Until a sea of blue jerseys swarmed him behind the batting cage.

It was a bunch of his former teammates with the Tampa Bay Rays, the Angels’ opponent that night. The Angels third baseman smiled, hugged several players and posed for a picture.

“Yunel was really good for us,” Rays third baseman Evan Longoria said. “I know he’s got off to a pretty good start and he always swung the bat well for us.”

It was not the kind of reception that would have been offered to a player with an inconsistent work ethic and off-putting demeanor, both tags that were applied to Escobar early in his 10-year career.

Editor’s note: Angels third baseman Yunel Escobar spoke to Register reporter Jessica Kwong in Spanish, so we decided to publish the story and a video in Spanish as well. 

Drafted by the Braves in the second round in 2005, he fell out of favor during his fourth season in Atlanta. That started an odyssey that included six additional teams during the next seven years: Toronto, Miami, Tampa Bay, Oakland (for four days), Washington and the Angels.

Needing a player to set the table for power hitters Mike Trout and Albert Pujols, the Angels traded young, rising reliever Trevor Gott to Washington for Escobar in December.

In a season in which so many things have gone wrong for the Angels, Escobar has been one of the lone bright spots. He is batting .301 with a .365 on-base percentage as the team’s leadoff hitter.

“I’ve worked very, very hard,” Escobar said in Spanish on Friday. “This is the beginning of the season, we still don’t know if we are good or bad. One week can be good, one week can be bad.”

The 33-year-old from Havana, Cuba, has “been a spark of energy for us,” Angels first base coach Gary DiSarcina said.

“We need him, I mean, we need him to play every day, which he’s done,” DiSarcina said. “He gets on base a lot via walk or base hits so we need that production definitely from the top of the order. … He’s done a great job providing them so far.”

DiSarcina said Escobar has also played solid defense at third base, a position he transitioned to from shortstop while with the Nationals last year.

Much of that, DiSarcina said, has been owed to guidance from Pujols, who has helped Escobar with positioning and moving around, getting him to think when a batter might bunt, or when it’s better to stay back.

Escobar and Pujols have developed more than a good working relationship on the field. Escobar, whose English is limited, was placed in a locker next to Dominican Pujols from the start, and the two have become buddies.

“I’m extremely comfortable with the (third base) position,” Escobar said. “Pujols has helped me a lot. He has been a critical piece in this team and all the players who pass through here have to speak well of Pujols,” he added half-jokingly, drawing a laugh from Pujols, who was nearby.

Escobar has come a long way since perhaps his darkest days in the major leagues. He hit .271 with a .335 OBP with the Blue Jays from 2010-12, but the team suspended him in September for wearing eye black with a homophobic slur in Spanish.

Though Escobar apologized and the team donated the salary he would have made during his three-game suspension to You Can Play and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, groups that fight discrimination in sports, the Blue Jays traded him two months later to the Miami Marlins.

“I think he’d be the first to admit he made a mistake,” said Longoria, adding that the language barrier is what he noticed Escobar seemed to struggle the most with.

“Yunel did a great job for us in terms of his attitude, in terms of his level of intensity,” Longoria said. “Every day he came ready to play – that’s really all you can judge a guy on.”

Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons said he has benefited from talking hitting with Escobar.

“He’s really good at going the other way and I mean in spring training, I worked with him doing that and it went well,” Simmons said. “I’ll watch him, mostly how he does that, hit the ball the other way, and some stuff will click with me.”

DiSarcina said Angels manager Mike Scioscia has refrained from restricting Escobar and allowed him to be himself. The result, DiSarcina said, has been “model behavior” and “a total pro.”

“Just let him be himself, don’t try to change his personality and what’s in the past is in the past with him,” DiSarcina said of Escobar’s controversial slip-up.

Escobar said he has no regrets or bitter feelings about his past, including his suspension by the Blue Jays. “One of the best in baseball,” he said of Toronto. “I’m very happy to have played there.”

Angels fans, too, have embraced the new third baseman.

The team last month gave the first 200 fans to arrive at a T-Mobile store in Santa Ana a chance to get Escobar’s autograph.

He stayed the entire time, speaking little but smiling and taking pictures with his phone of some of the items fans brought for him to sign. One was a detailed sketch. The others were old baseball cards in which Escobar wore No. 0, a number with sentimental value that hasn’t been able to wear in the U.S. so far.

