Greetings, LABallTalkers. I, the Sports Tsar has found it in his heart to extend his benevolence to this site, hereby posting all relevant Laker content from my empire onto this site.

Without further ado, we take some shots at Los Angeles Lakers athletic trainer Gary Vitti:

(Original article appears on SportsTsar.com)

It’s reassuring knowing that our team’s athletic trainer specializes in action figure and doll medicine. Unfortunately, basketball players are a different breed - one that actually requires some sort of knowledge of sports medicine and human physiology.

For far too long, Los Angeles Lakers athletic trainer Gary Vitti has been phoning it in.

Yes, he’s been around since the Showtime days, which automatically gives him tenure and a job for life, a la Stu Lantz. He even won a Trainer of the Year award back in 1991 (and devoted an entire page on his site to it).

But since the late 90’s and into present day, Vitti has been slacking off. It seems like L.A. has finally gotten to him, as he looks more primed for a day at the beach than for duty as athletic trainer for one of the biggest sports franchises in the world.

Let’s look at the what he’s been dealing with:

• An oft-injured Shaquille O’Neal (who has seemingly re-emerged healthy in Phoenix now)
• A misdiagnosis of Karl Malone, effectively ending his playing career
• The (non)-walking injury that is Chris Mihm
• The seeming misdiagnosis of Andrew Bynum (8 weeks was about a month ago!)

Somehow, Pau Gasol was able to avoid the Vitti treatment and came back promptly from injury. While both Laker big men were down, Phil Jackson offered up some choice words:

Gary Vitti is the guy that really bothers me the most because he’s our trainer who can’t get everybody healthy.

Every day he says, ‘I wish I could get this guy ready for you, but. . . . ‘

I won’t go through the litany of the rest of it.

No, PLEASE go through the litany of the rest of it, Phil. We desperately need a reason to run this guy out of town.

How does a team like the Phoenix Suns manage to stay in such great shape? They were able to bring back Amare Stoudamire from a potentially serious microfracture surgery with relative ease, and its not like the Suns play a physically lax game. Dudes are running non-stop for an entire season!

Oh, what the Lakers could be given a semblance of competence on the training staff.

Fandom aside, you have to feel for the players subjected to such inhumane treatment. Careers being wasted away by the Vitti vex.

Maybe PETA should double up the A in the acronym to include Athletes. Douse that offender in some of that red paint to smear his cocoa butter-applied fake tan.

This has clearly become a humanitarian cause.

Out among the many reports and media personnel, there are many that deserve not only to be fired, but some should be killed and turned into chairs so that YI Jianlian can dunk on them. One of these writers, is Shaun Powell. It seems that a lot of guy have plenty of hatred toward players like Kobe Bryant that have achieved so much over their careers that they have to make up for their own failures by talking trash about Kobe.

There has been such a big deal made about the “person” that Kobe is rather than the “player” that he is. Seriously, who cares what he does in his personal life? If it’s not illegal, who cares?

Let’s suppose that he is a single man, has 43 mistresses and parties like no other every single night. Do fans pay for tickets to see Kobe Bryant live out his social life or do they pay to see Kobe make amazing plays and drop 81 points on the Toronto Raptors? Seriously… I want to see some basketball, not a show about his personal life and what night clubs he goes to.

You know what, just for the sake of this argument, let’s take into account the actions of Kobe Bryant last summer when he demanded to be traded to a “Championship contender.” Was he not correct in wanting to win? Was he not correct in arguing that a proven professional such as Jason Kidd was worth giving away the potential of Andrew Bynum? Keep in mind that Bynum had not yet proven anything at this point in time besides immaturity and a lack of worth ethic. He’s a great kid with tremendous potential, but potential is about it. The future can’t be predicted but only assumed. Management believed in Bynum, so they stuck with him and he turned out to be a great piece of the puzzle.

