Laker Readers Feeling the Heat

Reading The Times’ Sports section of late, one could easily think he’s in Miami amid the ecstasy surrounding a Shaq apparently possessed of renewed motivation. Beat writers and columnists alike can’t help glorifying The Big Joke while further denigrating Kobe Bryant at every turn.

Perhaps the last laugh will be most clear come Christmas Day when Kobe-the-Selfish -- the one currently focused on the game of basketball, his team and the coming season -- reminds us what this really is all about.

Mark Stephens

Santa Cruz

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I feel sorry for Rudy Tomjanovich and his players. It’s a shame they’re beginning a new era of Laker basketball with the Kobe-Shaq albatross around their necks.

Devean, Lamar, Luke, Kareem and the others deserve better. The Kobe-Shaq era is over. Don’t drag the good guys through that mud. They bring fresh air to the past stinky air in Staples.

Shirley Osborn

Los Angeles

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Watching a Laker preseason game the other night caused me to make some sobering observations.

Jerry Buss got to keep his golden boy, but Shaq is playing for Miami and is hanging out in South Beach instead of Redondo Beach. Phil’s wasting his talent hawking his book instead of coaching a team. The Mailman has been grounded indefinitely. Derek Fisher, perhaps the most unselfish Laker since Magic Johnson, is gone and Vlade is a born-again Laker.

The Lakers used to fuel my NBA appetite from winter to summer. All of a sudden, I’m not hungry anymore.

Laine Larsen

Torrance