“This is my favorite number, man,” Escobar said.

“Suerte,” the fan replied, Spanish for “good luck.”

“English becomes difficult outside of the clubhouse,” Escobar said Friday. “But while I’m in the clubhouse, the English is perfect.”

Escobar, who defected from Cuba and landed in the Florida Keys in 2004, said the style of play in his home country is different. Life in the U.S. has been more comfortable and tranquil, he said, but to one day return to Cuba “is a dream.”

“My team is in my heart and for my family,” he said. “As long as you keep playing baseball, everything is good.”

https://www.ocregister.com/2016/05/10/yunel-escobar-has-been-a-bright-spot-in-angels-season-full-of-tough-times/

*

En espanol o ingles, Yunel Escobar ha sido una de las pocas cosas positivas para los Angels este mes

Yunel Escobar focused on home plate as he waited his next turn during batting practice before Friday’s game at Angel Stadium. It seemed nothing could break his concentration.

https://www.ocregister.com/2016/05/10/en-espanol-o-ingles-yunel-escobar-ha-sido-una-de-las-pocas-cosas-positivas-para-los-angels-este-mes/

But the breathtaking price of a ticket for Bryant’s final game today has her considering selling the basketball keepsake with the most sentimental value.

It’s an official replica of the jersey Bryant wore when he played for Lower Merion High School in 1996. Mulligan, 25, bought it for $65, back when she was in eighth grade and Bryant was in his prime.

“I’ve had it so long, it’s kind of like my ‘Linus’ blanket, it’s gone to so many games with me,” she said.

“But a jersey versus being able to see him for the last time? That is a lot bigger deal, for sure.”

By midday Tuesday, the Westminster resident was offering two iPhones, a 32-inch flat-screen television and some True Religion jeans on Craigslist. If two of them sell, Mulligan figures she have cash to buy a nosebleed seat for $850, the cheapest ticket that brokers were selling 24 hours before the game.

Prices for Bryant’s last NBA game – up to $18,000 on Tuesday afternoon for courtside seats – are the highest for any regular season game that Barry Rudin of Barry’s Tickets has seen during his 33 years in the ticket business.

“It’s even bigger than (New York Yankee Derek) Jeter’s last game,” Rudin said.

The price to watch Bryant bow out is inching close to the priciest game Rudin’s ever seen, Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals. The Lakers beat the Boston Celtics that night, and the cheapest seat at Staples Center was $1,500.

Bryant announced on Nov. 29 that he’d be retiring at the end of this season, and within 10 minutes Barry’s Tickets had sold 150 seats. Some went for as little as $85 before the brokerage could bring prices up to what Rudin describes as market rate.

Rudin doesn’t expect prices to drop today. He and other brokers are running out of tickets, he said, because sellers would rather attend the game than let anything go for less than a super-high markup.

Carlos Gavia, 33, of Orange and his girlfriend, Jessica El Massry, 34, of Westminster, were among the fans who bought tickets on Nov. 29.

“I actually saw the prices changing as I was searching. I felt a little bit uneasy about things, about the money,” Gavia said, explaining that they were – and still are – planning their wedding.

“But my girlfriend said, ‘Just go for it, what the hell.’ She gave me the courage to go and just bite the bullet on that one.”

Their two tickets in Row 1, way up in Section 313, cost them $1,063 on Vivid Seats.

“It wasn’t anything like, ‘Oh my God, what did we do.’ It’s more like, ‘We can’t wait for the game,’” El Massry said.

Some sellers, however, do have regrets.

Joe Kristy, 61, of Corona, who has held Lakers season tickets for a decade, sold a pair of today’s game seats in Section 331 for $125 each, two weeks before the Nov. 29 announcement. A couple of months ago, he sold another pair of nosebleed seats for today’s game for $725 a pop.

At the time, he thought he could buy other tickets for less. Turns out he can’t.

“Ticket prices have ramped up,” Kristy said. “So I’ll watch on TV, like most other people.”

Fountain Valley resident Eric Sarraf, who said a highlight of working for an airline was watching Bryant deplane in 2010 after he’d played an exhibition game in Barcelona, wishes some tickets had been set aside for fans on a budget.

