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I was taught to hate the Clippers, you know, since I was with the Lakers. So, I never liked the Clippers before. But since coming over here, it's been amazing.
Indiana wanted to go in a different direction, wanted to go younger, and the Lakers wanted me, so I said, who wouldn't want to be in L.A? That was a no-brainer.
In a way, it's like I want to come here, I want to play for the home team and put a Lakers jersey on. That's always going to be something that I want to fulfill.
I don't know anything else but the Lakers. This has certainly been more than a job for me as a player. It has certainly meant more to me than just an occupation.
I've been a Lakers fan since growing up in Oklahoma. My hometown's finally got the Thunder, which is really exciting, but I've still got to stick with the Lakers.
I don't think the Lakers really knew me when they first drafted me. They just saw my name and my size and my stats. They just picked somebody because they had to.
You can't just live in the past, peddling the '80s Showtime Lakers, and expect everyone to know what that is. We have many fans who weren't even alive in the '80s.
My teammates are incredible. Just to be a part of this organization and this group, it's amazing with all the history behind the Lakers; I'm just glad to be a part of it.
I just enjoy going to the games, but if you're watching the Lakers play, it feels good to be rooting for the Lakers. You're on the winning end of things most of the time.
I'd like to think that the nature of the two teams - Boston being a championship team over the years and the Lakers, same thing - was a lot bigger than Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.
If you look around world, the great brands are Real Madrid, Manchester United. The Yankees, the Cowboys and the Lakers are there. We should aspire with the Maple Leafs to be there.
You really don't believe that winning at home or winning on the road makes a difference. The Lakers have that mind-set. They don't look at it as 'We're at home, we're on the road.'
In terms of basketball decisions, I will always defer to Magic. He's brought a vision of the kind of team we're going to build and a vision of what Lakers basketball is going to be.
25 was my number in high school and college. But when I got traded to Lakers, it was retired, and Derek Fisher had 2, so I was stuck with 5. Nothing more special behind it than that.
You're never going to be a Yankee for a day, or you're never going to be a Laker, but with Pro-Ams, they allow you to feel like you're a professional golfer and play under their conditions.
I can't say that I grew up saying, 'Someday I want to be vice president of the Lakers,' because that's not how it happened. I work for our family business, and that happens to be the Lakers.
The Lakers have been part of the process of revitalizing downtown L.A. That's what my dad's passion was. He loved to win, but he loved this city. He wanted this city to be proud of its team.
Part of the reason why Kobe Bryant is such a big inspiration to me is because he was shipped off to the Lakers right out of high school. He went from English class to the Great Western Forum.
I was really mad until the 23rd pick and I wasn't selected and my agent told me, 'If nobody selects you, you're going to the Lakers.' So I was hoping to not go in the first round of the draft.
I really wasn't expecting to fall so hard for Phil. As a matter of fact, when my dad said he was talking to Phil Jackson about him coming to L.A. to coach the Lakers, I tried to argue against it.
The Lakers, obviously, that's L.A.'s team. The Clippers and Clippers fans are put on the backburner a little bit and can go unnoticed due to the championships, due to the people who played there.
People didn't even know where the Lakers' training center was, because we didn't have a flagpole to say, 'This is our home.' We were kind of hidden in the back of the L.A. Kings' practice facility.
I have worked out with the Thunder, Lakers, Knicks, Grizzlies, Spurs, and a few others before the draft. I have worked out primarily against shorter and supposedly faster players in these workouts.
I met wonderful people playing in the NBA. Whether it is the officials, the scorekeepers, all the people who work for the NBA, not just for the Lakers, but I'm talking about just for the league itself.
I played for Miami, with LeBron. They cut me. I got drafted by the Lakers, they traded me to Miami. Bron got there, they cut me. I remember it like it was yesterday. So yeah, it's a chip on my shoulder.
The Lakers are family. My kids don't have to switch schools. Little things like that are important. People don't think about things like that. I feel like something special is going to happen in this town.
I really like to play to squash, because it's competitive, and I like basketball. I'm friends with a guy in L.A. called Andrew Bynum, who used to play for the L.A. Lakers NBA team. We play together sometimes.
When I first fell in love with the game, and I'm outside playing in front of the house, I'm not picturing myself in an Indiana jersey or picturing myself in a Thunder jersey. I pictured myself in a Lakers jersey.
Growing up in L.A., every kid wants to play for the Lakers. As a kid I went to their championship parades, bought a Kobe jersey - I went to the gym and made everybody call me Kobe - loved Shaq, loved the three-peat.
