UCLAkers vs. SCeltics

Goin’ a Courtin’:  3 L.A. Bruins and 2 Boston trojans will hit the court to court Rings, while 3 other trojans are going to Court, and could get rung up

“Don’t Look Back” might have been one of the rock band Boston’s biggest hits, but it’s hard to NOT look back — to the 80’s — when you hear that the Lakers will meet the Celtics in the NBA Finals.

For those of you too young to remember, the Lakers and Celts completely dominated the NBA for most of the 80’s, with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird leading two of the best teams ever, in repeated match-ups.  But the last time the Celtics made it to the Finals was 1987, suffering a horrendous 20-year stretch of Moiso-mediocrity since ’87, when the  Lakers knocked them off.

There was plenty to hate about the old Celtics:  The Hick from French Lick, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, M.L. Carr, and especially Red Auerbach would have all been honorary trojans had this website existed back then.  Even the addition of legendary Bruin Bill Walton couldn’t erase the Celtic stench from that parquet floor.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and Auerbach is smoking his stogies in his grave, and we’ve never had a problem with their three studs, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, or Ray Allen.   But that’s okay — the obnoxious Danny Ainge is their General Manager, the only Boston BRUINS are ON ICE, and the Celtics have two trojans on their roster:  Brian Scalabrine and Rookie Gabe Pruitt.

We would call Scallopini a has-been, but he’s more of a never-was.  He had been nothing more than a spectator during this entire Postseason, watching the games in street clothes from the bench.  That is, until his ex-trojan buddy took matters into his own hands, sort of.  While playing against Pruitt in a pick-up game at practice, Celtic Tony Allen hurt himself, forcing the Celtics to tell Scalabrine to locate his uniform for Game 5 of their sereis against Detroit.  So Brian suited up, but still watched from his chair at courtside.

Believe it or not, that’s a BETTER deal than Pruitt got.  Not only hasn’t Pruitt played since April, but they don’t have enough chairs for him on the bench, so during the Playoffs, he hasn’t even been able to watch from the bench with the rest of his teammates.  Talk about “disrespect.”  So he may be the first guy to get a Ring, but still regret leaving “College” early.  If he starred with O.J. Mayo last season at SC, he could have gotten drafted into a situation where his team would actually play him.  But it’s still pretty cool to get a Ring, even as a spectator.  Just ask Bruins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Trevor Ariza.

Kareem, who was instrumental in the Lakers 80’s Dynasty, will be watching nostalgically, as a Special Laker Assistant.  He worked mostly with Andrew Bynum this year, and Bynum is out until next Season, so we’d like to think that Kareem is now contributing to the immense success of new Laker Center Pau Gasol.

Also spectating for the UCLakers will be Trevor Ariza.  He is back from injury and definitely one of the 12 “active” Lakers, but it looks like he won’t play unless there is a blow-out, or major foul trouble.  It’s too bad, because before he got injured, he had absolutely cracked Phil Jackson’s “rotation.”

And a STAPLE of that rotation, at Staples and on the Road, is Jordan Farmar.  You can almost set your watch by Jackson’s substitution pattern.  Farmar replaces Derek Fisher with about 4 minutes to go in the 1st Quarter, and stays in until Fisher returns, about halfway through the 2nd Quarter.  The same pattern is repeated in the 2nd Half, which shows how much confidence Jackson has in Farmar, letting him get crucial, 4th Quarter minutes while Fisher sits.   That confidence was evident — and rewarded — when Jackson left Farmar in when the Lakers were down 17.  Phil didn’t panic, and Jordan didn’t let him down, scoring 6 straight points to invigorate the Lakers.

So even though Laker owner Dr. Jerry Buss is a big trojan supporter, with the three above-mentioned Bruins, the Purple and Gold Lakers are a lot closer to Blue and Gold than to Cardinal and Gold, especially going against the only team, practically in History, to have two trojans on their roster (even if one of them is ass-glued to the bench and the other one is somewhere in Section 17, about 6 rows up).

So while the Celts and Lakes are gearing up to take the court, three Courts are gearing up to deal with three allegedly-criminal trojans.

Dateline:  Compton — trojan Football Recruit Maurice Simmons, getting a jump on what it means to be a trojan, will go in front of a Jury on July 24th for two Felonies and a Misdemeanor.  He just pled Not Guilty to Second Degree Robbery, Assault with a Firearm, and Permitting a Loaded Firearm in his Vehicle.  Some people call him Moe-Reese…Woooo-woo … a gangster of love?