“The common people really can’t afford the ticket prices.”

But diehard fan Mulligan is still hoping to attend today’s game, and she’ll hold on to that Lower Merion jersey when she goes.

She’s thinking it’ll be a game-time decision if she has to sell the jersey to buy the ticket.

Mulligan was 5 when Bryant was drafted, and imitated his moves when she learned to play basketball as a kid. She eventually played at Orange Coast College and in local pickup leagues.

But she says she had to stop playing a few months ago, when she was diagnosed with lupus. Like Bryant, she said, she’s learned what it’s like to play a game one day and pay for it, physically, the next.

“Every time he got injured and came back, it was like, ‘Well, I can do it,’” Mulligan said.

“It’s going to be an adjustment without him being there anymore. It’s going to be pretty weird.”

https://www.ocregister.com/2016/04/13/to-get-in-to-his-final-nba-game-kobes-fans-say-buy-buy/

“I ate a lot of Jack In The Box in college and Taco Bell and now I’ve transferred into Whole Foods,” laughed Robert Sacre. “Grass-fed animals, that’s all I eat, is grass-fed animals and I make sure that it’s grass-fed cows when I drink milk. None of this like, you know, wannabe cows.”

He wasn’t joking.

Lakers strength and conditioning coach Tim DiFrancesco, tasked with receiving the Whole Foods Market deliveries at home and on the road, explained a typical pregame meal: grass-fed beef skewers or omelets from eggs from chickens that ate grass, bacon from humanely-raised pigs, full-fat chocolate milk from grass-fed cows.

The rationale, according to DiFrancesco, is you can’t out-train a bad diet. All the work he does with the players in the weight room and on the court would not be as effective without being supported on the back end by good nutrition. So the question became, ‘What is good nutrition?’

Part of the answer came in a book by Dr. Cate Shanahan that head athletic trainer Gary Vitti had on his desk just before training camp. A couple phone conversations with Dr. Shanahan confirmed that knowing where the food comes from is key. The search for those products kept bringing DiFrancesco and Vitti back to Whole Foods, so they went ahead and created a relationship that’s set to go on indefinitely.

“The one in El Segundo is one of the largest and most extensive stores in the country and we happen to have it in our backyard, so we’re very lucky about that,” DiFrancesco said. “And that being the hub, they communicate with all Whole Foods in the other cities we travel to, so it’s a seamless relationship.”

A standard pre-game spread includes Applegate organic sliced meats like turkey, pepperoni and genoa salami; Organic Valley raw sharp cheddar, mild cheddar and jack cheese; and naturally fermented dill pickles with healthy bacteria to boost the players’ immune systems. Even meals on the plane come from Whole Foods.

Stuck on sugar? Not anymore!

When word got out about the new nutrition project, some players feared they’d no longer be able to eat what they wanted.

“It’s like telling a kid he can’t have any candy!” said Antawn Jamison. “It’s not bad though, a lot of guys really take care of their body on the team anyway so it’s just letting us know that what we eat, what we do off the court really makes a difference on the performance on the court.”

Before the new regiment, Dwight Howard said he was “stuck on sugar” – not just candy, but four to five fruits a day. He’d have two or three good meals a day and then one McDonald’s.

“When I got with Tim, no candy at all,” he said. “Fruits once a day for breakfast and throughout the day, only eat almonds and crazy snacks, things I wouldn’t eat, ever.”

For meals, his new diet includes steak and pasta, but tomato-based sauce instead of alfredo. A break from strictly water means Kombucha, a synergy drink Howard described as having “real itty bitty stuff in the inside, looks nasty, like octopus or something is floating around.”

“I’m like ‘uhh’ but it’s actually pretty good and it helps me recover,” he said. “I miss having sodas and stuff like that but I want to be able to get my body back to 100 percent and start to help this team win and just help myself get in better shape.”

DiFrancesco described the difference in energy coming from good fats versus carbohydrates and sugars as analogous to building a fire with sticks and twigs.

“If you put a bunch and lit them, they would burst into flames but they would quickly die out, that’s what things like pasta, rice, different types of energy bars that have a lot of carbohydrates and sugars end up doing,” he said.

‘It sucks, but it’s worth it’

The adjustment has varied among players.

