“Observe and Report”: Deceptively good?

“Observe and Report” is the kind of movie that you are always surprised got made after you finish watching it. “They got THAT in there?” you mutter to yourself as you ponder the nation going to hell in a hand basket. Honestly though, I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie became an absolute cult classic on DVD in five years.

In a lot of ways, “Observe and Report” is one of the more skillful smattering of pop culture and indictment of the American dream we've had in recent years. Ronnie Barnhardt (surprisingly well-played by Rogen, an actor I’ve tired of in recent years) is the 21st century Travis Bickle from “Taxi Driver,” a rent-a-cop who’s a bipolar byproduct of the “Breakfast Club” generation. Ronnie believes he’s special in the way that parents tell their kindergartners and follows his dreams to reckless extremes.
Ronnie is narcissistic, paranoid, and delusional. His reality is totally skewed, from the importance of his job as “head of mall security” to his incessant interference with police investigations. He misses the cute girl at the food court to fake a relationship with Brandi (Anna Faris), a vacuous and nauseating tease from behind the cosmetics counter who is one of the most despicable women I’ve ever seen put to film. She’s truly awful, but Ronnie describes her as “the most beautiful woman in the mall, maybe the world.”

Our protagonist frames his world in grandiose terms, good and evil. He’s a mall cop version of Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity. I envision him blasting either heavy metal or Rush Limbaugh to get psyched in the morning. His speeches sound like they come from a preposterous comic book (“The world needs a fucking hero”). He’s the epitome of the American nightmare, unable to grasp what’s going on but incredibly aggressive in the fact that he’s in control and has the right solution. As a result, his methods are extreme; we see him beating skateboarders over the head and tazing people over parking tickets.

After failing to become a police officer, the mall becomes of otherworldly importance to Ronnie and he’ll do anything to protect it. When there is a flasher running amok in his mall, traumatizing his clientele and his love, Ronnie sees this “case” as his chance for redemption, to do good on his dream. Throughout the film, I never doubted Ronnie’s intentions. He always thought he was doing the right thing, even if he deluded himself when necessary. It was just appalling to see how much damage a well-intentioned human being, or country, can do when it flails about unable to lucidly engage reality.

I’m sure you’re thinking back, how did he possibly like this character? There are some real moments of tenderness with his alcoholic mother, brilliantly played by Celia Weston (“I’m making a change too, son. I’m switching to beer. I can pound that shit all day and keep my shit together”). When she has trouble, Ronnie does a good job taking care of her. He tries to make her proud like he was still six. It’s kind of sweet to watch her help him get ready for his big date.

The movie has a great supporting cast. Ray Liotta is stellar as Ronnie’s nemesis, a real cop who’s trying to solve the case. Michael Pena is phenomenal as Ronnie’s #2, his right hand in the crack team of rent-a-cops. Jesse Plemons (Landry from “Friday Night Lights”), Aziz Ansari (“Parks and Recreation”), and Patton Oswalt make effective cameos as well. This movie is so far outside lines that these actors relish the freedom that comes along with breaking all the rules in a film. “Observe and Report” was highly controversial when it came out because of a quasi-date rape scene and high levels of offensive language towards women and minorities.

In the end, it’s hard for me to tell how much I really liked this movie and how much I was just impressed by its subversive bravery. Additionally, I’ll be the first to admit I had pretty low expectations going in. It’s such homage to the annals of Hollywood that it’s hard to decide if it’s derivative or a Quentin Tarantino-esque film about a loser. I can tell you that I respected the repulsive moments and sickening violence much more than I felt in the half-hearted mess that was “Pineapple Express.” “Pineapple” refused to choose what kind of movie it was and ultimately failed, an uneven and unsatisfying movie with a decidedly superior first half. “Observe and Report” knew all along what it was and went for it without reservations. You have to respect that.

