Whining About Bryant Fuels a Passing Thought

With an hour to go until the start, the weather and traffic had apparently waylaid Shaquille O’Neal, Gary Payton and the NBA officials scheduled to work Wednesday’s game in Staples Center.

I’m guessing the first thought some of the players in the Laker locker room had was too bad it wasn’t Kobe Bryant lost in traffic. Anything to keep him from shooting, you know.

It’s just a good thing he didn’t have to show up telling everyone he had an accident to pass, because no one would have believed him -- after all, everyone knows Bryant never passes.

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I WAS pulling for the referees to arrive. Maybe even start the game early. I’ve always preferred my basketball entertainment without O’Neal, because if I wanted to watch big men fight for position, I’d watch the offensive tackles and defensive ends every Sunday. Lots of dunks and missed free throws don’t do it for me either.

I could make an argument from what I’ve seen so far that Payton is a bigger ball hog than Bryant, but that’s fine by me if he’s not dumping it into O’Neal.

O’Neal is entertaining, of course, at post-game news conferences when he’s not mumbling. There’s also no question he makes the difference between victory and defeat on most nights -- but a boring Laker win or boring Laker loss isn’t going to change my life.

I maintain sports is all about entertainment, and in most games Bryant delivers just that, and I worry now this whole business of making sure the Hall of Famers are content just might increase the pressure on Bryant to go elsewhere -- both within the locker room and outside among Laker fans.

It’s become a constant whine, the Hall of Famers suggesting Bryant needs to join the gang, and pass the ball -- I presume to one of them so they can score.

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ALL SEEMED well against Toronto -- even though O’Neal and Payton made it in time to play. It’s always going well when the Lakers pound a crummy team, and there are a lot of them in the NBA. It’s when the big game is on the line, and you know every one of these Hall of Famers believes he can win it on the strength of his talent, but the ball touches Bryant’s hands first.

From the moment he arrived in Lakerland he’s taken it upon himself to take that shot, and sometimes it goes in and sometimes it doesn’t, but what a show. I’d just like to see it be a long-running show.

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ESPN PUT the following Tom Lasorda quote on the screen after the U.S. baseball team failed to qualify for the Olympics: “I can’t believe it! Baseball is America’s game. It doesn’t belong to the Japanese or the Cubans or the Koreans or the Italians. This is sad, very sad.”

Then one of the announcers off camera -- the voices of Pat Boyle and Steve Bunin are not that distinctive -- said Lasorda’s quote was “sad, too” before going to ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark, who chastised Lasorda for what he said.

No one ever said you have to know anything to appear on ESPN -- I was on for several months before giving way to sports columnist Bill Plaschke -- but these jokers were clueless making them candidates, I guess, to sub for Max Kellerman on “Around the Horn.”

OK, there’s no question a good set of earplugs makes it easier to deal with Lasorda, but when he starts rhapsodizing about the Olympics, patriotism and what it meant to him to manage the U.S. baseball team to a gold medal win, it’s goose bumps -- even the fifth or sixth time he tells you the story.

His team was given no chance to win the gold medal, but he pulled off a miracle with pure blarney, and proved once again he knows how to inspire. He was asked back this year, but declined to care for his ailing wife.

The U.S. will not have its baseball team in the Olympics in 2004, and that’s burning Lasorda -- both as a competitor and an American, something the ESPN lads failed to note. If anyone should have to sit and listen to Lasorda talk and talk, it’s the guys from ESPN, who need a little lesson on respect.

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ACCORDING TO a press release, “in a groundbreaking e-commerce partnership, Beckett.com and Denver rookie phenom Carmelo Anthony have reached an agreement that will allow Anthony to sell his memorabilia directly to consumers.” The kid has played eight less-than-memorable games and some folks wonder why some athletes lose perspective.

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CHARGER OWNER Alex Spanos added another $60,000 to the previous $1-million donation to the San Diego Fire Relief Fund.

By way of comparison, I checked with the Dodgers, who gave promotional giveaways not claimed during the season (1,000 blankets, 500 visors, 500 lunch boxes and hundreds of assorted bobbleheads) to families left devastated by the fires. Can you imagine the look on the face of someone who lost everything when the Dodgers handed them a Fred McGriff Bobblehead. Priceless.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Zach Buhler:

“I am aware of your penchant for tongue in cheek commentary. However, I also noticed a subtle reference you made to Karl Dorrell and the movie character ‘Radio.’ By capitalizing the word ‘Radio’ (as the second word in the sentence) you obviously mean to compare Dorrell to this retarded man. This is highly offensive. You may as well have called Dorrell ‘Stephen Fetchit.’ You owe Dorrell an apology.”

Despite your fine eye for subtleties, you apparently did not notice that Page 2 style for the last three years includes capitalizing the first two words in sentences after a break. In addition, there was no mention of the movie “Radio” or that character in the column. But no need for you to apologize.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.