At 39 years old, Steve Nash already watched what he ate and just had to try to get more healthy fats in his diet.

“It’s been good, I think it’s helped me. I feel like I have a lot of energy and my joints feel better too,” he said.

Arguably the most disciplined player in the league, Kobe Bryant cut out pepperoni pizza, Sour Patch Kids, sugar cookies in favor of fish, lean meat and vegetables last summer.

“It sucks, but it’s worth it,” said Bryant.

Now 16 pounds lighter, the superstar is putting up numbers better than his career averages in points, rebounds, assists and minutes per game, as well as shooting percentage, despite this being his 17^th season.

“The diet has a lot to do with it to be honest with you, I think it’s really impacted my energy level,” he said after scoring 41 points and leading the Lakers to a remarkable comeback against the Toronto Raptors earlier this month.

Strict as their new diet may be, players do get five or six meals out of the week on their own. DiFrancesco said it’s not about wagging a finger and telling players they can’t eat what they love, but instead educating them on how certain foods can impair their performance and empowering them to make better choices.

Jodie Meeks said he still eats pizza and fries sometimes, but tries to limit that intake during the season.

“As you get older, you have to watch what you eat,” he said. “I like the diet. It gives you more energy and they’ve done a great job of giving us an idea of what to eat when he’s not around.”

Indeed, DiFrancesco’s carrot-not-the-stick approach of surrounding players with the right food choices has gotten many of them hooked on healthy eating.

“The guys start saying, ‘Where did you get this? I really want this at home,’ because they notice how much better they feel and how much it helps them to avoid injury and breakdown during the course of the season,” DiFrancesco said.

Having a nutrition regiment is a luxury compared to the days when legend James Worthy was a Laker.

“It wasn’t as apparent as it is now,” the Hall-of-Famer said about emphasis on having nutritionists and someone like DiFrancesco around.

“I don’t want to give him credit, but I have to give him credit,” said Sacre, who’s been able to limit his number of stops at Popeyes chicken. “I’ve definitely seen an improvement and it’s helped me, so I don’t really look back at what I used to eat.”

http://www.twcsportsnet.com/articles/2013/03/26/kwong-lakers-nutrition-032613

Defenseman Jason Demers’ one-timer from the right point with 58 seconds remaining in the first period tied the game at 1-1. It was in the middle of the second period that the Sharks let themselves slip, allowing the Ducks to net two goals in 34 seconds and three within 2:46.

Said center Logan Couture of Anaheim’s goals at 11:09, 11:43 and 13:55 that put his team down 4-1:

“It was seven minutes maybe, seven really, really bad minutes and we shot ourselves on the foot once again. So frustrating to give up those goals and those chances. I mean, obviously we responded well in the third and pretty much dominated the third period but it’s seven minutes you can’t have and you’re not going to win like that. So it’s tough.”

The goal that started the onslaught was a beautiful display of passing resulting in a tic-tac-toe goal by Peter Holland.

Again, the Sharks would go on the attack late in the second period, with center Patrick Marleau netting one from the right circle at 19:31 assisted by Martin Havlat and Douglas Murray. At 4-2, there was hope.

It became very much a game 6:48 in the third period, when defenseman Matt Irwin fired a shot from the left circle off a pass from Brent Burns and made  it a one goal game at 4-3. Irwin told SFBay:

“We played hard in third period and gave ourselves the chance to climb back into it.”

In an ideal world, the Sharks would score the last-minute goal to tie the game but instead,  it was Anaheim’s Francois Beauchemin who would capitalize on San Jose’s turnover and go in for the kill on the easy empty netter with :46 left in regulation.

San Jose coach Todd McLellan wasn’t as upset after this loss as he was against the defending Stanley Cup champions on Saturday, saying that the effort was better but the results were the same: disappointing. McLellan said:

“Tomorrow when we wake up, it’s going to be a loss and we’re going to be two points behind everybody else. We took a big checking game, a tight game, and turned it into a track meet and that certainly doesn’t favor us.”

The Ducks’ twelfth straight win at home is a new franchise record, and they’ve won both encounters against the Sharks at the Honda Center. San Jose captured a win at home in late January back when the team was 6-0.

There are two more games left in the season series. The Sharks finale of the five game roadie is back here in Anaheim next Monday.

