Rest in peace, Micheal Jackson.
The year is 2004. It's offseason after which I've watched my Lakers get pummelled in Finals for the first time since I started as a fan. In 5 games, to Detroit. I cant really say it was painful, as I had spent most my time on last-minute studying for the small matter of my up-coming mid years during the J2 (To say that I wont be able to concentrate was an understatement).
There I was, slowly tortured as the days went by, watching as my favourite team got dismantled from within. First was the ultimate bombshell. Shaq got traded away for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, some loose change and a packet to twisties. Then, the rest slowly disappeared, as if in silent acknowledgement the Lakers could no longer win together. Why not! I silently scream back. Come back Fisher! Come back Horry! Rick Fox, where are you going?! Phil Jackson, oh god please, not you too...
And that was it, my beloved Lakers that was 3 consecutive Championships was no longer. All was left was an empty shell of its former self, a stark contrast in just one offseason. To say I struggled as a fan was to put it lightly. This is no longer my team, I would try to persuade myself, there is only Kobe, Luke Walton, Brian Cook and the packet of Twisties left. I should leave too.
The next season, I tried to forget all things Lakers. There wasn't much to see anyway, as the Lakers did not enter the playoffs the first time in a looong time. I considered supporting other teams. Houston Rockets with my favourite Chinese player in Yao Ming, Orlando Magic and Tracy McGrady, etc. However, the Lakers always remained in the back of my mind. I was unable to forget them, and when they won or lost, my heart, unwittingly, went along with them. Thats when I knew, I was a Laker Fan for life.
So when the following season came in 2006, i hopped back onto the bandwagon, knowing full well that being a fan of a team that loses more than it wins is going to be painful. Andrew Bynum arrived as a 17 year old, the 10th pick in the 2005 draft. I smiled as the Lakers looked to rebuild around Kobe Bryant. Then my smile turned to a frown when Caron Butler, one of my favourite Lakers players, was traded for Kwame Brown. This later turned out to be a HUGE mistake as Caron went on to become an all-star, and Kwame as a failure. Then my smile came back, when I heard the exciting news that Phil Jackson was coming back!
Phil Jackson immeadiately set things in order, as the Lakers managed to advance into the Playoffs once again, with Kwame Brown and Smush Parker in its starting lineup no less. Kobe Bryant shouldered much of the scoring load, including an incredible 81-point game (second most in NBA history) that completely blew my mind away. In the playoffs, the Lakers could not make a stand. Out in the first round, kicked around by a dominant Phoenix Suns.
2006-2007 came with a few surprises, as the Lakers brought in Radmonovic, with much potential as a three-point scorer to complement Kobe. The Lakers, despite Radmonovic not performing, outperformed any, incuding my, expecations by maintaining an impressive winning run. Wow, I thought, We are getting better as a team. Players were getting better, as they meshed better and shot better. Then, as if fate dictated it, a horrible avalaunche of injuries arrived in bunches. Lamar, Kwame, Radmonovic, and even Kobe had their share of injury woes in that cursed season, sending it downhill. They still managed to enter the Playoffs, and even pulling a 3-1 surprise on the Phonenix Suns before succumbing to mounting pressure, as any inexperienced team would. As a fan, i grew tired.
In that very offseason, in a kick-first reaction to the playoff loss, the ultra-competitive Kobe Bryant lashed out at his own team. He demanded to be traded then rescinded his demands right before reinforcing it again, with a condition that he will leave unless a fellow all-star calibre teammate is brought in to share his load. This Jerkyl-Hyde reaction was horrifying to witness from the Laker's best player. Should the Lakers trade him, their hopes for another championship will fly out with it. I didn't know how to react to it.
Kevin Garnett was on the trading block that year, and the Lakers officials tried their hardest to woo the future hall-of-fame player. Garnett considered, before joining the Boston Celtics, the Lakers eternal rival. Kobe was bound to get even more pissed.
