What a difference 10 months makes!!!! Back in July of 2012 the city of Los Angeles seemed to be destined to be the sports capital of America. The Kings had just won the Stanley Cup, the Galaxy had won the MLS Cup, the USC Trojans were the pre-season #1 team with the top contender for the Heisman Trophy in tow, UCLA had the #1 recruiting class in the land, the Lakers added Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to form a Hall of Fame type line-up, the Clippers with the additions of Grant Hill and Chauncey Billups were now the deepest team in the NBA, the Angels got the coup of the off-season by landing Josh Hamilton to go with Albert Pujols, Mike Trout & Mark Trumbo and the Dodgers new ownership landed Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez and Carl Crawford via trade and scooped up the best pitcher on the Free Agent market in Zack Grienke. It looked like 2013 was going to be that Championship Season for the entire city.
Then the reality clouds rolled in like fog over the San Francisco Bay, and what looked like the reality of a phenomenal year in LA sports, turned out to be as fake as a Kardashian wedding.
In that short span of time, the Kings have maintained their high level of play, making past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Galaxy have been middling about, and sit in 4th place in the Western Conference of the MLS. Other than that, the LA sports scene has become an unmitigated disaster.
USC ended up being severely over ranked. They finished with a meager 7-6 record, good for second in the Pac-12 South. Their Heisman candidate Matt Barkley had his worst season in all 4 years he spent at USC, and ended up being a 4th round draft pick of the Eagles.
UCLA hoops did not fare much better. Yes, they won the Pac-12 regular season title, but they lost in the Pac-12 Tournament to Oregon, and then were upset by 11th seeded Minnesota in the NCAA Tournament. Since then, Coach Ben Howland has been fired; Steve Alford has taken over the program. Last year’s top recruit Shabazz Muhammed , has decided to forgo playing another year in Westwood and is headed to the NBA.
While the Clippers did have their best regular season in team history, they once again fizzled out in the playoffs, losing in the first round to the Memphis Grizzlies. Now Chris Paul faces free agency, Vinny Del Negro faces job uncertainty and the Clippers may end up being the Clippers again. This is really sad considering how good it was looking for them just a couple of months ago.
Sadly, those are the most uplifting stories in the LA Sports scene. The three most important and recognizable franchises in the City of Angels, the Lakers, Dodgers and Angels, are all in much worse positions. Which is really saying something considering their outlook heading into their respective seasons?
Let’s start with the horror that was the Lakers season. First they targeted the fact that they needed to upgrade at point guard and went out and got future Hall of Famer Steve Nash from the Suns. Then they made an even bigger splash with the steal of a deal for Dwight Howard (giving up thuggish Andrew Bynum, who didn’t play one minute this year), and it looked the Lakers were set.
But they didn’t stop there. They added some bench firepower as well, which was one of their weak spots the previous year, by adding Antwain Jamison and sharp shooter Jody Meeks.
It looked like the team was set to challenge the Thunder and the Heat for NBA supremacy. Sometimes however, looks can be deceiving.
The season started out on a horrid note when the team went winless in the pre-season. Then, believe it or not, it got worse. They lost 4 out of their first 5 games and fired head coach Mike Brown. What happened next was a microcosm for the entire season.
Everyone in Lakerland wanted Phil Jackson back as coach, and it appeared to be a foregone conclusion that P-Jax was going to be the man. Even HE thought he was coming back to roam the baseline. But apparently Jim Buss, who took over control of the team from his brilliant father (Dr. Jerry Buss, may he RIP), wanted to prove he was his own man and threw everyone a curveball by hiring Mike D’Antoni.
Now don’t get me wrong, D’Antoni is a very good coach, but he has to have a young athletic team filled with great outside shooters to run his system, and that is something this Laker team is not. But against all conventional wisdom, Buss signed D’Antoni to a 3-Year $12 million deal.
