kentucky student who flew in from Lexington for the occasion.

“He comes out every championship season,” said his cousin, Julie Valles, 30, of Torrance, who strolled with him and her 4-month-old son, Joshua.

“Sacramento will never be the capital of California,” exulted Shaquille O’Neal at the Staples Center rally, referring to the team’s hard-fought seven-game battle over the Kings for the Western Conference title that preceded its NBA Finals victory in a four-game sweep over the New Jersey Nets. “Los Angeles is the real capital of California.”

The celebration created traffic headaches that were compounded by large graduation ceremonies at UCLA and USC. But it showed that the city--famously fractured and, this year, possibly literally breaking apart through secession--can be united, at least for a day.

Anyone jaded by the Lakers’ third championship in a row stayed home--or at work. And many who work downtown took advantage of their proximity to drink in the atmosphere. Through the open windows of the Wilshire Grand Hotel and Center, people snapped pictures and showered shredded paper on the victorious athletes.

“It’s a team that just makes you fall in love with them,” said Ramona Streiff, 50, who said she suffers from fibromyalgia but still came out from her Pico Rivera home anyway. “Whenever I’m in pain, I turn on a game and it makes my pain go away.”

At 3rd and Figueroa, the crowd erupted in cheers as the cadre of LAPD motorcycle officers revved their engines, signaling the start of the parade toward Staples Center. In contrast to a host of other testy encounters between police and bystanders during L.A. street events of the last few years, officers high-fived spectators as they drove by.

Behind them came the Lakers and entourage--11 double-decker buses, four fire trucks, and the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdale horses. In addition to the players and their families on the buses were coaches, staffers, team sponsors and city officials. The Laker Girls and the Laker band--the latter playing the “Rocky” theme--rode on firetrucks.

At every turn of the parade route, fans chanted the names of their favorite players--”Horry! Horry!” or “Kobe! Kobe!” or, in the case of O’Neal, named the Finals most valuable player for a third straight year, simply “MVP! MVP!” The players basked in the attention.

Annie Jewell, 14, of Los Feliz, sported a tribute to Laker reserve Mark Madsen on her white T-shirt that read “I Love You Mad Dog.” Kobe Bryant pointed her out to a delighted Madsen, who high-fived his teammate in appreciation.

Madsen tossed his baseball cap toward the teenager. But others in the crowd snatched it first. With Jewell still running alongside the bus, Madsen pulled his own T-shirt off and prepared to toss it to his fan. A group of parade watchers stepped up to form a protective ring around the girl and ensure that no one intercepted the gift. Madsen lobbed the shirt into the girl’s hands.

“This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me!” she told her mother as the parade moved on.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn sat atop the first double-decker tour bus. Between waves, Hahn snapped pictures of the fans with a pocket camera, showing more interest in the politely applauding spectators than they did in him.

The crowd count, which the LAPD based on an aerial view from their helicopters, according to Cmdr. Gary Brennan, was a fraction of the million figure being bandied about on television during the day.

“I’m shocked,” said Michael Roth, director of communications for Staples Center when told the police were estimating the crowd at 150,000. “Honest to God, I think there were that many in Parking Lot 3 alone.” Roth estimated the overall crowd from City Hall to Staples Center at 1 million.

There were 1,000 LAPD personnel on hand to control the crowd. Brennan said there was one arrest--a man in a public restroom near Staples Center was unlawfully carrying a handgun. The Fire Department had 26 medical-aid calls, according to Brennan. All were minor.

Even members of the large law enforcement contingent stationed along the parade route were in a celebratory mood as the players approached. At the corner of 7th and Figueroa streets, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies Albert Archuleta and Lee Baca (not the sheriff, but a deputy who happens to share his name) borrowed a pair of $10 purple-and-yellow feather boas and dangled them over their uniforms, posing for a souvenir snapshot.

The purple-and-gold herd veered off Figueroa and made a beeline through the Staples Center parking lot, trampling plants that fringe the lot. They wore Laker jerseys that spanned every era--from West to Johnson to Shaq and Kobe--and blew their hardest on purple-and-gold plastic horns.

Eli Picasso and Rudy Rodriguez, both 30, charged fans $5 to pose for pictures with three replica championship trophies they fashioned out of papier-mache and gilded with spray paint.

The two friends said they have been to all three parades in the streak, but “we’re old-school fans,” Rodriguez said, recalling years past when there were no parades.

Another fan, Jay Love, 33, cruised around on a purple-and-gold bike he salvaged four months ago from a yard sale for $5. Love estimated he has spent close to $600 on the custom paint job, a fuzzy steering wheel in Laker colors and twisted gold chrome fender holders.

“I walked to the parade last year,” Love said, while fan after fan complimented him on his taste. “But this way is better.”

As usual, participation in this event required a high tolerance for closeness with fellow fans and the merchants trying to sell to them. Vendors with pizza, water bottles and Laker flags set up tents and tables that blocked the public sidewalk near the corner of Olympic and Figueroa--right under the noses of LAPD officers.

There was pushing and shoving, and a few in the crowd tossed plastic water bottles into the air as fans struggled to walk along the blocked sidewalk.

Meanwhile, on stage outside Staples Center, longtime Laker announcer Chick Hearn introduced the players as they rose up from under the stage on hidden elevating platforms in a kind of Star Trek-y beam-me-up routine.

After introducing Madsen, Hearn urged the forward who rarely sees playing time to repeat the herky-jerky dance he made famous at last year’s celebration. Madsen obliged, breaking into a series of frantic, writhing moves that sent the crowd and his teammates into a frenzy.

Showing that he was already thinking beyond three-peat, Bryant proclaimed, “Let’s do it again next year!”

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Times staff writers Bob Pool and Daren Briscoe contributed to this report.