We never know what the filmmaker thought about Ronnie, but his indecision here seems purposeful. Does his success vindicate his insanity? More importantly, did the film work? All I know for sure is that when Ronnie finally triumphs, solving the case and getting the girl, he pumped his fist in the air a la “Breakfast Club” and I wanted to pump mine along with him. I won’t forget about you, Ronnie, and anyone who slams Patton Oswalt’s head into an oven door (hands down my favorite part of the movie) is A-OK with me.

Grade: B+

Great Sentence

"You could chalk it up to the virtuosic navel-gazing of the Facebook generation, whose self-regard for its own passing cultural experiences bests even that of the boomers."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/08/why-is-third-eye-blind-so-popular-again.html

Is "District 9" an All-Time Great?

In my opinion, "District 9" is not a great movie, but let me clarify what I mean by that. A movie with a premise that clever and innovative can go one of two ways when it is forced to introduce a plot into its universe: it can rise to the occasion and execute well enough to keep the momentum alive or it can be dragged down by the artificial introduction. Movies that are all-time great, execute with precision and don't feel forced. You allow yourself to forget you are watching a movie and get lost in the action, suspending your disbelief. You can allow yourself to feel emotionally attached to the characters and their destinies.

The ones that fail ride well-worn trails of cliches, Hollywood schlock, and contain cheesy, gimmicky plots that insult your intelligence. Style over substance. We've all seen Michael Bay's sorry excuse for character development and movies that never had a real concept in the first place. "District 9" is by no means a failure, it's a very good movie, but it sputters and ultimately fails to deliver on its promise. I felt there was no momentum left by the end.

WARNING SPOILERS BELOW: you may want to stop reading if you haven't seen the film

I loved the first 30 minutes. Loved them. The documentary style, the Office-like humor, the incredible detail and seamless special effects, visually stunning but understated. The set-up was perfect and the commentary was evident without overwhelming. Then the plot hit. In and of itself, Wikus turning into an alien wasn't necessarily a bad idea; however, the way it came to fruition was. Blomkamp himself said in an interview he tried to pander to a popcorn level to avoid being too serious. Instead of creating what could have been all-time great, he settled for well-worn action cliches.

There are directors who can get away with applying a formula without getting called on it. Spike Lee comes to mind. In Blomkamp's first picture, he shows promise but is not quite deft enough to completely pull it off. I think I've seen the oppressor-gets-alienated-by-his-kind-and-teams-up-with-one-of-the-oppressed plotline about 100 times. I'm sure this isn't true, yet I feel like I have heard the exact line Wikus utters when he stays to fight the bad guys, heroically knowing he will probably die. I thought the "Training Day" ending was OK, but we can hardly call it original. The metamorphosis is straight from "The Fly." It's hard not to draw comparisons to "Robocop", "Aliens", "Alien Nation", and basically every other science fiction film you've ever seen. When he's making the flower for his wife as a full-on Prawn, I felt sick to my stomach.

Furthermore, the commentary didn't quite work when it became an incoherent rant against multinational corporations (the preeminent generic sci-fi cliche, as Slate can tell you better than I: http://www.slate.com/id/2225285/). Where was the documentary aspect after about 30 minutes? If only both halves were of similar quality. Frankly, the 6 minute "Alive in Joburg" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlgtbEdqVsk) it's based on is better. With alien interviews where they're pleading for necessities and gritty news footage, it does more in 6 minutes to effectively illustrate the allegory to apartheid than the feature film did in 2 hours. It evokes more feeling too. If you want to see an amazing movie where monsters bring out the monsters in men, watch "The Host." Amazing movie.

Anyway, where does District 9 stand in the halls of science fiction? I'm going to make an informal list with Rotten Tomato Tomatometer %. Rotten Tomatoes tracks the % of critics that would recommend seeing the movie, thumbs up or down. Please note that I'm doing modern era, so I'm not putting "Metropolis", "The Day the Earth Stood Still", or anything like that. I'm also excluding comic book movies (not graphic novels) and comedies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "Ghostbusters." Straight sci-fi. I will also admit I haven't seen any other "Star Trek" movies, "Serenity", or "District B13". I am exempting animation because I know virtually nothing about it.

