by Jimmy Tsai
Welcome to the second installment of Other People’s Lunches! Today, we’re at Ocean Diner in Hermosa Beach, and with us is none other than Kevin Ding, Lakers beat writer for the Orange County Register (check him out here). Kevin has covered the Lakers for the past 11 years and previously wrote for the Miami Herald, covering everything from high school sports to the Miami Dolphins.
Today, Kevin’s having the Spinach and Bacon Omelet, and I’m having a Chicken Napoli Grilled Sandwich with a Caramel-Banana Milkshake.
OPL: First of all, welcome to Other People’s Lunches. Glad to have you here! Let’s talk a little bit about your own personal basketball background—did you play as a kid? Follow basketball as a kid? What’s your history?
Kevin: I grew up in St. Louis so, as you know, no team to follow. Big-time baseball city. I grew up a die-hard baseball fan and played baseball my whole life. I never played basketball competitively. I was out in the driveway shooting baskets by myself and stuff.
I did have a claim-to-fame moment when I won the free throw shooting contest in junior high by making eight-out-of-ten. But that’s pretty much as far as it went.
You didn’t play intramurals in college or anything like that?
No, no. I played a handful of games for fun while in college. Basketball has never been my passion as far as sports go–
As far as participation–
Yeah, in that way. And, actually, when I was growing up—and even in college—I was always more of a college basketball fan than an NBA fan because I didn’t grow up with the NBA in St. Louis. And so it’s funny that it’s sort of flipped.
Once I started covering the NBA, I started losing my patience for the college game because you watch the game – lot of people like it for this exact reason—and there are regular people playing the game and they make mistakes and anything can happen.
But when you watch as much basketball at the highest level, you start to get tired of watching them stand around; they do so many things wrong. It just becomes kind of annoying to watch these kids do so many things wrong. You want to watch great basketball.
The elite players. Yeah, I get it.
Yeah.
That’s the reason I watch NBA, too.
Now, granted, you weren’t a basketball follower when you were young, but did you have any favorite teams or favorite players growing up?
I did. I think I was like most people: whatever was on TV was all you knew at that time. So I loved the Sixers. I loved Dr. J. And, for whatever reason, yeah, I liked the Sixers over the Celtics or the Lakers during that time. Maybe because of Dr. J.
Now, I’m not too intelligent about East Coast geography, but is Philadelphia closest to St. Louis as far as major cities with NBA teams?
No–
What would have been closest geographically?
Chicago. But they weren’t good yet. And I was never a huge Bulls fan because even when I was in college at Northwestern, that’s when the Bulls were at their height in terms of popularity. It was when everybody in Chicago was going crazy over the Bears or the Bulls.
Let’s continue talking back in the day. What, to this day, is your favorite basketball sneaker?
I can’t say that I actually know the number of the Jordan models, so it might require some legwork on your part to pin it down. But it was the young Jordan days. The period of time when Jordan wasn’t quite what he became.
It wasn’t immensely popular yet, and he was just rising. Wasn’t polished as a player; he was known more as just an exciting, young player and he was wearing the white with black and red. Strappy-looking. A lot of color on them. Most people seemed to be wearing more plain stuff at the time. One of the first Air Jordans. Might have been the very first.
And then what was your favorite single commercial or commercial campaign that was basketball-related? Like, for me, it was the “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” campaign.
(laughs) Fair enough. For biased reasons, obviously[1].
Either that or, actually, I really enjoyed the Air Jordan commercial from just two or three years ago with the movement from Mozart’s Requiem. It was basically the one guy on the court in a hostile crowd and he makes a lay-up in the last second and it’s really sad (for the crowd). It’s the Lacrimosa from the Requiem because he basically destroys the entire opposing team and audience. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that commercial or not. I think that was awesome.
That’s the filmmaker in you.
I’d have to say—it was McDonald’s, wasn’t it? The Bird trick shot one?
Yes!
That’d have to be the one that I enjoyed the most. The most memorable, the most fun commercial from my youth.
It was Bird vs. Jordan, wasn’t it?
I think it evolved. You have to check it out—I thought it might have started with Magic but then became Jordan, also. But the Bird part is the part I really remember.
Moving on to the current NBA season: who’s your prediction to make the Finals this year and who comes out on top?
I hate to be predictable. I almost don’t want to say it just because it’s predictable, but I don’t know how you can not say the Lakers and the Cavs.
I don’t think the Celtics are done, although at this current moment that we’re talking, they certainly appear to be. I think they’ll still pull it together in the Playoffs and be a threat. I don’t like Orlando this year. It’s hard enough to come back after you’ve made the Finals one year.
The fact that Dwight Howard did not come back this season serious, after losing the Finals? I mean, if you lose the Finals, you have to come back the next season serious. And better.
