The blog lives, even if the Lakers don't

The Lakers' humiliating defeat to Dallas sent Phil Jackson into retirement, but not this blog. The pain, anger, bewilderment, confusion, sadness, apathy and rage only lasted a day or two. When a team gets swept and loses the final game by a margin usually seen in junior high basketball games where there's no rules against pressing or using overgrown players with wispy mustaches, there's not much to be said and even less to regret. The Lakers had their run and it ended, but they still have the pieces to return to the Finals next season. I'm ready to look forward. And when I need to look back, I have dozens of tapes and DVDs of past triumphs to help with therapy.

In the past month I finished a book proposal that will hopefully find a home and that took up most of my writing time. To catch up, and in honor of my friend John, I present bullet points:

* We just returned from a trip to Minnesota. Louise made it back alive, but not unharmed. A typical Minnesota trip, in other words. On previous trips to my homeland, Louise has suffered the pain of frostbite, the discomfort of an insect sting and the humiliation of bird shit on her face. She remains convinced the state is out to get her, that her African blood is somehow unwelcome. I always told her that's ludicrous.

Now I'm not so sure.

One day we drove to Winona to visit my aunt and uncle. For years I've told her we should visit Winona, the beautiful city on the Mississippi. A few hours into our stay, we went to an area where you look down on the city and gaze at the river. Impressed, Louise suggested we walk down a hill that went through some woods. My mom would pick us up in the van at the bottom. Louise doesn't hike. She doesn't camp. She's not a lover of the outdoors and the feeling is mutual. It seemed like a strange request. The path had steps but these were still the woods and this was still Louise, sporting her red flip-flops, as if she were headed for a day at the beach in Cape Town.

Disaster struck perhaps a quarter-way down the hill. My nephew Brock led us while Louise and my aunt followed me. I saw Louise flying past before I heard anything. In fact, I don't know if anyone made a sound. I looked to my right and saw ass, hair and lower back, as Louise slid past me headfirst down the side of the hill, headed straight for a tree. She slid a good 10 feet, if not more. It looked like she was enjoying a romp on a snow-filled hill at Lake Elysian, minus the sled. If she'd squealed a cartoonish, "Wheeeeeee!" as she slid past, it wouldn't have been entirely out of place.

A tiny stump stopped her when her shoulder jammed into the protrusion. We scrambled toward her carcass. She looked up with a shocked look but a clean face. No bruises, no gaping wounds. But large, ugly scrapes scarred her arms and legs. The worst injury, however, wasn't visible. She fell when she twisted her ankle on the side of the step and toppled over like a doomed, aging prizefighter in the ring against a young champion. She limped back up the hill but could barely put any pressure on her right foot.

A day later, I drove her to the urgent care clinic in Waseca, where the doctor diagnosed her with torn ligaments in her foot. She wore a walking cast out of the clinic. Six weeks to fully heal. Today she's still hobbling around, looking a bit like Willis Reed in Game 7. But we did learn an important lesson. If Louise is going to get hurt - and since we will return to Janesville, this is more when than if - having it happen while we visit my parents isn't the worst thing. She saw a doctor within five minutes at the clinic and was out after a half-hour. Back in New York, when she needed stitches for a cut on her foot, she waited five hours. Minnesota will hurt her. But it will also take care of her.

* A jarring moment in Janesville: Dairy Queen changed the sizes of its malt cups. Surely some type of market research drove this decision but it sent me into a brief tailspin. The medium cup now looked like a small. It came in a clear container with a top and possessed the same look of the new McDonald's shake, complete with whip cream and a cherry - if you desired, which I don't. I've been eating Dairy Queen malts for 25 years and the look of the cup never changed. We visited the DQ three times in Janesville and I'm still not used to the new equipment. It seems too classy, too corporate. Fortunately the product tasted the same. Zagat rated the Dairy Queen milkshakes the best in the country, which corresponds with the equally prestigious Fury rating. Dairy Queen's product is still king, even if its cups aren't.

* I started reading the monstrous new book Those Guys Have All the Fun, the oral history of ESPN that clocks in at 763 pages and about that many pounds. The book received tremendous publicity before its release, as various sites and magazines ran excerpts detailing feuds between rivals and romps between friends. I just started the section on 1992-94, when Keith Olbermann arrives on the scene and starts pissing off everyone at the network.

One of the early sections details a key point in ESPN's "worldwide dominance." And looking back, it's an event that really should have shown that ESPN can turn anything into a big-time event. Forget poker, Australian Rules Football and the ridiculous Who's Next - in 1987, ESPN convinced the country that the America's Cup was the biggest event in the land. A yacht race. But I remember watching part of the event as a land-locked kid and I remember the thrill when the Americans recaptured the Cup, which they'd lost in 1983 to the hated - I guess - Australians. That victory by the Aussies snapped a winning streak that started in 1857. So America's pride was on the line in 1987. I've never watched a yacht race since and I don't know the results of any of the America's Cup events since 1987. But oh how I wanted us to crush the Australians. The only thing that would have made it better is if the Soviets could have been involved.