All-Time Greats:
2001 (96%)
Alien, Aliens (97%, 100%)
A Clockwork Orange (91%)
Terminator, T2 (100%, 97%)
Star Wars (93%,) <-- I'm only putting one, so deal with it.
The Matrix (86%)
Blade Runner (94%)
Brazil (98%)
ET (98%)

Still Great, But Clearly Tier II:
Solaris (98%)
Road Warrior (100%)
Minority Report (91%)
The Host (92%)
Children of Men (92%)
Gattaca (78%)
The Fly (91%)
WALL-E (96%)

Tier III:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (95%)
Planet of the Apes (88%)
Twelve Monkeys (85%)
The Abyss (84%)
Donnie Darko (91%)
Sunshine (75%)
Scanner Darkly (67%)
The Thing (77%)
The Fountain (51%)--> I love this movie, I don't care if it got mixed responses. It's moving and beautiful, gets me every time. Total success, sometimes obscurity can be rewarding.


The Best of the Action Packed, Not Too Serious Flicks
Robocop (88%)
District 9 (89%)
Total Recall (79%)
Escape from New York (81%)
Predator (76%)
Fifth Element (70%)

Highly Flawed, but Strove for Greatness:
AI (73%)
Dark City (77%)
Matrix Reloaded (76%)

Pretty Good, but Don't Quite Deliver on Premise:
Star Trek (2009) (95%)
V for Vendetta (73%)
Cloverfield (77%)
I Am Legend (69%)
War of the Worlds (73%)

Dumber Action Films:
Starship Troopers (60%)
Independence Day (62%)
I, Robot (58%)
Event Horizon (21%)
Equilibrium (36%)

Total Failures:
Alien 3 (34%)
Stargate (43%)
Armageddon (41%)
Matrix Revolutions (37%)
The Island (40%)
Godzilla (2000) (26%)
Doom (20%)
Alien vs. Predator (22%)

Today Was a Good Day Extended Version

Old news I know, but in case people haven't seen it, here's the extended version of the Nike SB commercial. The Kobester makes an appearance.

Aphorisms

-If you read one thing today, please let it be this article on health care from the Harvard Business Review. A few gems:

"Americans spend more on products, and receive less services. Americans realize amongst the poorest health outcomes of developed nations. Americans have the lowest life expectancy amongst developed nations — 78.1 years, compared to 81 in the UK, and 82 in Switzerland. Lower levels of service and more money spent on the same drugs, translate, as you might reasonably expect, into poorer outcomes."

"Healthcare in America is a textbook example of thin value. The healthcare industry maintains significantly supernormal profitability — yet, those profits are divorced from people being relatively better off. An American healthcare industry that "creates value" by limiting how much better off people are is simply transferring value from society to shareholders."

The disincentives within health care are unbelievable. These insurance providers are publicly traded entities that must constantly compete with one another for best in class payout metrics and push higher and higher margins at the expense of care. Finding technicalities to avoid payment and cleansing unprofitable accounts is different when it's human lives at stake. We won't fix health care until we make care the primary goal of insurers, not shareholder return. I've heard it before from a friend, but I believe non-profit insurance entities are the close thing to a "solution" that I've heard.

-I like to believe that my efforts sending Lamar Odom articles with reasons to join the Lakers on twitter and my blog post on this humble establishment helped lobby him to LA. That and the Lakers offered more money, home, and a chance to win another championship. I believe he had serious consideration for Miami and I have to say D-Wade was able to scare me, but I think Lamar Odom belongs in LA. I'm very very excited about the NBA season this year.