Yet, the Laker management didn't yield to his demands. Instead, they brought in Derek Fisher, Kobe's old teammate from the Three-peat period. Unable to secure an all-star, many predicted the Lakers may not even reach the Playoffs as a reaction to Kobe's outburst. I, however, had a quiet confidence in this team. I felt that, many sports fans have short-term memories, and many forgot that if the injuries had not happaned in the previous season, they would have been pretty good. Not good enough to challenge for the trophy, but good enough at least to make a serious run in the playoffs. Furthermore, the team was young, and is bound to get even better.
As the Lakers played their first few games, I noticed a strange sort of confidence in the Laker players. That was not the look of a team panicking after an offseason of terror, nor was it a look of a team that was divided. In fact, it was a team looking to win and win it did. Andrew Bynum, blasted by Kobe through unofficial media, turned into a gigantic force as the Lakers won game after game, catapulting them to the top of the Western Conference. I was elated to say the least. Furthermore, the Lakers manage to secure Trevor Ariza from the Orlando Magic in a trade that sent Maurice Evans and Brian Cook over. I loved that trade, and knew that good things were on the way.
Then Andrew Bynum got a season-ending injury as my hopes fell with him. Without him, the Lakers would have to revert back to Kobe Bryant carrying the load, like in previous years. Doom was in the air.
~
The date is 2nd February 2008. The all-star game and the trade dateline was fast approaching. I entered my comp to check on my usual Laker news after a night out with the family. Then it appeared in front of me: ALL-STAR FORWARD PAU GASOL HAS BEEN TRADED TO THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS. I blinked, and re-read the headline, hands shivering. Nope, no hoax, my eyes weren't deceiving me. I yelled and ran to pound on the door of the toilet where my poor brother was trying to get some peace and quiet. "The Lakers got Gasol! THE LAKERS GOT GASOL!!" My brother shouted back, "What!! Who they give up?"
I had no idea. I ran back to the computer, this time to finish reading the article. The Lakers traded away Javaris Crittenton, Marc Gasol and Kwame Brown plus a first round pick. Oh my god! They didn't touch Fisher, Andrew Bynum or Lamar Odom. OH MY FREAKIN' GOD! That was like getting a gold bar in exchange for a packet of twinkies!
Buoyed by one of the most lop-sided trades in the history of the NBA, the Lakers went into a winning spree, with Pau Gasol fitting into the Lakers' complex Triangle Offense perfectly. Anf there they rolled as the Western-Conference Champions and inot the Finals for the first time since the horrible 2004 loss to Detroit.
In the Finals however, they had Garnett and the Celtics blocking the way. Armed with the best record in the league, and a hunger that the Lakers have not yet come to understand, they won the Lakers in 6 games, including 39 point whooping in the ass in Game 6. The Lakers left with green confetti pouring on their heads, humiliated and beaten. The Trophy seemed soooo close, yet so far. My heart cried for them.
To me, the Lakers needed that loss. That hunger I was talking about earlier, it grew to unmeasurable heights. They have tasted the finals, and were yearning for the Championship. It was in their eyes when the season started. It was in their faces when they won or lost. The 2008-2009 was going to be fun.
The time I am typing this 11.41 pm, 15 June, 2009. It has been 12 hours since then. 12 hours after time expired with the Lakers winning the Orlando Magic in 6 games in the Finals. 12 hours since the image of Kobe and Phil Jackson have lifted the Trophy. 12 hours since Kobe has won his 4th NBA title and his first Finals MVP trophy. 12 hours since Phil Jackson won his 10th Chmapionship ring, more than any other coach ever. 12 hours since I saw tears in the Lakers eyes. 12 hours since I saw champagne fall from the heavens.
1 year since they have been humiliated by the Celtics.
1 and a half years since they got Pau Gasol.
2 years since the series of injuries and the offseason of nightmares
3 years since Phil Jackson came back.
4 years since the Lakers were in unfamiliar ground at the bottom.
5 years since the 2004 loss to the Detroit pistons and the eventual dismantling of a young fan's dream team.
Congratulations, Los Angeles Lakers. You deserve it.