As you can imagine, his tenure got off to a very rough start. It took until after the All-Star break for the Lakers to start playing like a winning team, and it took a great run at the end of the season to sneak into the playoffs as the 7th seed.
There is one small caveat to all this. It is not all on D’Antoni as at one point or another during the season, the top 6 players in the Lakers rotation (Nash, Kobe Bryant, Metta World Peace, Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard and Steve Blake), all missed significant time with injuries.
But even in the few games where the entire team was healthy, they just didn’t gel the way a team of this talent should have. In the end, they got swept out of the first round of the playoffs and now have even more questions.
Will Dwight Howard re-sign or bolt as a free agent? Can Kobe come back from a torn Achilles tendon? Is Pau Gasol going to be traded?
Firing D’Antoni and doing what they should have done to begin with, hiring Phil Jackson, would a great step in the right direction. But a team that has over a $100 million payroll, is well over the Luxury tax, has no draft picks and no prospects, is not going to pay TWO coaches (Mike Brown and Mike D’Antoni) not to coach, while paying Phil all the money he is worth. It is going to be a long road back for one of the NBA’s crown jewel franchises.
If, as an LA sports fan, you think turning to baseball can make it all ok, you may have to think again. We start in Anaheim, where the 2012 version of the Angels were already a disappointment. After all, in the 2011 off-season, Arte Moreno shelled out BIG BUCKS to land Albert Pujols and CJ Wilson to make a run at the Rangers.
When the 2012 version of the team got off to a slow start, Mike Trout was called up from Triple A, and the Angels took off. But alas, it was too little too late and they just barely missed the playoffs.
So the Angels opened up the checkbook again, and added Hamilton to give them, at least on paper, one of the most dangerous line-ups since the Big Red Machine. Of course, games aren’t played on paper, and the 2013 version of the Angels is discovering that good pitching will stop good hitting most of the time.
Add in the glaring weakness the Angels have in their own rotation (I’m sorry, but Joe Blanton & Tommy Hanson can NOT be relied upon as starters), plus an injury to the one guy they could least afford to lose (Jered Weaver), and the Angels are off to a WORSE start this season than they were last. Sadly, this year there is no Mike Trout in Triple A to come to the rescue.
The worst part of it all is that Mike Scioscia may end up being the fall guy for the Angels shortcomings. Not only is he one of the best managers in the bigs, but all you have to do is look at his coaching tree to see what kind of success he is. Joe Maddon, Bud Black and Ron Roenicke have all found success running their own teams.
I will state for the record that if things don’t get better for both the Angels and Dodgers (who I will get to in a minute), Scioscia may just move about 26 miles up I-5 and end up managing the OTHER LA team. But that is a debate for another day.
Now onto the LAST of the LA teams, the Dodgers. Going into the 2012 season, Frank McBankrupt still owned the team, and there were doubts as to what was going to happen to studs like Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp.
But then wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, Guggenheim Baseball Management (led by Mark Walter, Stan Kasten & Magic Johnson) spent a record $2 Billion (that’s with a B), to buy the Dodgers and try to return them to the glory they so richly deserve.
They acted quickly once they bought the team, locking up Matt Kemp for 8 years, trading for Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez. Then in the off-season they made a huge splash by signing Korean import Hyun-Jin Ryu and the top free agent pitcher Zack Grienke.
It looked like the Dodgers were going to be the team to beat. After all, they had all the pieces in place and the new ownership group showed they are not afraid to spend, and more importantly, they aren’t afraid to spend wisely.
But like the Lakers and Angels before them, things have not gone according to plan. As of this writing, the Dodgers sit in last place in NL West and playing less than .500 ball. Much like their Southern California brethren, they have failed to meet any and all expectations.
I am not sure what the city of Los Angeles did to piss off the Sports Gods, but they are exacting their revenge on the second largest city in the country.
Who knows, maybe 2014 will be better, but for now it appears that 2013 it really is Lost Angeles.