-The Lakers are the clear favorite to win the championship. If Artest buys in and steps up his defense, we're going to be very very scary. Assuming Bynum is able to regain some of the form he's shown in flashes and stays healthy, hoping that Farmar/Brown take the quantum leap (3rd year for Mr. Farmar I believe), and seeing Sasha Vujacic actually shoot the ball and we're talking about a potentially dominant team. Just like last year when I was so frustrated with this 65 win club (how is that even possible) because they only scratched the surface of their potential so often with their lackadaisical commitment to defense and inability to care as much as teams need to be great. But I have to give it to them: they flipped a switch during that Nuggets series and developed another gear against Orlando. No one in the NBA could have beaten us in that series.

Before the championship, you would say the Lakers had three mortal weaknesses on defense: fast point guards, three point shooting and spacing the floor, and pick and roll defense. Orlando exploited all three of these Achilles' heels in the regular season, crushing the Lakers. In the Finals, the Lakers had amazing weak-side help defense on Dwight but rotated fast enough to prevent open threes, shut down Alston and Nelson for much of the series, and defended the pick and roll like men possessed. They lived up to their potential. Phil Jackson outcoached Van Gundy-never underestimate the importance of this after he was outcoached by Brown and Thibodeau. Notice I didn't say Rivers. Lamar Odom played consistently. Kobe was Kobe. Role players stepped up. If this team carries that hunger, if Kobe is able to inspire them like Michael did the Bulls in '96, we could see something really special. The Lakers have a potentially all-time great offense this year, but if they really commit on D, they could be unstoppable.

-The disparity between the have's and have nots in the NBA is unbelievable, but I think the long-time rivalries like the Lakers and the Celtics in the 80's and eras with superpowers are better sometimes. The NFL has amazing parity and that does some great things, but I think the rise of the evil Patriots empire is one of the best things to ever happen to the league. The Giants toppling that Leviathan in such dramatic fashion is surely more unbelievable than a random team from the AFC like the Jaguars in their first Superbowl. When Eli Manning stopped a 18-0 Juggernaut on the verge of adding to its dynasty, it became unbelievable. When David topples Goliath, when Jordan beats the Showtime Lakers...

-I think I'm going to get NBA league pass and write a lot more during the season. These are real goals people.

-Do yourself a favor and watch this music video promoting the new Nike Hyperize sneakers. Durantula, AI, Rashard, and Mo Williams all exceed expectations and I actually like the song.



-For someone who expends so much energy dismissing metaphysics, I subconciously hold things to such incredible standards. Recognizing the imperfections in people and institutions and accepting them is critical to life.

-I'm a different person than I was at the end of 2008. I've matured a lot in my outlook. Growth happens in concentrated spurts and the last few months will be among my most memorable for a lot of reasons. I finally "got it" in a lot of ways.

-Part of that outlook is recognizing that it's time for a step-change in life. I feel it coming. Yes, it's jargon, but weirdly appropriate. I've spent too much time thinking about strategic frameworks. Too much time.


-I made an unbelievably cathartic playlist on iTunes today. Called it "Show Me the Good Life" after the Blu & Exile song. That Blu & Exile album is unbelievable, have been bumping it non-stop for a week.

-The playlist is almost entirely hip-hop but contains one indie rock song, Matt & Kim "Lessons Learned." For seem reason it seems oddly appropriate. The hip-hop is a has a bunch of contemplative songs like "Staring Through My Rear View", "Moment of Clarity", etc. It also has a number of songs about victory and celebration, like "Good Life", "Back in the Day", and "Encore." Ups an downs I suppose.

.
-There's a lot I want to accomplish in the next few months. I need to take the GMAT, apply to b-school, and establish a better routine. I've realized that you are what you do every day and must create the habits that make you the person that you want to become. This has a lot of implications. I need to read more booksI digest a lot of information, but less books than I want to. I want to establish a better gym routine, which get disrupted too often with so much travel.

-Watched "White Men Can't Jump" over 4-5 nights as I was falling asleep. Awesome movie. I mean obviously no Oscar contender, but pretty creative comedy with some decent basketball thrown in there. I laughed quite a bit. I like Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson and both are pretty funny and charismatic here. Woody Harrelson is more believably good at basketball than I expected too. Plus, those 90's outfits were straight nostalgia. Not to mention awesome. The beach volleyball hat!

