After the fruits of victory some sour grapes emerge

Now that the NBA has crowned it’s new champion all of the “what if’s” and “woulda coulda shoulda’s” are sprouting up from around the county, and the general census is that the Lakers are not a dominating champion and perhaps are not the best team in the NBA as opposed to the “Combo Dynasty”. In the days after LA’s three-peat earlier in the decade, local papers were obsessed with what they could do during the off season to de-rail the Laker Express, this week writers have been stating a myriad of reasons why they should have had a parade in their city this week. Of course, first in line was the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy’s who commented “Please. Do they actually think they would have won this year if Kevin Garnett had been healthy?” and “Very nice. But we all know that if the route went through Causeway Street things might have been different. See you next year”. Of course there have been too many quotes in the Orlando Sentinel to post them here, but needless to say they believe it was the Magic who should have had the 3-1 lead and not LA. Lastly, comes Houston who still hole heartedly believes they are the “peoples champion” because they played the Lakers the toughest of everyone and still ALMOST beat them without their two best players. This is the only argument with an iota of merit as the Rockets played the Lakers tougher than anyone else in the playoffs. So where do you start about the sour grapes? Well, with the most bitter, in Boston as they seemed to have lost the most with the change in guard. So let me turn on the light bulb for you, firstly Phil is a better coach than Red period. Deal with it. For all the reasons that are poignantly clear. It is more difficult to do it now with salary cap, free agency, and more teams. Yes, he always has had talent but so did Red with at least 3 HOF members on each of his winning teams. Secondly, to talk about how you “supposedly” would have handled LA if you had Garnett opens up Pandora’s box to arguments that the Celtics wouldn’t have the ring from last year if Andrew Bynum and Trevor Ariza would have been healthy, which many believe. As to the Orlando Sentinel, absolutely true, a couple of balls bounce your way and things are different but name me a series that isn’t the case.
I’ll nip that one in the bud by simply stating that you need to recognize that experience does indeed matter as it was the mental mistakes that cost you a 3-1 lead and possible parade. Makes some throws, foul when you need to, and create an offense that doesn’t depend on you shooting 45% from three, and your chances will improve dramatically. Lastly to the Houston Chronicle, your team record was actually better without T-Mac and when Yao was out of the game vs. LA the Rockets actually outscored the Lakers. Obviously close but perhaps knowing what cards you had before the series started would have yielded an even better outcome. The bottom line in these or any other arguments is that all of these reasons/excuses will not be remembered in seven months and the truth is that this was not a number 4 seed that came out of nowhere, the best team did win, 65 wins during the regular season, and the best player on the planet, and the numbers 15, 10, and 4, which no excuses and answer for.