Lots of analysts are saying, “Kobe complained a lot about Mitch Kupchak and then he was the one that made a big deal happen and turned this team into a contender.” Let’s not forget something, Mitch Kupchak publicly said that had Andrew Bynum not gone down, the Lakers wouldn’t have made the trade for Pau Gasol. Let me ask you a question now… if the trade for Pau Gasol is available using Kwame Brown’s expiring contract and the potential of Javaris Crittenton, isn’t it management’s responsibility to make it happen no matter what? Shouldn’t the Lakers organization want to bring in a guy like Pau Gasol, even if they are winning games, because they will clearly improve that much more? You got to believe that had Kobe Bryant not put the pressure on management this Summer, they would never have made this trade, even after Bynum had gone down. Kupchak and Buss would’ve been content just riding out the season and seeing whether Andrew Bynum recovers before trying to get something done this next off season.

I found this article talking about Kobe receiving the MVP award and how he deserves it as a player, but the author couldn’t resist but talk a little bit more trash. Just leave him alone. Why not just give the man his props and let him enjoy his achievements. So i decided to comment back with the following:

Wow, I couldn’t disagree with you more on your article. This is the media making an attempt to gain publicity over a controversial article. How about you write an article that means something and has real depth instead of brushing over the controversial topics that may generate some attention to your name?

Kobe Bryant is a warrior and is a winner. He is the ultimate athlete. To be an ultimate athlete, one must possess more than just physical ability, but heart and passion. Kobe’s emotion on the basketball court is unmatched. There is no body in the league that wants to win as bad as he does. There is not a single soul that strives for perfection like Kobe. Winning is the only thing that shows one is a winner. Kobe is a winner and he wants to win.

How can a competitor such as Kobe Bryant be blamed for wanting nothing more than to deliver an NBA Championship to the team that he has been with for 11 years? There is no excuse for the Laker to stoop down to the level of the Clippers and accept failure. The Lakers are a winning franchise and they do not accept anything other than winning. Kobe is a winner. Kobe is a Laker.

For anyone else that wants to leave this guy some comments, please do so at THIS SITE and then copy paste your comments to him back here so I can have a laugh as well.

Also, head over to the Starting Five for a full on Kobe Bryant discussion about his character and achievements.

The night started off on a great note. Kobe Bryant was awarded the NBA Most Valuable Player award yesterday, and tonight he received his award once again in front of the Los Angeles Lakers fans at Staples Center from NBA Commissioner David Stern.

Kobe Bryant had a huge smile on his face and everything was clear without him even saying a word. “I’m at a loss for words, I don’t know what to say,” Bryant said as the Staples Center crowd of 18,997 roared its approval and chanted M-V-P. “I love you guys so much. We’re going to play until June. Let’s get this party started.”

After the presentation of the award, the game was underway. It was time for the Lakers to do what they do best, win basketball games.

Once again, the men in the purple and gold came out strong and built a lead right from the get go. It was nice to see Derek Fisher comfortable with his shot and drilling jumper after jumper over Derron Williams. Carlos Boozer once again couldn’t handle Lamar Odom and Kobe had drawn five different defenders by the half. Matt Harpring apparently was the best defender the Utah Jazz could throw at Kobe based on his strong body and aggressive nature.

The halftime interview with Derek Fisher was quite interesting. David Aldridge, a veteran announcer and a guy who has plenty of experience on the big stage, made a funny mistake by calling Derek Fisher, Derron rather than Derek.

Just like Game 1, the Lakers played a strong game up until the end of the third quarter, and then they let the Utah Jazz get right back in to it. Derron Williams became more aggressive and led the Jazz to within four points of the Lakers. This is when Kobe took over, really made some spectacular passes, and the Lakers hustled as a group to get the right shot off. Some great passes even led to a wide open Derek Fisher three pointer to extend the lead back up to 10 points. The game ended with a bunch of Utah three pointers followed by two Lakers free throws. When Utah was down by 10 with 6 seconds left, they fouled Sasha Vujacic and even he was annoyed that he had to shoot the free throws.

The post game interviews with both teams were quite interesting as well.

After the post game interviews, after a great evening of fantastic basketball, I thought my night was complete and I was a happy fan. Fortunately enough, TNT provided me with one more great moment. The crew of the TNT show obviously likes to have a good time, after all, it’s Charles Barkley, how serious can you be with the guy.

Ernie and Kenny decided to play with Charles Barkley as he was reading over the tele-prompter and wrote in some additional text to what was already programmed. Take a look at for yourself, this is quite hilarious.