LeBron James: Old School Figure or New Media Failure?

We're living an age of unprecedented access to celebrities. With the advent of Twitter, we are exposed to their thoughts, unfiltered and without a PR representative in the middle. The NBA has arguably been the community to embrace Twitter the most rapidly, with much of the league getting involved by following Shaq's example and interacting with fans and journalists alike. We've seen Kevin Love break news of his coach's firing, Shaquille O'Neal give away tickets online, a race to 50,000 between Chris Bosh and Charlie Villanueva (a really really irritating race if you follow Bosh), and folks like Dwight Howard build up a following by providing unfettered access to their stream of consciousness.

LeBron James, however, has not followed the path of his peers like D. Wade and has yet to really utilize the kind of proximity that social media can provide him to his fans. This really should not surprise us though, since he has entered the league he has obsessively controlled his image and thus his marketability to sponsors. The difference between LeBron James and most NBA players, even those taken from high school, is that his NBA status has been extremely obvious since early high school at the latest. He was King James by the time he came into the league and his junior year he graced the Sports Illustrated cover in an article where GM's insisted they'd trade anything for him at that point. The dude has had plenty of time to prepare his image and you better believe he's been thoughtful about how he's perceived from the get-go.

James has surrounded himself with high school friends who have ultimately ended up being yes men. He has a great relationship with Jay-Z, who is one of the more secretive rappers about his personal life. Where Kobe and MJ had one singular goal in their lives: to win, LBJ's main goal is to be a billionaire. Even winning is secondary for him. In terms of media presence, I feel he's more Machiavellian and less trustworthy than Kobe. His appearances are more obviously calculated and low risk. The most I've ever read about his personal interactions has been with sponsors. Even Kobe's teammates, like Smush Parker and Derek Fisher, have been in the press with things to say about the Black Mamba, good or bad. I've never heard anyone say anything either way about LeBron as a teammate or a human being. But we sure know a lot about LeBron James the marketing gimmick.

It's interesting to watch this strategy backfire because LeBron James has a very good on-court persona, but we don't know enough about him personally to put his off-court mistakes in context. Clearly he's very competitive, but it's hard to place where he lies on that continuum. After Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron stomped out of the arena without shaking hands. Later, he justified his behavior because he didn't want to shake hands after a loss. LeBron the sore loser, eh? Not only did he spark a media firestorm, he also started a whole new round of LeBron to NYC in 2010 rumors by wearing a Yankees hat in his interviews where he defended himself. Very subtle, LeBron.

More recently, LeBron confiscated videotape of him being "posterized" at his camp by Jordan Crawford, a sophomore at Xavier. After the dunk, he whispered in the ear of the Nike representatives, who literally stole the videotapes from the cameras to protect their investment. Of course, the story got out and people hated on LeBron for it. Why wouldn't we? Getting posterized, to an intelligent basketball fan, is usually not a shame. It means you're rotating and covering a man at the last second and get caught. It means you're putting your body in the line of duty to draw a charge. It means you're trying on defense. Anyways, the longer we waited to see even a Zapruder version of this tape, the more our imaginations went wild. Blogs posted pictures of VC over Frederic Weis in anticipation when TMZ declared it would release the video yesterday.



Guess what happened when the video leaked? See for yourself, it wasn't even the slightest bit embarrassing. LeBron didn't even get dunked on really. He was a little late to contest the shot. I get it, you're supposed to be the best basketball player in the world, but the cover-up was the only shameful job by LeBron. The video was going to get out, either by cell phone camera or by some device you didn't know was there. It turns out there were TWO additional sets of footage, not just one. And now LeBron not only looks like a narcissistic brat, but the PR backlash and subsequent imaginary posterizations in our head were way worse than what might have happened if he'd just shrugged it off. Even MJ shrugged it off when he lost in one on one to a mutual fund CEO, what else could he do?

