The world according to Jim:
• LeBron James brings out emotional reactions in the rest of us, positive and negative, maybe because he tends to be so passive-aggressive that we can’t help but react. And so it was Thursday night in Toronto, when one pass – one game-winning pass, mind you, for Rui Hachimura’s buzzer-beating open corner 3-pointer for a Lakers victory – brought out the passive-aggressiveness in everybody else. …
• That pass, rather than LeBron taking the shot himself on the last possession of regulation with a 120-120 tie, broke a streak of 1,297 games – spanning 12 years and 11 months – in which he had scored in double figures in every game. Lakers TV broadcasters Bill MacDonald and Stu Lantz seemed mildly shocked. The tone from the rest of the public, for some reason, bordered on incredulous. …
• My question: Why? The object of the game is to win (especially after that stinker of a game against Phoenix on Monday night, when James barely got to 10 and the Lakers were routed 125-108 by a Suns team that played most of the game without Devin Booker). …
• LeBron seemed shocked that people were shocked, though in answering postgame questions, he approached it in his typical passive-aggressive fashion.
“You always make the right play. That’s just been my M.O. That’s how I was taught the game. I’ve done that my whole career,” he told a postgame scrum that included our own Khobi Price. “… I remember everything has been negatively said about me and my game throughout my career. That aspect was always one of the most foolish things I’ve ever heard as far as making the right pass, making the right play.
“We are in the business of winning basketball games. My whole life, I’ve just played the game that way. I was taught the game that way and I’ve won at every single level I’ve played at by playing the game that way. So there was no reason for me to ever change once I got to this level. It doesn’t change. Basketball is basketball.” …
• All of that said, it has to be asked: Are we starting to see irreversible slippage in LeBron’s game? After a late start because of his sciatica issue, his numbers going into Friday night’s game in Boston represented career lows in every offensive category except assists (7.4 per game). Is that a sign that, after nearly 41 years on this earth and 22 seasons of excellence in this league, Father Time is at last wearing him down and a retirement tour might be next? …
• The most tiring aspect of the runup to the College Football Playoff selections? The lobbying by coaches (hello, Steve Sarkisian!) as to why their team belongs and someone else’s doesn’t. But I guess that’s the consequence of putting it into the hands of a committee, especially one whose standards seem to roam all over the place. (For example: Which carries more weight, a win over a good team or a loss to a bad team?) …
• Does the committee lock itself in unnecessarily by releasing five weeks worth of rankings leading up to the final selection of the field? Perhaps, but in providing a glimpse into the panel’s thought process, it might also remind the players and coaches over the final weeks that it’s still in their hands. …
• For example, on the Nov. 18 call – the week before USC played Oregon – committee chairman Hunter Yurachek’s response to a question about the Trojans ended this way: “They’re in a good spot at 15, and the committee really likes that team.” It was a hint: Win and you’re in. But they lost at Oregon, so they won’t be. …
• This week’s quiz: When Lane Kiffin was let go at USC in 2013 – not on the tarmac, as we now know, but close to it – who replaced him as interim head coach? Answer below. …
• By the way, a late answer to last week’s quiz question, on the sets of brothers who populated opposite sides of the Dodgers-Angels rivalry: Reader Cindy Curti reminded me of the Weaver brothers, Jered with the Angels (2006-16) and Jeff with the Dodgers (2004-05 and ’09-10).
• Back to college football: As a one-time AP Top 25 voter, this was my selection criteria, and it should be the same one that applies to picking the playoff field: First, how many did you lose? (Zero, of course, being best.) Second, who did you lose to? Third, who did you beat? You only play 12 times, your team should be ready every week, and a bad loss should be far more damaging than a big win is positive. …
• The view here is that the playoff should stay at 12 teams, and this should be the calendar every year: Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 championship games the last Saturday in November, which means everybody starts in August. Conference champs get first-round byes. The remaining eight entrants play the first Saturday in December. Survivors play the conference champs in the quarterfinals the second Saturday.
Semifinals would be the third Saturday of December. The championship game? Jan. 1, Pasadena, 2 p.m. Pacific. Who’s with me? …
• Another benefit: This speeds up the competition calendar, which – as noted earlier in the week – would help the signing and transfer portal dates make more sense. …
• Quiz answer: Ed Orgeron. When Kiffin was fired the Trojans were 3-2. Orgeron guided USC to a 6-2 record, but after a 23-22 loss to UCLA on Nov. 30 – and after Sarkisian was hired as USC’s head coach on Dec. 2 – Orgeron stepped down and Clay Helton was the acting head coach for a 45-20 victory over Fresno State in the Las Vegas Bowl. …
• John Murphy will forever be known here as the “Prep Dawg.” He was originally from the Bay Area, but for years in Inland Southern California he covered high school and community sports with passion and zeal, as an award-winning journalist for the Victor Valley Daily Press, San Bernardino Sun, Press-Enterprise, Redlands Community News, Highland Community News, Banning-Beaumont Record Gazette, Yucaipa/Calimesa News Mirror, and most recently for Community Forward Redlands.
“Touching down at Ontario International Airport in the summer of 1992, my first stop en route to a job interview at the Victorville newspaper was a convenience store,” he wrote in 2021 in his introduction to Record-Gazette readers. “There I noticed for sale all the newspapers in the area.
“I didn’t know that I’d someday work at most of them.”
We were all lucky to have him. John Murphy passed away suddenly on Nov. 21 at the age of 69. Rest in peace, Prep Dawg.
jalexander@scng.com