Lakers can’t win it all with LeBron playing like this
And other observations from basketball’s delightful return
BY DAVID THORPE
Thursday night the NBA returned and, for a moment, I felt the bliss of childhood. My 14-year-old self loved the Lakers, a love affair that began years earlier when my dad told me he saw Jerry West play live in college. I wrote poems about West, his clutchness! Each stanza ended: "and it all depended on Jerry West's Hands." When they won the title in the early 70s, I was too young to care much, but over the next few years the team grew on me.
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When Magic Johnson played his first ever game on the NBA's opening night, on October 12,1979, I was glued to the screen. I had rooted for Larry Bird earlier that year in the national title game against Magic’s Michigan State team. I knew my Lakers team was about to be special again. I spent the night at my friend Ron's house, at the end of our street in Seminole, Florida. We were freshman in high school together, and an hour before the tape-delayed game began at 11:30 p.m., we used his little sister’s Easy-Bake oven to make mini ca…
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