I remember watching when D-Wade and LeBron were here playing for the Heat. I remember watching them play the Lakers with Kobe. So I just was able to watch those games growing up and really watch my favorite players.
Kobe is part of the Laker family and he always will be. There's not many players who play 18-19 years with the same franchise, and it's important to us that he has a chance to play his entire career with the Lakers.
I think people have to realize that - and basketball fans do, Lakers fans do - that we have to operate under the rules of the collective bargaining agreement, which means you can't just go and grab every player that you want.
I can't tell you how many letters I get from grandmothers who say, 'It's the only thing I can talk to my 15-year-old grandson about.' The Lakers are more than just a basketball team to this city. They're part of this community.
Every fan wants to win every year, that's how my dad was. It would be nice to be able to do that every year, but I think Lakers fans know, as long as they see progress, and steps going in the right direction, they'll be patient.
It was really an easy decision for me to be a part of the Lakers. It's priceless. It is one of the few places where I truly get lost in the joy of the moment of that game. All of the stresses and all the responsibilities are gone.
Basketball's eras are defined by teams - Celtics, Lakers, Bulls - and baseball's epochs are defined by players - Ruth, Robinson, Mantle - but with football, it's the sideline strategists, the nutty professors and top coated Lears.
I had to earn the respect from everybody, from referees to opponents, but my teammates, they saw some European guy coming here and I had to prove myself. Luckily, I proved myself, but with big help from the entire Lakers organization.
We could not be more proud to have LeBron James as part of our Lakers family. He is an incredibly thoughtful and intelligent leader and clearly appreciates the power sports has to unite communities and inspire the world to be a better place.
The best players are always in the thick of the action. (Michael) Jordan did it with the Bulls, (Kobe) Bryant does it with the Lakers and Leo does it here. We want him to stay with us because he's the best and we wouldn't swap him for anyone.
I love the feeling of being in front of a live crowd and performing and just kind of letting loose and getting the crowd involved, and I got to perform at the Superbowl and at the Staples Center, you know, at the Lakers game, which was amazing.
I always loved the Clippers. You root for the underdog. Obviously, everybody in L.A. is a Laker fan, but deep down inside, you root for the Clippers. If you're a true Los Angelean, that's how it happens. You always want the Clippers to do well.
Do you know how many teams have won three straight titles over the last 40 years? Two. Michael Jordan's Bulls twice in the 1990s and Kobe and Shaq's Lakers from 2000-02. LeBron would have joined that list had Miami won that third straight title.
I remember, years ago, if I had had an opportunity to leave the Lakers, I would have left for one reason: because I did not like an owner that was not telling me the truth. And it would have made no difference what they would have offered me; I would have left.
The year after Russell retired, in the famous seventh game of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, Willis Reed, the New York Knicks center, limped onto the court against the Los Angeles Lakers, inspiring his team and freezing Chamberlain into a benign perplexity.
I was busy with my family, my budding career as a TV writer, my antipathy for the Los Angeles Lakers, and my general reluctance to engage in anything that might force me to leave my comfort zone. But sometimes ideas won't let you go. For me, educating girls was like that.
The first time I ever spoke to John Cassavetes was at a Lakers game. I got up to go for a hot dog, and he was coming in the opposite direction. I don't know who said hello first, but we started talking, and it turned out that he went to high school with my first wife, Alice.
When I was living in L.A., first of all, I had actually tried out or submitted to be on 'Tough Enough' when I was living in L.A. and then I ended up getting, like, a few call backs, but because I had just moved out there for the Lakers, I just felt like I couldn't have done both.
Whenever I hear people crying about Kobe yelling at people in practice or wondering whether or not LeBron is best friends with his teammates, I just roll my eyes. You know how many off-court conversations I had with the Zen-Master Phil Jackson in my entire time with the Lakers? One.
No one ever bugged Jack Nicholson. When we made 'Witches,' and people were standing around to see him, he'd just come out and say, 'Hi everybody!' I was lucky enough to go with him to a Lakers game, too, and he was always friendly. No one bothers Jack, because he makes himself so accessible.
I remember one time I wrote something very, very critical about Wilt Chamberlain. The next time I saw him - and Wilt was not a man, as huge as he was - he was not a man of confrontation. And we were in the Lakers locker room. And he sent Jerry West over, and he said, 'Frank, Wilt would like you to leave.'