Assuming that his unquestionable innocence is quickly ex$plained to the jurors, he should be back just in time for August practice, with more street cred than any previous Freshman.

And speaking of credibility, or lack thereof, Reggie Bush is back in the News, this time for refusing to answer 61 of the 70 questions put to him in the Discovery phase of the Lawsuit against him.  Ya think maybe Reggie has something to hide?  It’s Mark McGwire all over again.  Why do trojans suddenly NOT RECALL certain events from their past?

Bush’s lawyers are claiming that the information sought is “confidential,” or not germane to the case.  “Confidential?”  What does that mean?  Is National Security at stake?  Is Bush a double-0?  Obviously, the answers to these simple questions either incriminate Bush, or they incriminate usc.  Either way, if Bush is ever COMPELLED to answer, the fallout would be epic.

Unfortunately, despite THE FACTS, it looks like Bush’s accuser is also full of crap, and won’t be considered credible in Court.  Apparently, Lloyd Lake failed to produce in a timely manner the audio tapes or any other hard evidence that he claims to have.  What was he waiting for?  That’s right, the felon was still holding out for a settlement, but Bush refused to pay.  Either that, or he’s got NOTHING.

So now, barring an eleventh-hour settlement, it will be a convicted felon’s word against the Hero of New Orleans.  But all those Bayou folk should be aware:  Bush just admitted that his folks lived in a house owned by an Agent, but refused to say how much they paid.  Why would he refuse to prove his family’s innocence?  Oh yeah — Because they AREN’T innocent.  And regardless of how full of it Lake is, it doesn’t change the fact that Reggie and his family were living high on the hog, and even paid off another Agent to the tune of $300,000, just to keep him quiet.  Because HIS answers to those 61 questions would certainly bring the Death Penalty to USC, eradicating their 1 (read: ONE) BCS Title and would make Reggie’s Heisman go up in smoke.

And speaking of up in smoke, O. J. Mayojuana and his doobie brothers are now being investigated by the CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL.  No longer are we talking about a few bongloads and courtside Laker tickets:  Now it’s about falsiflying State documents, defrauding the IRS, and insulting the entire Black community by USING the horrible plight of Sickle Cell Anemia as a SCam to funnel money and goods to Mayo.  O.J. supposedly received benefits paid for with a credit card issued to a possibly BOGUS CHARITY — run by another convicted felon who previously pretended to be the Red Cross.  Hopefully the Attorney General will have a little more subpoena power than does the impotent NCAA.  Maybe we’ll just start calling the NCAA the “iNCAA.”

And speaking of impotent, trojan writer Scott Wolf has called out Mayo in his blog as a liar.  Mayo claims that he hasn’t seen his accuser Louis Johnson since January, but Wolf states emphatically that he saw Johnson and Mayo together repeatedly well AFTER January.  Let’s assume that Wolf doesn’t want to lie about something this delicate in the Daily News — So, if Mayo is lying about something that can be easily disproved by eyewitness testimony, how much trust do you have in what he says about the clandestine payments that the Agents were supposedly wiring to Mayo’s hometown buddies?

The upcoming months should be quite eventful, as all these investigations and prosecutions come to a head, injecting lots of juice into the Summer.  And speaking of injecting juice, there is a website that has recently posted before-and-after photos of trojan Football Star Brian Cushing, showing a Barry Bondsian transformation.  No, forget Barry Bonds — It was more like Optimus Prime or Bumble Bee.  He apparently went from the proverbial “98-pound weakling” to a rippled “Pumping Iron” freak of nature in a very short period of time. 

I am not going to re-post the photos here, because I don’t believe in stealing other sites’ exclusive photos like that.  And I can’t even tell you the name of the site, because they are currently stealing one of MY photos, of the UCLA Dance Team, without giving me any credit.  So, until they remedy that situation, I’m not going to give them any publicity.  Also, there is one other reason, albeit a far-fetched one:  The pictures could be farks, and I’m not going to trash a guy over a Photoshop job.  You’ll notice that MY farks — with bongs or Jack Daniels in them – are AFTER the official Police reports are in.  But having seen Brandon Hancock last year, knowing about the trojan Tings, and seeing how Pete Carroll runs his Program, the photos are probably real.  If you really want to see them, go to BruinZone’s Football Forum, or just Google Image “Brian Cushing Steroids.”   It should BULGE right out at you.  You’ve never seen so many bulges (except where it counts — you know what they say about steroids and shrinkage).