McLellan again referenced the track meet-style play in looking ahead:

“The plan will be not to open the game and play that fast 200-foot game that favors them and doesn’t favor us.”

Sharks center Joe Thornton attributed this loss to his team’s mistakes, explaining:

“We got away from the game. Our game is grind them out, use our big bodies. We totally got away from it for some reason in the second for five, six minutes and they made us pay.”

But Marleau had a brighter take on the performance of his team:

“I think we’re going to try and focus on the positives. I think guys are seeing what it’s going to take to win games and we have to do it more consistently throughout the game.”

Adding insult to injury for the Sharks, San Jose gave up the first career NHL goal to Anaheim’s Emerson Etem who also had an assist. Corey Perry also hit the jackpot by inking an eight-year, $69 million contract extension to remain with the Ducks.

Rookie Viktor Fasth who has supplanted Jonas Hiller as the number one goalie, stopped 32 of 35 shots for the Ducks.

Notes

Sharks forward Ryane Clowe did not play. Clowe was injured in the prior game at Los Angeles and sat out with a bum shoulder. He has just nine assists and zero goals in 25 games. … Dan Boyle, Brent Burns, Andrew Desjardins, and Matt Irwin were each a minus-2 on the scoresheet.

http://sfbay.ca/2013/03/19/ducks-feast-on-sharks-mistakes/

The Bulls took charge at the start Saturday and entered the final period with a 3-1 lead. But history repeated itself before 8,409 at the Citizens Business Bank Arena as the Ontario Reign caught up to force overtime and beat the Bulls in a shootout to win 4-3.

Did the Bulls play better on the second of the back-to-backs, though?

Bulls assistant coach Kyle Paige told SFBay:

“Yeah, definitely. At the start of the game we kept the style simple and got the puck through the net and in the third period, they took control. With a team this good, the key is to limit those mistakes so they don’t get those chances.”

After San Francisco gave up two goals in the final period and overtime went scoreless, the teams went into a shootout. Said Paige:

“In a shootout, it’s anyone’s game really.”

The Reign made it theirs, with the second of their three successful shootout goals playing out epic, if not theatrical.

Up 1-0 at the end of two rounds, Ontario’s Colton Yellow Horn skated in innocently enough. Once he skated past the slot, he passed the puck through his legs to his right skate, then spun and beat sprawling Bulls’ goalie Thomas Heemskerk glove side with a nifty two-handed backhand.

Heemskerk recounted:

“The ESPN highlight reel. I just remember he kind of pushed it blocker side and next thing I knew, I was behind the play and he was going the other way. I couldn’t catch up.”

The Bulls’ Dean Ouellet answered with the only Bulls shootout goal, then Ontario’s Jason Beeman finished the Bulls off with a right-handed finisher.

Though the Bulls lost after a 3-1 shootout, Paige told SFBay he wasn’t disappointed in Heemskerk’s work as the goalie:

“He probably would have liked to get a couple saves but they had a lot of skilled forwards that were tough to stop, so I thought he played well.”

Earlier, the Reign had taken the first goal of the game at 17:03 into the first period thanks to forward Kyle Kraemer. The Bulls had luck on their side at the very end of the period with a power play, when a stifled Andrew Crescenzi shot allowed Justin Bowers to score on the right side into an open net.

The second period was all Bulls – specifically forward Jordan Morrison. His first goal whizzed past Ontario goalie Chris Carrozzi at 17:17, and just over a minute later the puck hit a defenseman before Morrison deflected it into an unguarded net.

Said Morrison:

“The second one was just a lucky bounce.”

Doom began to descend on the Bulls halfway through the third period, when Reign right wing Dan DaSilva passed the puck to forward Chris Cloud who sent it sailing past Heemskerk just inside the left circle.

At 17:03, a cluster of Reign circulated the goal to defenseman Vincent LoVerde for a shot off the right side past Heemskerk’s blocker to tie the game at 3-3.

As for the rest, well, you already know.

Of his team’s performance, Reign head coach Jason Christie said:

“We got sidetracked a little but came back in the third period and worked hard.”

The Bulls also lost in a shootout in Ontario Oct. 17, 5-4. San Francisco, eighth in the Western Conference, is 1-7 against the Reign, second in the conference. They return home to battle the Las Vegas Wranglers on Friday at 7:15 p.m., and won’t face their doom again until Jan. 31 when the Reign visit at the Cow Palace.

