The Journey Has Been Great

After last year, I was down on the Lakers and frustrated with the way the team played in the second half of the season. The Lakers went from a disciplined team to a group of 3 point Chuckers. Watching the team go 1-10 in April was rock bottom for me as a Laker fan.

Jerry Buss promised the fans the Lakers would be back in the playoffs in 2006, and Dr. Buss delivered on his promise. He went out at spent the money to bring Phil Jackson back to the coaching sidelines.

The Lakers then made a controversial trade by swapping Caron Butler for Kwame Brown. I was not a fan of the trade because I thought Caron Butler was an ideal complimentary player alongside Kobe. It's hard to see player's with his great character shipped out. I figured Kwame Brown would improve with the coaching staff in LA, but I was worried he wouldn't be able to handle the LA media pressure.

The Lakers gambled with their 1st round pick with Andrew Bynum, and then added Ronny Turiaf and Von Wafer in the 2nd round. I was hyped about Bynum and Turiaf, but the Von Wafer selection was a head scratcher. I thought the Lakers would draft Roko Ukic for sure, because he slipped all the way to Round 2. Another player I thought was hoping for was Andray Blatche.

I went to almost every Summer League game to get a closer look at Andrew Bynum. He drew one of the biggest crowds ever at the Pyramid, but you could see early on he wasn't going to contribute much this season. Ronny Turiaf was the best frontcourt player for the Lakers and I was anticipating a nice rookie season for him. Another player who turned out to be a pleasant surprise was Smush Parker. Prior to each game, Smush and Von Wafer put on a dunk contest for the crowd.

With some new pieces on the team, a fan always has something to get excited about. The Lakers definitely gambled in the off-season and improved the overall size from last year. At this point I felt the Lakers still weren't good enough to make the playoffs because other teams had more talent on paper, while the Lakers were just loaded with a bunch of question marks.

The playoff hopes took a huge blow when I found out Ronny Turiaf would need heart surgery and could miss the entire season. The injury bug also caught up with Vlade Divac (forced to retire), Slava Medvedenko (out for the year) and Aaron Mckie, who signed for the entire MLE. The Lakers depth and experience was shakey to begin with, and the injuries to these four made it that much worse. At one point Corie Blount was brought in to play in the pre-season games.

Watching the Lakers try to run the Triangle offense in the preseason and early in the regular season was aggravating. My remote control was brutalized in the first month of the NBA season (thank god for ducktape though), watching players run into each other, missing easy baskets, dribbling off their feet, and just being lost in general on both ends of the floor. I was thinking to myself, there is no way this group of scrubs is doing anything this season.

Despite the awful basketball the team was playing Kobe Bryant was sensational. He was single handedly keeping the team in games and I enjoyed watching him will this group to some hard earned victories. In their first 13 games, the Lakers finished with a 5-8 record. A losing record in the first month had a lot of fans down, but there was something different about this team from last year. This team had some fight in them, and battled back to make the games interesting in the 4th quarter.

The month of December turned out to be the breakout month for Kobe Bryant. This was the month highlighted by his 62 point performance in the win over Dallas. Kobe Bryant went bananas in December and the Lakers ended up winning 10 out of 16 games, more importantly 7 of those wins were on the road. The Lakers fought back to .500 basketball and avoided the cellar position in the Pacific Division. A lot of Laker fans were content the team had a better record than Sacramento at this point in the season.

Watching Kobe Bryant dominate games was amazing and entertaining. However, it was hard to watch the rest of his teammates still struggling and not giving him the help he needed. Lamar Odom would show up 1 out of 5 games, and the Lakers were lucky to have more than one player step up during the first two months of the season. Laker fans were hungry for a trade to get Kobe some help. In the back of every fans mind we were just waiting for Kobe to burnout, flipout, or get injured again. Throughout it all Kobe kept saying, I shouldn't have to score 50 points for us to win, but we are a young team and we are improving.

The critics didn't believe Kobe's comments, but the hardcore Laker fans believed in his mantra because we all saw minor improvements and flashes as the season went on.

