Letters to Sports: Lamenting the LeBron James and Lakers situations

It will be interesting to see if Bronny James, an undersized, third guard on an under-.500 team that averaged less than five points, two assists and two rebounds a game gets drafted. It is an insult to the game if a draft choice is wasted as an attempt to land his father LeBron. I guess a team feels free agency can be used to fill the seat on the bench if things don’t work out. This circus only hurts LeBron’s legacy. Bronny needs to go back to school and at least show he can be a starter on a bad team.

Sophie Taylor
Mar Vista

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LeBron retires.

The Lakers name LeBron as their new head coach.

LeBron and the Lakers draft Bronny.

Mic drop.

Linda Salzman
Rancho Palos Verdes

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I, for one, will gladly pay for LeBron’s plane fare back to Cleveland. In my opinion, he was never a true Laker. So, LeBron, do all of us true Lakers fan a favor and go home to Cleveland. Maybe the Cavaliers will draft Bronny and make me smile.

G.T. Oka
Rosemead

Help wanted

So, the Lakers still have a coaching vacancy. But, who would want this ridiculous game of musical chairs?

First of all, you have a meddling, incompetent ownership group to deal with who will probably get you on the cheap because they like to spend/blow all their money on aging superstars. Next, is kowtowing, accommodating and acquiescing to the whims and ego of that aging superstar or find yourself gone before your tenure is up. Then, there’s the flawed lineup: no, established backup center, a weak bench and no third reliable scoring option in your starting five. Finally, you can forget about developing young, promising talent because they’ll be gone before you know it.

Um … sounds like a “great“ Job opportunity.

Good luck in La La land!

Rick Solomon
Lake Balboa

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Their primary focus is experience, but they’ll give “serious consideration” to someone who has zero coaching experience in JJ Redick. That’s all you need to know about the Lakers’ management incompetence.

Jack Wishard
Los Angeles

Losing the Sparks

I wanted to take my daughter to an L.A. Sparks game. We love the fact that the Sparks set aside sections with $20 tickets, which makes it affordable for families and people on fixed incomes. I’m originally from Indiana, so we decided to see the upcoming Indiana Fever game with Caitlin Clark. Going to the Sparks website we saw that they raised the price for the $20 tickets to $125. So instead of spending $40, I was going to have to spend $250.

This is blatant price gouging and what makes it worse is that they raised the price of the affordable tickets over 500%. My enthusiasm to go to a Sparks game has now plummeted and we will not be going.

Steve Shaevel
Woodland Hills

Paying UC Regents’ tab

Nice to know the smart Cal people (disguised as UC Regents) resort to extortion due to another UC school being more resourceful in this world.

That is ridiculous.

I am not a UCLA grad and don’t have a bias. I graduated from a Cal State University and find the greed and extortion appalling since Cal went on to find another conference.

Brad Clevinger
Tehachapi

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I think what the University of California Regents are doing to UCLA is a gross injustice. The Pac-12 is breaking up because of gross financial incompetence by its leadership, and UCLA made itself a good deal by joining the Big Ten. The regents want to punish them because they made a better deal than Cal with an offset payment, using a logic often referred to as socialism. The hypocrisy of their logic is evident with the Cal State system, where the schools have a financial disparity in differing conferences.

Alan Abajian
Alta Loma

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Instead of a $10-million payout, which smells like extortion, what if the UC Regents simply ordered UCLA to keep Cal on its football and basketball schedules as nonconference opponents each year?

Rhys Thomas
Valley Glen

Olympic-caliber storyteller

It was a pleasure to find Bill Dwyre’s story about Olga and Harold Connolly. I have always enjoyed Dwyre’s take on the out-of-the-way, and occasional absurd, stories that inhabit the sports world.

Olga Connolly’s lifelong commitment to helping others and improving her community is a strong counterpoint to some contemporary attitudes and actions that appear in the daily press.

I hope that Dwyre continues to offer readers his take on such topics.

Craig Hendricks
Lakewood

Farewell to another arm

In continuing the tradition of Dodger pitchers blowing out their arm, Emmet Sheehan has joined that list. Is it a rite of passage now to blow out your arm? If you do it multiple times, is that even more of an accomplishment?

Perhaps it’s time to teach pitchers how to actually pitch and not just throw as hard as they can. Perhaps it’s time to hire coaches that actually care about the health of a pitcher. Maybe going forward, today’s pitchers and coaches can look back 30, 40 or more years on how to stay healthy, how to pitch a complete game and how to help your team win.

Geno Apicella
Placentia

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The Dodgers again have the most talented team in baseball. What could go wrong? The stupid taunting dance every time they get a hit. It’s the worst thing ever. It’s tremendous bulletin board material for the opposition. Cease and desist immediately!

Paul Zimmelman
Marina del Rey

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