Heemskerk admitted the Bulls have to figure out how to play a full game against the Reign:

“They’re a great team, really tough, especially against us, not too sure why or if there’s a reason.”

His teammate Morrison, however, was more optimistic:

“I think our guys worked hard. We didn’t get outcome we wanted but it’s a long season. We’ll play these guys a few more times and we’ll get ‘em.”

http://sfbay.ca/2012/12/23/reign-dazzle-bulls-with-shootout-finish/

Hace 10 días, los Guerreros derrotaron la escuadra poderosa del Heat de Miami, y ayer vencieron a los Bobcats de Charlotte por cinco puntos mientras que los Lakers en su último partido en Charlotte apenas ganaron por uno.

Ésta noche en el Oakland Coliseum, los Lakers, terceros en la división pacifica con un récord de 12-14, buscarán conseguir su gira más larga de cuatro victorias ante los Guerreros, segundos en la misma división con un récord de 18-9.

Los Ángeles se encuentran en una mejor posición que estaba en las últimas semanas cuando ambos titulares Pau Gasol y Steve Nash estuvieron en la banca por lesiones. El español ha regresado, y hay posibilidad haga su mucho anticipado regreso Nash contra Golden State.

El la práctica ayer, Nash dijo a reporteros que se sintió bien después de dos días de entrenamiento con su equipo pero considerando que ha jugado dos días de baloncesto en 7 semanas, “la probabilidad es baja” que pueda estar en uniforme hoy.

“Vamos a ver. Voy a tener que hablar con todos para calcular no solo cómo me siento sino también cómo se ajusta en la imagen grande”, relató ‘El Mago’. “Si todos se sienten bien entonces hay chanza que jugaré, pero el día de Navidad seguro”.

La amenaza que presentan los Guerreros son sus buenos anotadores, principalmente la guardia Stephen Curry que tiene un promedio de 19.9 puntos y 6.3 asistencias por partido y el atacante David Lee con un promedio de 19.8 puntos y 11.2 rebotes.

“Anotan el balón extremadamente bien”, señaló el jefe entrenador Mike D’Antoni sobre los oponentes. “Probablemente es el primer año que Curry está saludable y eso cambia el equipo como cualquier guardia buena lo hace, y David Lee es muy buen ofensivamente”.

El jefe entrenador de los Guerreros, Mark Jackson, expresó que no tendrá reservaciones en usar el método ‘Hack-a-Dwight’ contra los Lakers, que es cometer faltas a propósito al centro estrella de los Lakers porque no tiene buen porcentaje con los tiros libres.

Dwight Howard expresó poca preocupación al oír ésta táctica.

“Está bien por mí, está bien”, dijo. “He estado trabajando en mis tiros libres, entonces si pasa, estaré listo para hacerlo pagar”.

En el primer encuentro con los Guerreros el 9 de noviembre, los Lakers los vencieron 101-77 y han ganado 17 de los últimos 18 partidos. Kobe Bryant, quién anotó 27 puntos en el último partido contra Golden State, sigue siendo el líder anotador de la éne-bé-a con 29 puntos por partido.

Sin embargo, la falta de consistencia es el desafío que sigue enfrentando a los Lakers, según el anunciador John Laguna de Time Warner Cable Deportes.

En esa área los Guerreros han superado, según los comentarios de Nash: “Pienso que tienen gran espíritu ésta temporada y sabes que su entrenador tiene gran química con los jugadores y pienso que tienen un gran entendimiento sobre lo que él quiere y creen en él, entonces los pone en una posición que les da chanza de ganar”.

Los comentaristas de Time Warner Cable Deportes estuvieron de acuerdo que el partido no será fácil para los Lakers.

Lo más importante para la escuadra de los Lakers, según el presentador Ricardo Celis, será “que jueguen los 48 minutos y no se les olvide ni un cuarto”.

El partido se arranca a las 7:30 pm en el canal Time Warner Cable Deportes o Time Warner Cable SportsNet.

