Salt Lake City Laker Take

"When I first moved to L.A. back in 1995, the Jazz were winning the Western Conference pretty regularly, which entailed beating the Lakers in the playoffs most years. An irate L.A. Times columnist wrote something like, 'It's never good to lose, but if you have to, I can deal with a loss to a team like the Spurs, even the Denver Nuggets. But Los Angeles cannot lose to a team from Utah. That is unacceptable.' Living in Utah, I have never felt that sort of superiority over another state outside the Deep South -- that is, until Arizona became the Deep South of the West a few weeks ago. Now I can proudly and mindlessly say, 'Anyone but Phoenix.' Phoenix is just L.A. without the ocean plus 20 degrees anyway.The image accompanying this post -- of Lakers NBA 2004 championship runner-up and former Jazz player Karl Malone's jersey -- was taken by Flickr user randomduck. It was used under Creative Commons license.