Here's how analyst Gary Jobson described the monumental victory:

A lot of curves cross in favor of ESPN on that magic event. By 1987, the country had been dealing with another recession and was just not feeling great at that moment. We had lost the America's Cup in 1983, a shocking loss to many. At the time, the movie Crocodile Dundee had just come out, and the Cup was happening in summer in Australia, which is winter in the U.S. You could watch the races live and get onboard the boats, which had never happened before. It was windy and exciting every day. So the combination of patriotic fervor and strong winds matched up perfectly with an outcome very much in doubt.

Apparently all America needed during the last recession was a yacht race, instead of a stimulus. You're out of a job? Forget your problems, watch some rich guys float around the ocean. Crocodile Dundee came out? It's unclear if Jobson meant the movie made Americans excited about Australia or gave us another reason to hate the country. Were we supposed to be so upset by this funny-talking foreigner who had bigger knives than our muggers that we'd want to dominate in the water? Or were we so excited by the Croc that we'd tune in to the America's Cup just to see, perhaps, Paul Hogan providing analysis or pulling a shift on one of the boats? Weird moment in time; Paul Hogan ruled the metroplex, yachting ruled TV. But one thing remained the same - the USA kicked some ass. Too bad it didn't come at the expense of the Commies.

* Went to a Twins game at Target Field. Great experience. First home game since Harmon Killebrew's death. Jim Thome blasted a pair of homers. Twins took a 7-4 lead into the eighth. And then, predictably, inevitably, everything fell apart and the Twins lost in extra innings. The most amazing sight of the night came in the bottom of the ninth, when the Twins had the possible winning run in scoring position and the crowd rose as one. Everyone but my mom, who sat in her chair, asleep, as excited as an 8-year-old in church. We've long joked that she could sleep through anything but this provided the final proof of that theory. She obviously didn't miss anything, as the Twins failed to get the big hit. We woke her up in time to see the Twins lose.

* Mike Brown. Huh. Like many Lakers rubes, I would have preferred Rick Adelman, but Brown could prove to be a great hire. In a way, the somewhat unexpected hiring is in line with the majority of coaches Jerry Buss has brought aboard since 1980, even if this decision was more of a Jim Buss production. Early in the 1981-82 season, as the team struggled and Magic Johnson complained about Paul Westhead, Buss promoted a little-known assistant named Pat Riley. Originally, the plan called for Jerry West to serve as a co-coach, as an offensive coach. That, thankfully, didn't last, and the Lakers went on to win four titles under Riley while West became a legendary general manager.

When Riley left in 1990 following an embarrassing playoff defeat, the Lakers hired first-time coach Mike Dunleavy, a guy with no experience who had to handle a veteran team with legendary players who were a bit past their prime. After a shaky start, Dunleavy led the Lakers to the 1991 Finals, where they would have won if James Worthy had been healthy. So I tell myself. In reality they lost in five to the Bulls. A few months later, Magic Johnson called a press conference that changed basketball history forever and after the 1992 season Dunleavy left for Milwaukee. Instead of going after a big name, Buss hired longtime assistant Randy Pfund, a serviceable coach caught in an impossible situation.

Del Harris came to the Lakers for the 1995 season, another hire that raised eyebrows when it didn't cause yawns. When Phil Jackson joined the team for the 2000 campaign, it was really the first time the Lakers went after the biggest name available. The hire made perfect sense at the time, unlike many of Buss's hires. But like many who came before him, Jackson proved Buss knew what he was doing. The Rudy Tomjanovich hiring, of course, showed Buss is anything but infallible.

Will Brown be like Rudy T. or Riley? Like Dunleavy or Pfund? No matter who followed Jackson, their resume would look laughable. With John Wooden and Red Auerbach not up for leading an NBA team, it'd be impossible to find anyone who could come close to matching Jackson's achievements. Adelman, Van Gundy, Shaw - they all would have faced questions. Brown led the Cavs to 66 victories one season, 61 the next. Yes, he had LeBron. But the Heat had LeBron, Wade, Bosh and Juwan Howard this year but only had 58 victories. Brown made the pieces work, just not when it mattered most. The Lakers aren't going to plummet to .500 next season. They're old but the Mavs are even older. They suffered a devastating defeat but the Mavs suffered those every year except this one. With perhaps a few tweaks, they should again contend for the title.

Still, it won't be the same without Phil. The Lakers will see more in-game timeouts and fewer post-game quips. There might be better defense but worse offense. They'll have a coach who stands throughout the game, but they'll no longer have the coolest coach in the league perched on his big chair. It won't be the same, even if the winning returns.

* The playoffs continued without the Lakers, violating some type of league bylaw. I'm picking the Mavs. The Heat have looked great, but so have the Mavs. And during the season, when Dirk played, the Mavs were pretty much the best team in the league. Early in the year they won 17 of 18 games. Then, when Dirk returned from injury, they won 18 of 19, with the lone loss coming at the buzzer in Denver. I see Dirk pulling a Rick Barry, circa 1975, and carrying his team past a more talented squad. Mavs in 5, which will likely be as accurate as my last prediction - Lakers in 5.