It's Laker Elimination Day

No More Of This, Thank You

Today, the sun shines a little brighter.

Today, coffee smells a little bit better.

Today, the smiles and laughter of children are even more delightful.

Today is Laker Elimination Day.

Today is the day when we can safely ignore Kobe Bryant, safe in the knowledge that his rapacious scoring will not end in conquest. Today is the day when I can stop trying to come up with a name that's even more ridiculous than Metta World Peace, or stop looking at his Gollum-like face and absurd babbling. Today is the day when even Laker Fan can be happy, because for once his team left the playoffs without making sure that they start the next year with multiple thugs suspended. And today is the day where we get to stop hearing about how history is more important than personnel, how closing experience matters more than closing ability, and how the way things have always been is the way how things will always be.

Today is the day when the NBA stops televising famous rich people going to games, as if this mattered. Today is the day when we can stop watching Jack Nicholson get airtime for no good reason at all. Today is the day where Jordan Hill can go back to being a domestic abuse suspect, along with Matt Barnes and any number of other malcontents. And today is the day where Mike Brown gets to look around a locker room filled with people who don't want to play with Bryant, and gets to pretend how this will all be better next year, or that they can somehow get value out of a trade that everyone knows they need to make.

But it goes even further than that.

This weekend, the best NBA playoff series of the year starts, with the Thunder going to San Antonio to play a series that's going to be utterly fantastic to watch, and watched only by the people who truly love hoop. It's going to have players that are so good that you can watch them even when it devolves to half court isolation plays, and neither team is going to go for that. The teams are going to have to score over 100 points to win, with big runs; it's not going to be decided by block/charge calls, flagrant fouls and intentional fouling.

It will be glorious, rather than thuggish. It will be four to seven (though probably six to seven) games that I'm going to want to DVR, and I never DVR games. It's going to have bench players that can start, men who can rain threes, the two best point guards in the Association this year, the best power forward in history, and the best scorer alive.

And if you don't like that, or Laker Elimination Day... well, sucks to be you. Not us. You.

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