Mitch's Choice

Five years ago this summer was a much different time for Laker fans, a time when the future didn't look so bright, and the glory days were in the rear view mirror and slipping away rapidly. The team's two superstars, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant had apparently come to the conclusion that the town wasn't big enough for the both of them, and despite winning three straight titles from 2000-2002, after an upset loss in the '04 finals to Detroit brought the situation to a head, one of them had to go.

It didn't have to be that way mind you, but when you take enormous egos and mix in undue amounts of fan and media adulation and ridiculous sums of money, calmer heads often don't prevail. In another era, the one in which I grew up, two superstars not only coexisted but thrived together for over a decade, guiding the Lakers to five titles and nine trips to the championship round together. Kareem and Magic probably didn't run in the same circles or go swimming at each other's mansions after practice, but they were professionals, and whatever differences there may have been were kept in house, the way it should be, the way that the old school teaches.

Nowadays, players not only run to the media and shoot their yaps off every time something pops into their giant sized heads, but now it's even worse thanks to Facebook and Twitter. Adoring fans can now get all the wisdom and humor that Shaq can muster out on a daily basis by following his Twitter feed, which is bad enough but then the lapdog sports media has to report on every tweet that comes out of his big mouth, so that even the rest of us are subjected to Shaq's latest bout of verbal diarrhea simply by watching Sportscenter.

At the time of the trade it was mostly portrayed as being Kobe's fault, and the media reported as such and most fans seemed to go along with the portrayal of Shaq as the great wise veteran and Kobe was cast in the role of spoiled young punk. I never agreed with that take, I felt then and still do more than ever, that Shaq saw the writing on the wall and decided to head for new digs, a place where he could be the undisputed king and grab all the headlines and attention. Unlike Kareem, who despite being the greatest center of all-time, gracefully allowed Magic Johnson to take over the team, willing to play the secondary role as his career got into its later years so that the team could continue to win championships, Shaq wasn't about to let his younger, leaner, and increasingly more relevant partner take the reins. So he left with guns blaring, ripping everyone he felt he could get away with on his way to South Florida, where to his credit he did help his new team to a championship.

At that time, with the Lakers floundering for a brief stretch, it looked like Laker GM Mitch Kupchak may have made the wrong decision to keep Kobe and let Shaq go. That decision was always the right one, Kobe was younger and much easier to build a team around. Shaq is one who sucks you in with his charm and jokes, but then wears out his welcome after a few years. How else to explain the fact that with current trade rumors abounding, he very well may be on his way to playing for his fifth pro team, an unheard of number for a player of his stature and greatness on the court. Kobe just finished his 13th season with the team that he started with.

Mitch's choice was validated officially last night as the Lakers won their first title since the trade, a trade that in addition to keeping the best player on the planet in purple and gold, also brought Lamar Odom to LA, Odom being one of the key members of the supporting cast that helped to win the championship. Kupchak, who was mentored by the greatest GM the game has ever known in Jerry West, also pulled off the steal of the year two years back by getting Pau Gasol, the Lakers all-star forward and erstwhile sidekick to Kobe from Memphis for a song.

Sports fans, like followers of politics, and pretty much most segments of today's culture are quick to judge, long on opinions and short on patience. We want answers and predictions and information as fast as it takes to click on a cable channel or connect to the Internet. We are constantly looking for more information, it's not enough to have a live report on CNN, we've got to have a ticker scrawling across the bottom of the screen and another box in the corner with some other story going. We've got four browsers working at once when we're online. We have email but that's too slow so we've got instant messaging but that's too limited so now we can text endlessly wherever we go. We can share the most inane and mundane information with people we know or pretend to know via Facebook, and if that's not enough we have Twitter, and I'm sure the next greatest thing is right around the corner, some app that will allow us to update our status and check stock prices and download the latest songs while ordering Chinese takeout and learning to speak French, while we sleep.

But sometimes faster isn't all it's cracked up to be, and like my freshman English teacher Mr. Towle taught us, less is more. Sometimes we are better served by not rushing to judgment on the latest trade or piece of economic news. Often times what appears at first glance to be mostly downside turns out to have a great deal of upside, some things take time to materialize. The Lakers are the champs of pro hoops, and while Kobe is getting sized for his fourth ring, Shaq will likely be onto Cleveland or some other city that will lap up his tired jokes and believe his empty promises of bringing a title to their favorite team. Mitch made the right choice, Kobe is the true Laker great, and the good guys are back on top of the NBA heap.