When you love a sport, a team or a player and you follow accordingly, it’s easy to

over-dramatize the commonplace trials and tribulations of a marathon-long season.

The media will cover every minor tremor in the “expert analyst-ordained” path of a

Championship contender, and when you really stop to think about it, the more “minor”

the problem, the more coverage it will get.

Take for example Boston’s regular season fall from grace, which hardly draws the same

attention these days as the Lakers recent 3-game loosing streak. Boston’s season-long lackluster

play has become standard at this point in the mind of the NBA nation, while the Lakers poor

play, associated only with a recent 3 game stretch, is a shock of cold water people can’t dodge.

Is this the reality of things?

I’m thinking…NOT.

In fact, I think it may just be the exact opposite. The Lakers “troubles” aren’t any more news

than their troubles the entire season, and Boston’s continued poor play should be a shocker

considering their talent and the expectations on their team. The fact Boston has yet to right the

ship is a NEWS story.

The thing is, we all focus daily on the numbers: loosing streaks, winning streaks, “last 10”,

Conference ranking, games behind, etc. This gives us something tangible to associate “news”

with and I’m saying it’s probably all wrong.

Sometimes you just have to distance yourself. Sure yet another “number” to throw out there is

“3” for the Lakers longest loosing streak since 2006, but it could’ve easily been 4 and many of the

2 game loosing streaks over the past 3 years could have easily been 3 games. When it comes to

analyzing purely numbers, there is often a lack of depth.

How’s the team really been playing? Well they’ve been playing poor, uneven, uninspired basketball,

but outside of a handful of stretches this year, could anyone with two senses about them argue

otherwise?

And in Boston’s case, have they really reached a point where no one expects anything else? Or is it

just the lack of media attention that allows us to conclude such? A lack of media attention that seems

to correspond positively with a holding pattern of wins verses loses in their season. Once they break

the cycle of 4 seed-worthy Eastern Conference play, for better or worse, there will be a story. This is

wrong!

Every year, a team is going to endue much. Some teams are going to endure more than others due

to injuries and other factors, but the season is going to have a certain ebb and flow and the ultimate

determination of a teams success lies not in how well they dodge regular season struggles and they

overall record, but where they are when it’s all said and done.

There’s a bit of road to travel yet and none of us know the stories that have yet to unfold…Okalahoma

City realizing their age and falling from playoff contention? Boston putting together that rock solid

defense that defines them and becoming, once again virtually unbeatable, Sasha Vujacic going on a

historic 3-point binge and leading the lakers to a 17-0 record down the stretch?