The more things change, more they stay the same

SAN FRANCISCO -- Take a week off, and apparently so does Kobe.

Gilbert Arenas and Dwyane Wade combine to score 100 points, and some people thought 100 was out of reach for Kobe.

At least we know now Benedict Arnold has his back, and all that Big for Nothing in Miami has is another ring.

Merry Christmas, and in the words of George Bailey, a man has no idea how rich he is, unless he’s the agent for Shaun Livingston when it comes contract time to remind Donald Sterling the Clippers thought so much of Livingston they wouldn’t dare give him up for Allen Iverson.

I go away for a week and instead of adding power, the Angels lose Juan Rivera because of a broken leg. I’m guessing when it came time in the Stoneman household to exchange gifts, Bill opened his first to see what he was getting before giving anything away.

This just in: The Angels have added Shea Hillenbrand. Please, no pushing in the rush for Angels season tickets. The Angels got him for nothing, Stoneman’s favorite kind of player, and a guy who has played in half as many games as J.D. Drew the last two years while getting kicked out of Toronto for being a malcontent.

“Teacher says, ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.’ ” We’ll see if Hillenbrand answers the bell -- just one more Stoneman third baseman trying to replace World Series most valuable player and power hitter Troy Glaus.

It’s good to be back, all right, Tom Lasorda’s already asking if he can stop by Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA when it’s time -- dressed as the Easter Bunny. Hospital officials, while appreciative, seem to think it’d be a better fit if he appeared as Big Bird.

UCLA continues to win basketball games, so many the Bruins were able to sell out the dump they play in. If Kings hockey becomes any more irrelevant, we might have to add two pages to the back of the sports section so the Kings can be pushed even further back in the paper.

Happy New Year, and let’s hope so, because right now we’re coming off another Dodgers collapse in the playoffs, which was still better than anything the Angels had to offer.

The Lakers got one point from Kobe in the second half of the decisive game against Phoenix and for some reason it wasn’t enough to win, while a bonehead defensive substitution had the Clippers’ Daniel Ewing unsuccessfully deciding the biggest playoff moment in franchise history.

USC football had such a bad year -- it lost three games in 2006 and two shots at another national title. The best USC can hope for now is beating Michigan, and UCLA did that last week by 37 points.

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THAT’S WHY I am here, of course, in San Francisco for the Emerald Bowl -- and name a better place to have a bowl game promoting nuts? The fact is, I had to come all the way here to dwell on all that is positive on our local sports scene.

Anything more unbelievable in L.A. sports this last year than the fact UCLA football Coach Karl Dorrell is on the verge of winning back-to-back games against Pete Carroll, arguably the best coach in the college game right now, and Bobby Bowden, who has won more college football games than anyone?

If Bowden is to suffer his first losing season in 30 years, it will be at the hands of Dorrell, who needs only 336 more wins to catch the guy.

When you think about the Dodgers’ winning only one playoff game since ‘88, the Clippers’ never making it beyond Round 2 of the playoffs, the Lakers’ not winning a title with Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Kobe and Shaq on the same roster, is any of it more astounding than the progress Dorrell has recently shown?

The Bruins lost four in a row, and then because they had a chance to beat Notre Dame in a game no one thought they had a chance of winning, and lost, there was a call for Dorrell’s job. UCLA needed a miracle just to become bowl-eligible.

Then UCLA beat the team that had upset USC, won on the road at Arizona State and knocked off the mighty Trojans. Tuesday night, folks in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel here were yelling to Dorrell, “Go get ‘em, Coach.”

Dorrell chuckled. “Some of those same people wanted my job a few weeks ago.”

You would think a win over USC would change all that, but Dorrell disagreed.

“I know there’s still a good faction of folks out there waiting for me to fail,” he said. “There’s still a faction out there that’s not quite in my camp yet. But it’s what drives me.”

A year ago, Dorrell talked about “proving himself,” the discussion turning to race, and a suggestion on his part he might never prove himself because of it.

But that was a year ago, Dorrell acknowledged, and he said, “I know my success would be helpful to others, that’s secondary to me now.

“Right now it’s about proving I can win big games back to back and what they would mean for this program. Can you back up a big win with another big win and carry it into next season? That’s why I’m grinding harder now for this bowl game than any other. It’s that important.

“I know I had to get over that hump [USC] and show we were making progress, but this game can show UCLA is really on its way back. It validates everything.”

As great finishing kicks go -- winning four in a row, including Dorrell victories over Carroll and Bowden -- Page 2 might even end the year on a positive note.

Don’t worry, though, the new year begins with USC playing again, so it would be just a matter of days before Page 2 returned to normal.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers @latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.