The Goat Pen

Sounds as though it's a fully torn Achilles for Kobe.

I've been saying that watching him play this year was like drinking a great vintage bottle of wine...

The Lakers suck.

Gasol's return could be a Good Thing - have him out there every minute Dwight isn't, for one - but I'm worried that they'll bungle his return and mess up the good thing they've had going. That and Kobe will drop off.

Belated R.I.P. Jerry Buss.

Welcome back to the playoff picture LA Lakers. Please continue to do well.

It's not preposterous to imagine a first round Clippers/Lakers matchup.

The "Smith Bros." are both pretty banged up (like everybody else at this point.) But I liked the shutout 2nd half against the Falcons. The 49er offense helped overall by becoming a real puzzler - lots of Atlanta LBs running up to say hi to Kaep as Gore or James ran off behind that great li...

One of my favorite overheated political scribes can also overdeliver with the sports stuff: The Lakers can never be ordinary. The Lakers need to be bright and loud and glimmering in all manner of excess. They should drip with diamonds and sin. They should be the place in L.A. where Raymond Chandler ...

He hurt himself bowling, supposedly.

I didn't follow the story all that closely, but apparently PJ didn't want to travel.

That's okay if you are Vin Scully (who drives me crazy every time I listen to him nowadays, actually) but not so much if you are the head coach.

I like it. Phil just looked bored during the tail end of his last tour.

The Lakers shot dreadfully against the Warriors and still handled them easily. I know, it's the Warriors, but the Lakes are a good rebounding team at least. Dwight and Gasol cleaned up a lot of garbage. Morris might end up being a factor. They really need somebody who can just catch and hit those op...

Nash has a fracture. I dunno what to make of this bunch just yet. Would feel better about things if they had a dynamic young PG apprentice.

Wasn't really expecting Kobe to have to go into "savior" mode right away to try and rescue games.

Curtis is like the gift that keeps on giving that not enough people know about.

Also temperamentally difficult: husbands. Put-upon spouses have seized on the autism rainbow as a simple, esteem-boosting way to pathologize what used to be called “a typical guy.” Simon Baron-Cohen, a leading expert on Asperger’s at Cambridge (and, as it happens, the cousin of Sacha), has theorized...

Have to agree that Harden's overrated. I know he's young, but he looked lost for long stretches of the playoffs.

Yes, it's getting close to go time.

I keep having this urge to suggest that Gasol jack up a ton of threes this year because "It stretches the defense."

Somewhere, Amar is laughing.

I like that.

Yup, still play them in a duo. Been using a Roland V Drum set which fits right into the electronic stuff we've been playing. I remember seeing the Dead once with their yin-yang drummers, big Persian rug, and implausibly into-it fans. They had their moments onstage, and the sound system was really go...

I'm glad we've gotten back to where it's cool to have two drummers.

Oh, I'm optimistic. It's a clear upgrade at a position that was already strong and they keep Pau around. They might have let Jim Buss's bartender go so they can re-sign Dwight tho...have to give Jim credit for shilling the Bynum selection (how often do the Lakers draft low? Like, never.) and Mitch o...

What'd Lebron predict, eight championships? Let's not get into a championships-predicting contest.