He said he was going to; he said he was hurt from missing those two free throws before Fisher hit that shot. But he’s still missing free throws, he hasn’t gotten serious about it. He hasn’t really overhauled the situation like he needs to. The thing is, I’m starting to think that’s just his personality. He’s too fun of a guy; he doesn’t have that edge to him to–
That killer instinct–
Yeah. I mean, it’s Shaq-like in a way. But Shaq did sort of have at least a little more of an edge to him. A harshness or even a meanness. Shaq had that side to him. Shaq—as jovial and fun and gentle giant as he appears, and as much as he’s cultivated that image—is not all “good guy.”
And that works to his benefit in his career. To some extent. So I don’t know about Dwight Howard anymore. He is obviously an amazing player. But I don’t know about him becoming as good as he could be.
So, anyway, I think the Lakers are just better than the Cavs. Better players. And barring injury and barring LeBron figuring something else out that we haven’t seen – that we don’t understand – I just can’t see the Lakers losing in the Finals.
Okay, so your prediction: Lakers repeat for the championship. How many games is it going to take for them to beat the Cavs?
I really don’t think the Cavs are good enough. Last year, I picked the Lakers to win in five and they did. I don’t think it’s that different this year even though Cleveland does appear to be much better. I’ll give them six, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s even less.
Lakers in six. Now, who’ve been the most surprising teams and players this year, so far, in your estimation?
I guess I’m surprised that Atlanta is as good as they are just because I didn’t really believe that they were serious enough about taking care of business. And I didn’t think that Mike Woodson was really that great of a coach to get much more out of his guys.
But I think, more than anything, they’re just really good. Like what I was talking about with Dwight Howard, Josh Smith got a little more serious, stopped jacking up threes, and he’s becoming a really great player. And that’s what teams need to take these substantial steps, to get better, is great players making great steps.
And it seems like Jamal Crawford has really found his role as a sixth man as opposed to having be a starter and carrying the load–
Right, right. He just kind of played before everywhere he’s been, he’s just been putting up numbers, and he’s found something he does well. They just have a lot of really good players.
Mo Evans is a really good player, even though he’s been a journeyman. He’s got a lot to offer. I knew obviously they would be pretty good, but the fact that they can be contending for a top spot in the East is impressive.
Who else in the East? I thought Charlotte would be a lot better. That was my team that I really liked before the season that I thought would be pretty good. And they looked terrible, but they’re starting to get it together.
Everybody would say Washington has been a huge disappointment. But I never really liked them coming in. I guess the common thread that I’m saying is that there are certain teams that are serious about the game and certain teams that are just out there to play. And that’s a team that was always not going to be serious about it. Even though Caron Butler is a really good player; I really liked Caron during his time with the Lakers.
How about in the West?
In the West, I picked the Lakers, obviously, to be first. And I picked Dallas to finish second. Partially because in the NBA, just like in any sport, you look at the team’s payroll and you get a gauge for how good they are.
And everybody forgot that Dallas’s payroll is off the charts. Not as high as the Lakers, but higher than anybody else’s. And they have a lot of good players, and they’re motivated because they haven’t really been any good lately.
Denver is a little better than I thought. Again, because Carmelo got a little more serious. I thought Chauncey Billups might drop off a little bit, but he has not really dropped off. I’m not really sold on them realistically threatening the Lakers even though they’ve beaten them twice in the regular season. But Orlando beat the Lakers twice in the regular season last year, so it’s not that telling.
With the Lakers, it’s more that every team tries harder than they do in all these games. If you look at their season so far, a huge percentage of the games they’ve lost are to teams that had a reason to want to beat them – all these teams that they beat in the playoffs last year.
In the cycle of repeat quests, it’s hard to find that human nature motivation because it’s gone. You’re already satisfied. So that’s their challenge: by the time the playoffs roll around, they have to have passed that mentality.
You’re not surprised by Houston or Memphis and how well they’ve played this year, actually being in the playoff run?
Memphis, I am. Houston, I had picked to make the playoffs just because I believe in their system. I believe Daryl Morey knows what he’s doing. I believe that he’s smarter than everyone else. He spent some time in Northwestern, so that plays a part in it.
(laughs) Gotcha, gotcha.
No, but I believe in the stuff that they’re doing. And even someone like Kobe, when he heard about some of the things they were doing, he was interested in it and looked into that and found his own guy to do some of the same things, so he could learn some of these statistical analysis things that are real. Intelligent people understand that there’s information, there’s insight there. So the fact that Houston plays as a team better than other teams do does not surprise me.
The fact that Memphis does? I don’t even know what to attribute that to. Zach Randolph is a lot better than I thought he would be. I had sort of written him off, but he’s obviously motivated to prove himself in some way, and that’s a pretty big part of their success.
And they obviously have a number of young guys who are really on the uptick: Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, Marc Gasol has really worked out for them as well.