I guess I'm looking for the moral of the story for our fair hero LeBron. I think what all this shows is a permanent paradigm shift in the media/celebrity relationship. Think about the Erin Andrews video that horribly surfaced this week, the Stephon Marbury Q&A on Ustream, the Kobe Bryant cell phone video ("Trade Bynum y'all"), and the Kevin Love tweet. There's no privacy anymore in public. Anytime you are in the view of other people, they could be recording you, they will blog about it, and you can't escape the consequences. The Worldwide Leader has had a huge part in the shift from coverage of sports to coverage of athletes as TMZ-style celebrities (unless you're Ben Roethlisberger apparently), but it's not all ESPN. Technology has fundamentally shifted interactions and humanized athletes in a way few of us dreamed was possible. In the new media, you can't hide, you just can't. Instead, you have to embrace it and control your image the best you can. Brand yourself on Twitter.

James would love it to be old-school. Think about the amazing image that MJ enjoyed, despite his personal shortcomings (that's another post all-together). Michael Jordan is truly the Beatles of the NBA, the right star at the right time who's image has since blown up out of proportion and has made him untouchable. He made the league and was its star in ways that no one else ever could be because he transformed the NBA. It's too established as a league now, it doesn't need another Jordan. Similarly, there will never be a collection of sneakers as influential as the Air Jordans. He's just an impossible standard to live up to. LeBron will never win 6 championships in a league with such parity (and such a crappy team), which he has to come to terms with. He also needs to understand the new media and what that means about controlling his image.

I have to think you're a likable dude Lebron, but please do us all a favor and show us that humanity. Embrace technology and the media, use it to your advantage. We've seen how it works out when you try to fight it. We'll all be witnesses, like it or not.

A Plea for Lamar Odom

I don't write about sports nearly enough on here, even with my Lakers winning a championship! I figure that I read more sports writing than any human being should (you don't even want to see my Google Reader) and if it's a pretty big passion of mine, I should start writing about it more. That and I'm still debating if I can plausibly write a Lakers season review with grades without it being too late. I have plenty of time for that though, seeing as we're surviving in sports purgatory with only the MLB and Tour De France these days, and I'll think of something when I watch that glorious season recap DVD I haven't gotten around to buying yet...

Anyways, I've been talking a lot about Lamar Odom with anyone who will listen. Perhaps ranting is a better word. Obsessing. I've never wanted a free agent to re-sign like this before. Look, I'm a big Dodgers fan and freaked out about Manny last year, but Manny didn't just help us win a championship. He's still a rental anyway. Come to think of it, there's no one who's come even close.

As a Lakers fan, I'm used to winning that free agent battle. LA is a destination, you're a star baby. Sure, we've lost some battles, but we win the big ones. We got Shaq from Orlando. Kobe was never going to leave in 2004. In my entire life, I can't remember being devastated the way I imagine T'wolves fans were when KG got traded (well, maybe McHale waited long enough that that wasn't true) or the way those Magic fans felt when the Big Buckeye abandoned ship with what seemed like several championships waiting in the wings.


It's not just about that though. I could handle losing Gasol better than this, really I could. Lamar isn't just a Laker, he's probably my favorite Laker. I remember the first time I ever really watched LO, on the 2004 Olympic team, ironically not too long before he was traded to LA. I knew who he was but I didn't know him outside of his Clipper-hood and drug busts. I remember being so impressed with LO doing everything for that team, one of those who never quit, playing impromptu center and blocking shot after shot as his teammates allowed one fast break after another. LO was the goalie and kept going until he was literally wagging his tongue, exhausted. That image of Lamar Odom, the versatile talent shamelessly doing whatever needed to be done for a flawed team, endured until this year's title.