“Lakers ya ganaron el primer partido entre estos dos equipos”, comentó el anunciador Pepe Mantilla. “Y puede ganar este otro lo cual le daría ánimos positivos para el enfrentamiento del 25 de diciembre en asa contra Nueva York”.

http://www.twcdeportes.com/articles/2012/12/22/previa-lakers-warriors

Es a Philadelphia donde se fue el centro Andrew Bynum de los Lakers en el intercambio que trajo a Dwight Howard a Los Ángeles y envió Andre Iguodala de los 76ers a los Nuggets de Denver. Sin embargo, Bynum no ha podido jugar por sus rodillas y parece que Howard lo va a tener más fácil contra Lavoy Allen de los Sixers.

Además, es posible que los Sixers no van a tener el líder anotador de su equipo, Jrue Holiday, por una lesión en el pie por tener un promedio de 17 puntos por partido.

Según el anunciador Pepe Mantilla en el show ‘Somos Lakers Éne-bé-a’, los Sixers pueden dominar si juega Holiday “porque los Lakers tienen Lakercina, que es curar los equipos malos”.

Inexplicablemente, la púrpura y oro ha perdido contra equipos malos como los Caveliers de Cleveland, y los Sixers con un récord de 12-11 tampoco se consideran muy buenos.

Sin Iguodala, los Sixers van a tener que contar con Evan Turner, con un promedio de 15.4 puntos por partido, para defender Kobe Bryant, quien sigue siendo el líder anotador en la liga con 29.3 puntos por partido y quien aparte nació en Philadelphia.

Otro Laker que tiene un pasado con Philadelphia es el guardia Jodie Meeks, quien jugó con los Sixers desde el 2010 hasta el año pasado.

“Va a ser emocionante, pero la única cosa que quiero es que ganemos”, relató Meeks después del partido el viernes. “Estoy seguro que voy a oír un par de ‘boo’s’ pero no estoy enfocado en eso. Es una buena ciudad”.

Aún otro Laker puede esperar ‘boo’s’, Metta World Peace, quién nació en Nueva York, una ciudad que los fanáticos en Philadelphia odian. En entrevistas con reporteros, World Peace dijo que no sabía de ésta tensión.

“Seguro que es una audiencia difícil, es una ciudad difícil si no estás en su equipo”, expresó World Peace. “Philadelphia es difícil como Nueva York, como Los Ángeles, donde son todos para el deporte. Para nosotros, solo tenemos que jugar juntos”.

Los Lakers siguen sin Pau Gasol por tendinitis en las rodillas, Steve Nash por la fractura en la pierna, y Steve Blake por cirugía abdominal.

La clave para los Lakers será buscar los triples, según el anunciador Fernando González en el show ayer.

Pero Mantilla señaló: “No me extrañaría ver a Jason Richardson (de los Sixers) hacerles varios triples a los Lakers porque se especializa en eso”.

En el único partido que tuvieron en la temporada corta el año pasado, los Sixers derrotaron los Lakers 95-90 en Philadelphia.

El partido, el último de una gira de cuatro partidos fuera de casa para Los Ángeles, arranca a las 3 p.m. en los canales Time Warner Cable Deportes y Time Warner Cable SportsNet.

Cuando el presentador Elmur Souza de Time Warner Cable Deportes le preguntó a los anunciadores por sus pronosticas, sus respuestas definieron la inconsistencia que ha caracterizado los Lakers.

“Va a ganar el equipo de los Lakers”, opinó Mantilla.

“Puede ganar los Lakers”, opinó González.

“We’ll figure it out when Steve comes back and gives a little more flow to it,” D’Antoni said about the team’s lackluster offense following Tuesday night’s loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“Right now, we’re all screwed up,” he admitted.

Sure, Steve Nash was D’Antoni’s key facilitator when he led the Phoenix Suns to 33-victory increase in 2004-05 on the way to being named Coach of the Year. But that was eight years ago. Now Nash is 38, has missed the last 23 games due to a small left leg fracture, and is still out indefinitely.

The Lakers won their last two games, but their opponents – the Washington Wizards and Philadelphia 76ers – were missing key players, and a 11-14 record is nowhere near ‘Laker basketball’.

Is it wise for D’Antoni to bank so much on one star player’s return?

7 seconds or less

It’s not unwise, according to Time Warner Cable SportsNet analyst and 25-year basketball coach Dave Miller, because D’Antoni “has no other choice due to the fact that this is how he wants this team to play.”

