LBPT: Krikorian: Thompson excels from press row

Thompson excels from press row
Doug Krikorian, Sports columnist
Article Launched: 05/17/2008 11:35:30 PM PDT

Lakers' radio commentator Mychal Thompson is predicting that Los
Angeles will win the NBA championship this year. (Michael Owen
Baker/Staff Photographer)

As with everyone in Southern California following the odyssey of the
Los Angeles Lakers, these are frenetic days for Mychal Thompson, the
team's radio analyst who maintains a grueling schedule that would
unravel a less resourceful person.

While the 53-year-old Thompson no longer plays, as he did for 13 NBA
seasons including four with the Showtime Lakers, he attends all their
games and offers his sharp insights during their broadcasts to his
play-by-play partner Spiro Didas.

And during weekdays he does four hours of sports talk radio between
noon and 4 p.m. on AM-570 on the Loose Cannons show with Steve Hartman
and Vic Jacobs.

And, if those chores didn't take up enough of his time, he also spends
an average of three and a half hours a day driving on the L.A. freeways
when the Lakers are in town, as he makes the lengthy commute from his
Ladera Ranch home near San Juan Capistrano to KLAC's Burbank studio.

"I live on the freeways, " he said the other night at his pressbox seat
at Staples Center before the Lakers faced the Utah Jazz. "It's
definitely a grind, and my wife and I eventually plan to move to L.A.

"But I can't complain. I have the best of all worlds. I'm following
the most glamorous team in the NBA and getting to watch all the time
maybe the greatest player ever to play the game in Kobe Bryant.

"Yes, for sure, I think Kobe has become even better than Michael
Jordan. He's a better shooter and he's stronger. I think the two are
even defensively and even in their fierce competitiveness.

"People have a difficult time accepting my opinion on the subject, but
sports is ever evolving, and things constantly change.

Once Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight champion, and then came
along Muhammad Ali.

Once Jack Nicklaus was the greatest golfer, and now it's Tiger Woods.
Once Pete Sampras was the greatest tennis player, and now it's Roger
Federer. Once Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player, and
now it's Kobe Bryant."

As you can see, Mychal Thompson isn't shy about expressing his
thoughts, which is the way I remember him as being when he was a member
of the Lakers.

He was always good for a memorable quote, and never took himself
seriously, a persona he's continued at his current station.

After Thompson hung up his sneakers, he went into sports talk radio in
Portland, where he played his first seven seasons with the Trail
Blazers.

"I guess it was inevitable I'd go in that direction, " he says. "After
all, I've always had a big mouth, I've always been opinionated and I've
always had a great love for sports."

Mychal Thompson grew up in Nassau in the Bahamas, and, ironically, was
a Laker loyalist as a youngster.

"The Lakers were always my favorite team, " he says.

He departed the Lakers after the 1990-91 season, and played another
season in Europe before retiring from a sport for which he maintains a
fierce passion.

"There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss playing basketball, "
he says. "One of the sad things about being a professional athlete is
that you have such a short shelf life. The years take away your
reflexes, and you're forced to stop doing what you like doing. It's
not like that in other professions like teaching and writing and
acting. Basketball is what I did best, and I had to quit it in my late
30s.

"Sure, I'd love to be still playing for the Lakers, getting treated
like a rock star. Why wouldn't I ? But I have no complaints about
what I'm now doing. It's the next best thing to actually playing."

Indeed, the 6-foot-10 Thompson has become a familiar voice on the L.A.
sporting airways, and his genial, light-hearted manner has turned out
to be the perfect complement to the workmanlike Didas on the Laker
broadcasts and to the knowledgeable Hartman and campy Jacobs on the
Loose Cannons.

"I try to keep things loose, and not take things too seriously, " he
says.

Mychal Thompson was quite a player at the University of Minnesota and
was the first pick of the 1978 NBA draft, the first foreign-born player
to be so honored.

In the middle of the 1986-87 season, Jerry West, then the Lakers
general manager, acquired Thompson from San Antonio-he had been traded
to the Spurs in the off-season by the Trail Blazers-for Peter
Gudmundsson, Frank Brickowski and a 1990 first-round draft pick that
turned out to be Greg (Cadillac) Anderson.

"One of the best things ever to happen to me, " says Thompson, who was
brought in to caddy for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and also to play some power
forward.

In his first season with the Lakers, they would beat the Boston Celtics
in the finals, and Thompson did a commendable job against his one-time
Gopher teammate, Kevin McHale.

In his next season with the Lakers, they would beat the Detroit Pistons
in a memorable seven-game series for their second consecutive NBA
championship.

"No doubt the highlight of my NBA career is playing on those two Laker
championship teams, " says Thompson.

While Mychal Thompson spends so many of his moments talking into a
microphone and driving his car up the Santa Ana Freeway, he also is
helping his wife Julie raise their three sons, all of whom are
exceptional athletes.

The oldest, Mychel Thompson, is a 6-7 starting forward at Pepperdine.

The one in the middle, Klay Thompson, recently led Rancho Santa
Margarita to a state basketball title, and the 6-7 forward will be
playing at Washington State next season.

The youngest, Trayce Thompson, is a 6-4, 200-pound junior who, natch,
also played basketball, but is an exceptional center fielder "who the
scouts say is a five-tool player, " according to his father.

Mychal Thompson thinks it will be the Lakers' destiny to win a world
title this spring.

"The team has all the right ingredients to go with the greatest player
in the game in Kobe Bryant, " says Thompson. "If everyone stays
healthy, they should win it. Why shouldn't they ? After all, they
just might have the greatest player of all-time in Kobe Bryant ... "

doug.krikorian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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