That Bitter Feeling

I think I might be suffering from the Helsinki Syndrome. Isn’t that what you call it when a hostage starts seeing the world through the eyes of his captor?

The Lakers have won two out of the last three championship match-ups with the Celtics, and have run off a string of five unanswered Finals victories. Whence the score was once 16-9 Celtics, it is now 16-14.

The Lakers, needless to say, have been on a roll for some time.

But where there should be euphoria in Lakerland, all I hear is bitterness.

After the Lakers ended their eight-series Finals losing streak in 1985, the first words out of Pat Riley’s mouth were “Now they can’t mock us any more” (an apparent reference to Cornbread Maxwell clutching his throat while James Worthy shot and missed crucial free throws during the 1984 NBA Finals and to ML Carr who repeatedly called the Lakers the Fakers, because of their ability to breeze through the regular season and Western Conference playoffs only to get defeated in the Finals, 4-0 by Philly and 4-3 by Boston).

Now fast-forward to 2007. The Boston Celtics acquire Kevin Garnett.

Magic Johnson spent much of the summer belaboring the fact that the Lakers were “this close” (holding his fingers inches apart) from landing the Big Fella. Phil Jackson called the acquisition a “Celtics Trade” ( a reference to the fact that former Celtic Kevin McHale sent KG to Danny Ainge, a former Celtic player and current Celtic executive). When told of Magic’s comment about how close the Lakers had been to getting Garnett, Jackson said “I guess we didn’t have the right pedigree.”

Ouch.

The revamped 2008 Boston Celtics then went on to destroy the Lakers twice in the regular season, humiliating the purple so badly at Staples that Kobe, Phil and the gang quit trying with seven minutes left in the game.

Now reflect on what we have come to know as the bitterness that sits in the gut of Jerry West, and the lack of self-esteem that apparently envelopes the entire Laker organization. While we’re on the topic of conspiracy theories, you’re gonna tell me that the Laker family’s response to events from the KG Trade to the Staples Humiliation wasn’t a concerted effort to send Pao Gasol from Memphis to LA for a Coca-Cola and a bag of chips?

The poor, stepped-on, disrespected, and disregarded Lakers couldn’t stand the Celtics rising to the top again. So they orchestrated this trade for the sole purpose of getting the Lakers back in the game.

Chris Wallace was just a pawn.