The D’Antoni system, dubbed ‘seven seconds or less’, calls for players to execute a fast-paced offense, run the floor and take quick shots. The more possessions, the better the chance of victory. All this with good balance, rhythm and flow.

“He’ll run the offense like nothing,” D’Antoni said of Nash in his introductory press conference last month. “For the other guys, it’s very simple. He’s a big part of it; we got Steve Blake coming back and he’s a big part of it. (Chris) Duhon knows it already, so that’s cool. We’ll get the other guys up to snuff. But the process should not be long and it should not be tedious at all.”

But the process has been long for the Lakers, and their 6-9 record under D’Antoni suggests they haven’t made much progress picking up his system. But whether or not they’re words inspired from their head coach, the players are betting on the same saving grace.

“Steve’s been conducting this offense for a while, and when he gets out on the floor he’ll be able to put guys in the right places,” Kobe Bryant said during practice earlier this month.

After the Lakers lost to the Cavs, a frustrated Bryant reiterated that catch phrase.

“When Steve gets back,” he said, “We’ll do a lot of running of that nature, try to do the ‘Showtime’ thing, get up and down the floor.”

That’s placing a big bet on Nash, but D’Antoni “has to put that much unwarranted pressure on Steve” because his offense was a custom fit for an elite point guard who understands transition basketball, according to Miller.

“He has no other recourse because there’s no other guard on the Lakers roster that understands the ebb and flow – when to push it, how to push it,” Miller said. “No one is a better floor general, regardless of age.”

The silver lining in all of this is that available point guards Chris Duhon and Darius Morris are going to have to learn the job, he said.

But former Lakers point guard Magic Johnson shared a different view recently.

At a Los Angeles Dodgers press conference (Johnson is a minority owner), he said D’Antoni’s offense system doesn’t fit the Lakers and that Bryant is the only player who can get up and down the court.

“What the coach has to do is say, ‘I have a certain philosophy but I don’t have the players to play that scheme and that system,’” Johnson said. “I’ve got to adjust my system a little if I’m the coach.”

Committed to the system

The franchise, however, seems committed to D’Antoni’s system, even though Nash’s timeline remains unclear amid reports he may start practicing this week, and backup point guard Steve Blake is out through January while he recovers from abdominal surgery.

After his team fell to the New York Knicks, Nash told media “I can see some light at the end of the tunnel” but admitted that playing at the level he wants to might take some time even after he’s in uniform.

“All I can do is fight every day to get better, put myself through some of those painful workouts and hopefully this thing heals and I can get in shape sooner rather than later,” he said.

Nash also hinted at one of the Lakers’ fears – that his return might not be the magic solution everyone’s been waiting for.

“Hopefully I can help, but for me I just feel for my teammates. It’s been a tough year,” he said. “Hopefully we can get our guys back and we can all pitch in and make us a little better. But I still think there’s a lot of growing to do for this team regardless of who’s in or out of the lineup.”

Of the remaining point guards, Morris hasn’t contributed much beside a 15-point quarter against the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday, and Duhon has had mixed results. Duhon blamed a recent loss to the Utah Jazz, another lower-ranked team, on the Lakers’ defense – not offensive elements.

“We have the talent. We’re going to score. We just don’t play defense,” he said. “Until we do, nothing’s going to change.”

D’Antoni’s lack of emphasis on defense was, in fact, the criticism from Johnson and others that overshadowed concerns that his system might not suit the older, slower Lakers.

While the team is averaging more points per game – 103.1 under D’Antoni versus 97.8 under Brown – they are also allowing their opponents to score more. They limited opponents to 95.2 points under Brown, but have given up at least 100 in nine of D’Antoni’s 15 games so far.

“When Nash comes back” may be D’Antoni’s go-to answer, but he’s not turning a blind eye to the lacking defense.

“It won’t cure everything but it’ll help,” he said of Nash’s return. “But at that point, if it doesn’t cure some stuff, then we’re going to need to have some heart-to-hearts and we need to understand what’s going on. If he can’t run it, then we’ve got some problems.”

With the Lakers under .500 and 12th in the Western Conference a quarter of the season through, one thing is certain – Lakers fans are tired of excuses.