Human beings are exceptionally neat creature by nature. We enjoy clean streets and clean shores. We enjoy sorting and making it neat. Not many of us dare to get our hands dirty, figuratively or literally speaking. It is this compulsion to cleanliness which leads us to classify and compartmentalise every thing that we do. We are labelled immeadiately after we are born, wrapped in either a blue towel or a pink one. We created maths, an eternal realm of absolutes and accuracies. We hate, absolutely hate, messiness. In everything.
Unfortunately, when it comes to philosophy, moral issues or just life in general, things are seldom neat. They involve something that we avoid alot: The Grey Area. Yes, that grey area. Not balck, nor white, but freakin' grey.It sucks for us human beings, who enjoy the thoughts of rationalisation, and the neatness of compartmentalisation that requires us to think less. Questions start to form. Despicable questions such as How grey is grey? Closer to white or to black? What does this grey signify? So, with this grey, do we go with the white measure or the black measure in terms of action?
Therefore, we decide to choose a side, either white or black. Since the grey is still grey, we are divided: The Whites in one side, the Blacks on the other. So, with 2 divided sides, we humans do what we are so good at doing when there is an opposing party. We fight. One shouts "It has to White!!" The other screams back "No, you bloody @#$^ !! It has to be #$% Black!!" And there they fight, 2 opposing sides, perhaps for all eternity, all because neither side can simply agree that it is simply grey.
What exactly am I talking about? My answer to you is, pick something. The issue of abortion? Science vs Religion? Atheism vs Religion? Religion vs Religion? Communism vs Capitalism? Racism? Sex? So many complex issues, many of which have been fought about in wars. You see, humans love to rationalise, but do not enjoy thinking. They love to bring up reasons. Reasons on why god exists. Reasons why homosexuals ought to be prosecuted. Reasons to save the Earth. But when asked to think; to go beyond ourselves and consider the other side, many of us shudder in fear. Why? Because in or der for the Whites to consider the side of the Blacks, or vice versa, they have to cross the hated boundary of the Grey. In other words, they have to think, and we abhor it.
We will say, what for think? It is black because of this reason or that reason. Which of course the Whites will come up against with their own reasons.
In fact, this has trenscended complex issues and into our tastes. We dare not venture into the grey area to experiment with something that we are not used to. A friend of mine told me that she only listens to Chinese music. And asked her, "Only chinese? Nothing else? No English music? Or Tamil?" She looked back at me, with a face full of disgust, "What English? Tamil? No way lor. Only Chinese." By saying this satement, she is literally putting her foot down, psychologically that there are no good Tamil music, or any other music for that matter. We are the same. How many of us has listened to a genre of music, lets say heavy metal, and dismissed it right away after one song. Why? Perhaps that one song was the only lousy one? Perhaps you might enjoy part of the performance, i.e. the electric guitar, rather than the whole band? Why dismiss the grey area?
The lists goes on. We have to be right, or have to be wrong. It cannot be a little of both. It cannot be that we are neither right nor wrong. For example, stealing is wrong. A statement that condemns the people who steal to feed their family. Or murder is wrong. What if the man you are murdering is Hitler, and therefore save many many lives by doing so? Morality cannot be defined by the niceness of black and white. The way society is built, or the way human nature is, morality issues areprobably all different shades of grey.
It is also prevalent in politics. In the States, are you a democrat or a republican? Why cant it be both? For certain issues, im a democrat, for others, im a republican. By putting my vote into one party, will deny the other parties' good points.
This is the exact definition of thinking outside the box. The box is societies views that are force fed into us. Views that we have learnt to accept as the truth. Systems that we have to follow. Rules that we have to obey. To think outside the box is literally to dig deep and think beyond these contraints. To be extremely messy. Its no wonder why many great thinkers are untidy by nature, from their appearance to their handwriting.
Im not saying don't have an opinion. Far from it. In fact, I'm pleading with you to have an opinion, one that is thought over and weighed. And it doesnt have to be clearly cut decision that conforms to people's idea of classification. For example, for me personally, I believe God exists. But I do not believe in prayer. So why not? Give it a try. Think deep when asked abt issues. Do not be afraid to give your own opinion, radical as it may be. Look on both sides of an issue. Lets not be afraid of the Grey Area.
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