It's easy to speak in superlatives about Lamar Odom, on the court and off the court. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in the L who's had a tougher childhood or has a better attitude about it now. He smiles like Magic Johnson and has a lot of joy in his life. You can see it on the court and you can only laugh along with him when he does things like eat candy for breakfast. Of course Lamar Odom is the candyman!

On the court, he's been whatever the Lakers have needed him for. He learned to be a great PF and defended bigs like Tim Duncan and Garnett when no one else stepped up. He can do EVERYTHING imaginable at 6'10". He can run the court, pass, shoot (apparently, 3's now too), rebound, block shots, toss in a baby hook, you name it. Now that we have bigs and have relegated him to 6th man, he's simply turned into a premier help defender and is a policeman for that childish second unit and turning the Lakers bench into the league's finest. How'd they look when Lamar was starting and Josh Powell was out there?

In retrospect, he's an obvious choice for my favorite Laker. You have to love Kobe aesthetically and because of his skill, but he's a stone cold assassin and a jerk sometimes, even though I believe he's grown up a lot. He's too Machiavellian a figure for you to ever buy his sincerity that much. I like Pau, don't get me wrong, but he's too goofy and hasn't been around long enough. Bynum is super-frustrating. I understand why people on OTHER teams hate Sasha sometimes. D-Fish is the man, but his 15 foot pull-up jumpers automatically remove him from contention. Who doesn't love Mbenga but come on...

Lamar is the most human and relatable player on the roster. He's an emotional open book and I've shared the ride, the ups and downs, on his expressions over the years. When the Shaq trade wasn't really working out, I always blamed Caron and never LO. I've stuck with him since he came to the Lakers and my attachment to him has grown over the years as I've watched him mature and learn to control his dazzling array of talents. He's been as frustrating as he's been electric the last few years. I can't tell you how many times I've been dripping sweat as he takes an ill-advised shot or free throws at the end of a game. He's been inconsistent as a second banana, there's no other way to say it.

I defended his performance in the 2008 Finals, he put up 20/11/4 and 19/10/4 in games 4 and 5 people, and have defended his tenure as a Laker ("All-Star numbers until he got hurt") in ways I've never defended Kobe. I'm obliged to defend Kobe, but for the most part any defense of Kobe starts with a some serious concessions and caveats anyway.

There were a lot of redemption stories on that championship team. Phil got his 10th, Kupchak did it, Kobe did it without Shaq, Euros like Gasol are winners, Derek Fisher wasn't done yet, etc. But the one that meant the most to me was Lamar Odom's redemption. He went from a flawed sidekick that was never quite going to be Kobe's Pippen to a human Swiss army knife who sublimated his role to win. When held up to the standard of his talent, he was always a failure, but winning a championship as a vital and clutch player of critical importance, that's the stuff of legend. He's a star here forever.

I understand why he'd leave if he was making more money. At this point, the sentiments of the Heat still may win him over, but he shouldn't leave for less and a worse basketball situation. I get that he doesn't feel appreciated; the NBA is a business, but it's an intensely personal one. The number one priority is respect and the Lakers aren't exactly oozing it. He's still the only Laker not getting paid, but no one else can pay more, so he has little leverage unfortunately. It's not just about the front office. The fans love Lamar and he has a real home here in the community. The Lakers are still his best chance of winning. Winning a lot and paying more. The Heat are still probably a 48-49 win team at best if they do some fancy maneuvering with Jermaine O'Neal's expiring contract, but the Lakers could be a dynasty. That's not happening in South Beach. Wade's probably out in 2010 anyway.

But Lamar, this isn't just about winning and the title you have to defend. This is about where you belong, in the offense where your basketball skills are divine. This is your team and your place in the universe. Yeah, Kobe is no doubt the leader of this team, but you are its heart, its compass. Kobe is always fantastic, but the Lakers live and die by Lamar Odom. The kids look up to him and the veterans respect him. We'll work on a star in Hollywood for you Lamar, but please get to work on another Larry O'Brien trophy marching down Figueroa. It wouldn't be the same without you.