Maybe someone has written this. So I won’t call it an original idea. Just something I haven’t seen yet that has occurred to me in the past hours. Something to try to explain the inexplicable: LeBron James and his return to Cleveland.

[Read more →]

This comes up every four years. Or every four years after the U.S. national team has, at least, made the second round of a World Cup. Like this time around. “Is soccer about to make a breakthrough in the U.S.?” Will it be mentioned in the same breath as football and baseball and basketball? Or […]

[Read more →]

The Los Angeles Kings tonight wrapped up their second Stanley Cup championship in three years. And though I, like most native southern Californians, am not a hockey fan, we must concede this: Los Angeles would be confronting a potential championship drought, about now, if the Kings had not had not turned into world beaters.

[Read more →]

When I was a young, Los Angeles versus New York sports championships happened fairly often. And they were intense. The Dodgers and the Yankees met in the World Series in 1963, 1977, 1978 and 1981. The Lakers and Knicks met in the NBA Finals in 1971 and 1972. (And, a reader reminds me, in 1970.) […]

[Read more →]

So, watching the boxscore from the Oklahoma City Thunder versus Memphis Grizzlies playoffs game tonight, with the Clippers to come next … and I had a flashback to the media work room at Staples Center in Los Angeles. And the anxiety produced when the game before the game dragging on too long.

[Read more →]

I have not paid close attention to the Los Angeles Lakers this year. I may not have even if I were not 10,000 miles from Staples Center. It became clear early that they were not going to be very good, and when Kobe Bryant’s brief return from Achilles surgery was interrupted by a broken leg, […]

[Read more →]

Which sport do Americans like most? It was the same in 2013 as it was in 1985, and every year since. The National Football League. Duh. We like our danger and violence, and we like our color and strategy and cheerleaders, and tidy three-hour blocs mapped out on Sundays and three nights a week. The […]

[Read more →]

This is always a bit tricky. Putting out newspapers on December 24 and December 25. Even in the Middle East, where Christmas this year was “Wednesday” … not much goes on. End of the year, a batch of sports taking a few months off … that happens even in Arabia. December 24 is the slowest […]

[Read more →]

Who knew? I did not. I knew that Pau Gasol was a polite and intelligent guy, from my days of covering the Los Angeles Lakers. A Catalan, from Spain, but whose English was very good. Parents both involved in medicine. And the 7-foot thing, with a small man’s dexterity. I knew that teammates liked him, […]

[Read more →]

I concede I thought Kobe Bryant could beat this, too. I covered the guy for more than a decade, and I saw him come back, time and again, from injuries that would sideline the average athlete. “Badly sprained” ankle? Kobe would be back in a week, or sooner. He would keep playing right through things […]

[Read more →]