2010 Season Preview: Los Angeles Lakers

It's time for the Love in the Time of LeBron 2010 Season Team Previews. You know how we do. Next up, the defending champions, the Los Angeles Lakers.

Classification
Winners

Why We Care
The past two years they have won the NBA championship and the have given every indication that they intend to win again. No one will be surprised if they do. The Lakers are the best proven team in basketball and only got better in the off-season. Kobe Bryant is a genius and no matter how much Pau Gasol is praised, he is underrated. We love Lamar and Ron with no apologies to anyone. This team, even without Kobe Bryant, is a very good contender. With Kobe Bryant, they frighten me. This team is a force of nature. A typhoon, an earthquake, a plague of locusts. We watch them because it would be dangerous to leave them unwatched.

Significant Beards
Ron Artest: Goatee. Thin, neat, slightly debonaire.
Matt Barnes: Smudge beard. Please erase.
Shannon Brown: Unremarkable goatee. B+ for participation.
Andrew Bynum: Barely there. Beard tease.
Derek Fisher: Barely perceptible box-goatee. Don’t squint.
Pau Gasol: Drama major beard. Understudy at best.
Lamar Odom: Big head, tiny soul patch.

Guiding Text
Thus Spake Zarathustra

If They Were A Late-90’s Teen Movie They Would Be...
She's All That

LeBron on the Lakers
Hell no. No way. This couldn’t happen. It was an outrage, a sin, a shame. A travesty, a disaster, a catastrophe. A farce, a mockery, a cruel sick joke. He felt sick. He was going to vomit. No he wasn’t. He took a deep breath, remembered some of the techniques Phil had taught him. He took a deep breath. It would be fine. It didn’t matter. It would be fine. None of it mattered except what he could control. Yet, surely he could control this. Surely, he had the clout. He could make a scene, make threats. He probably wouldn’t have to. This was his town. He could change this, he could stop this. Should he?

Would they question his motives? What would they say? Would he care what they said? He was golden now. Untouchable. Unable to be touched. It didn’t matter what they said. They could say anything. What if they said “Colorado”? He paused. His chest felt tight and he wasn’t sure if he was breathing right. He felt nauseous. No. He would be bigger. “It’s all about the team.” Putting his pride first wouldn’t be tolerated. Putting his personal feelings and his pride above everything else would make him a marked man. They would turn against him. They couldn’t turn against them. But what if they did? He vomited.

LeBron actually laughed out loud at the thought.

Kobe slept soundly.

Rosetta Stone
This pretty much explains it.