With the Lakers jumping out to a five game winning streak after the All-Star break many pundits have been quick to attribute this recent mini surge as a sign that the team has finally started to arrive. They have, for lack of a more elegant term, flipped the switch.
As if some magic light bulb went off in the players heads to decide that these are the games that really matter now. As if winning before was not only uninteresting but also irrelevant. There is a word that comes to mind when I hear people who makes these statements. Unfortunately I’m inclined to keep this article PG so I’ll refrain from repeating it here. But let me see if I can think up an alternative. Ah yes, here it is…. poppycock.
NBA players are some of the most highly competitive individuals in the entire world. They are the best of the best, and they exist in an environment where they have to give peak performance on a daily basis or it is highly likely they’ll be out of a job in short order. And Kobe Bryant, for what it’s worth, may be the hardest working, most ruthless competitor in this highly competitive field. Do you really believe that this is a guy who would ever let himself or his teammates not play their butts off, whether it was an exhibition game or game seven of the NBA finals? Didn’t think so.
Still, as much as I wholeheartedly believe those previous statements there is a case to be made for the switch argument, buoyed by a compelling collection of circumstantial evidence. So it possible that I’m wrong? That maybe there is such a thing as the switch?
Next Page: The Case for The Switch