December was an amazing month for Kobe Bryant, but he topped it in January. Kobe was unfairly suspended for the first two games for fouling Mike Miller and then telling the media he was protecting "his house." He missed the first two games in 2006, both against Utah and watched his team lose both. Kobe came back and went on an offensive onslaught in the next for games, 48 points, 50 points, 45 points and 41 points. The Lakers went 3-1 in those games, but lost badly to a terrible Portland team.

After this loss the trade rumors started circulating again, and Lamar Odom became the centerpiece of trade talks. These rumors effected Odom's confidence and Kobe Bryant had to carry the team again in January. One of the greatest All Time performances took place on January 22nd, 2006. The Lakers were down by 14 points against the Toronto Raptors at halftime. A frustrated Kobe Bryant came out blazing in the second half and started making shot after shot from all over the court. All those shots got the Lakers back in the game and Kobe ended up making history by scoring 81 points.

"It just happened, man" Bryant said. "It really hasn't, like, set in for me. It's about the `W,' that's why I turned it on. It turned into something special.

The Lakers outscored the Raptors 38-14 to finish the third quarter to go ahead for good. They trailed by as many as 18 points early in the period, angering Bryant.

"He was ticked off," Odom said.

When asked what Bryant said at that stage, Odom replied: "Nothing. That's when it's bad."

The 81 point performance was a turning point for Kobe Bryant and this Laker team. The media started to embrace the season Kobe was having, and the MVP talk finally hit nationwide for Kobe. For the first time the Lakers now had expectations placed on them to make the playoffs.

Another highlight to end the month was Andrew Bynum having a career night against the New York Knicks.

The roller coaster ride took a turn for the worst in early February. The Lakers lost 6 out of their first 8 games and including losses to the Bobcats and Hawks. The timing of this bad stretch of games also took place right before the trade deadline and the Lakers were linked to several trades. One player Laker fans were hoping to acquire was Ron Artest. People envisioned him being the Scottie Pippen for Kobe Bryant and his two-way play was something the Lakers needed.

The trade speculation really heated up when Artest showed up with his agent to watch a Laker game.

However, the Laker organization didn't pull the trigger and watched the Sacramento Kings acquire Ron Artest. This trade would eventually put the Kings in the playoffs, and end the season for the Warriors (who were also in the Artest sweepstakes.)

The confidence the team showed Odom by not trading him, finally sparked Lamar in the second half of the season. Lamar Odom stepped his game up in March and became the aggressive scorer the team was pushing him to be. The Lakers finished 10-7 in March and Odom had his best production all season long.

Now it wasn't a matter of the Lakers making the playoffs, it was how high up the seeding could they go? 7th? 6th? 5th?

The Lakers silenced their critics with an impressive win against the Pistons, and followed it up with a road victory in San Antonio.

Just when the team was starting to click, Chris Mihm twisted his ankle and ended up on the injured list. The Lakers lost momentum and went 1-3 in their next 4 games without Mihm. The Lakers would then learn they would be without Mihm for the rest of the regular season. With Mihm out, and the Hornets, Jazz, and Kings in the playoff hunt, the Lakers playoff hopes were looking grimm.

The one player who needed to step up with Mihm out was Kwame Brown. The Lakers were forced to start Kwame at center, and he embraced the position on both ends of the court. The Kwame who was fumbling passes and shooting 2 foot airballs earlier in the year, was now catching one handed alley oops and slamming them through. Kwame also stepped up his rebounding production and became the anchor on defense.

So now here we are in April, the Lakers exceeded their goal of 44 wins, by winning 45 games and ended the season with their longest win streak all year with 5 straight wins. The 11 game improvement from last season has the Lakers positioned as the 7th seed and facing the Suns in the playoffs.

No matter what the outcome of the postseason, it's been a great journey as a Laker fan. I wanted to thank all the die hard Laker fans on JBB who kept the faith and didn't bail on this team!

NOW IT'S TIME TO KICK SOME ECLIPSE THE SUNS!