oh you thought we was done?

man oh man i was 100% prepared to throw the lakers and heat to the curb as two of their top players both went down with shoulder injuries. little did i know that the glaring duo that used to set staples center on fire would once again don their worn costumes and engage once again as masked crusaders.

neither is what they once were--kobe has moved from immature kid to the mamba, capable of striking with instantaneous speed at 99% accuracy; and shaq is now the big delegator, comfortable with the fact that he's not the best in the building. curiously, both of their chief supporters, the men who have enabled them to become this way, are both out with severely messed up shoulders and possibly shelved for the rest of the season.

it would have been perfectly excusable for both teams to fade from playoff contention, or in the lakers case fall to the 8th seed, which is actually worse. but these two masters--one former and one currently resplendent--were not having a damn word of that. kobe hung with the suns until the final seconds, and shaq turned in a vintage performance against his old nemeses the deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetroit pistons. we're talking flabby, been sitting on his ass, rehabbing a bum knee shaq, not BIG SHAQ DIESEL A.K.A. THE BIG ARISTOTLE.

these two are stars of another era. yes, i know it was only 4 years ago that they were lighting shit up on the reg'lar, and i know that kobe is still a dominant scoring threat, but the two-star system of championship winning is supposedly on its way out. new nba and all that. shaq and kobe are a call-back to the era where a single man, by the force of his will and talent alone, could sling a team onto his back as if it were a load of bricks and carry that team until his knees collapsed from under him. iverson is another of that era, as are the entirety of the post-30 nyk knicks.

this stretch in which they both drag their moribund franchises will be interesting not only to see if shaq still has it, or if kobe can lead the lakes through the fiery west, but as the ultimate acid test: can one man still make a team superlative? are they done, or back like jordan, wearing the 4-5?

P.S. check out lamar blogom guesting on some real shit over at never mind the bats it's a good blog.