June 15, 2004 by lonbud

Sports Re-cap

THIS JUST IN FROM THE “I JUST HAVE TO SAY” SPORTS DESK:

The Detroit Pistons’ dismantling of the Los Angeles Lakers in this season’s National Basketball Association finals cannot bode well for the ruling junta.

The parallels are too juicy to ignore.

Haves vs. Have Nots. Wealthy vs. Working Class. Perennial Winners vs. Usual Losers. Prohibitive Favorites vs. Decided Underdogs.

And somehow, the Have Not Working Class Usual Underdogs won. Going away. Already, it’s an interesting summer.

Like the Bush Administration in its drive to make Iraq the centerpiece of American hegemony in the Middle East (at least insofar as toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein was the symbol of that goal), the Lakers were everyone’s favorite to win the title again this year.

Winners in three of the last four seasons, victors over the reigning champs in an earlier playoff set, the Lakers were expected to put the Shock and Awe on Detroit’s upstarts from the East.

It wasn’t the Big Gun let ’em down, either. Shaquille O’Neal, the NBA’s answer to carpet bombing, daisy bombing, heavy artillery, and Special Forces all in one, roared his terrible roar, and gnashed his terrible teeth, and rolled his terrible eyes.

He got all the points and rebounds (like the Iraqi dead, in little need of tallying) expected of him.

But things were rotten at the core.

And it has to be made clear at this juncture, Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson is no George Bush.

Coach Jackson is educated, astute, aware, reserved, and enlightened. He understands the interconnectedness of things. The Lakers’ humiliation, unlike that destined for the Bush Administration, was not rooted at the top.

So many things were broken, though. Gary Payton didn’t know the offense. Karl Malone’s knee was out of commission. Larry Brown (or was it Joe Dumars?) masterminded a defensive scheme to neutralize the Lakers’ only other weapon, Kobe Bryant.

And just like that, it was over. Four games to one. No one would have been surprised to witness a Lakers victory by the same margin.

Right about now, the Bush Administration is in the fourth quarter of game two. That oil pipeline explosion today was the “ping” in Karl Malone’s knee. When “sovereignty” is restored on June 30th, Kobe hits the 3 ­but that’s the last hurrah.

Anyone who knew anything about professional basketball could see what was happening in this year’s finals, if not during game two, certainly by games three and four. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool Laker fan knew it was over in the first half of tonight’s last, ignominious abdication.

What makes us Americans better sports fans than we are participants in our own democracy?