The Lake D'oh

 Baseball started up yesterday, only a week late, and my Pirates were as cruddy as ever, losing their season opener 9-0 to the bleeping-bleep St. Louis Cardinals. How dare they pick on a Double-A team like that!

Also, Tiger Woods, dragging a leg held together with the random screws your dad kept in the garage, shot a 1-under 71 in the first round of the Masters and is just four strokes adrift of the lead. Reaction from Arnold Schwarzenegger in his "Terminator" role: "Dee-yam, son!"

But enough about that.

Let's talk about the latest news from the NBA, which involves stuff we no longer have to talk/hear about/have force-fed us by coastal-centric Big Sports Media.

The Lakers are officially eliminated from the playoffs!

Which means we don't have to hear anymore about what a Superfund site they are, and how LeBron is sick of them, and how Anthony Davis needs to be traded before his Blue Cross/Blue Shield card explodes. 

All of this we've been hearing every day for months from various sports-talk poodles, who believe because they think the Lakers are important, we should, too. Actually, we don't. Actually, having the travails of a sadsack basketball team shoved down our throats because, oh, my God, IT'S THE LAKERS, is annoying as hell. It's especially annoying when it comes from the worst-in-show sportstalk poodle, Colin Cowherd, who lives in L.A. and so thinks everything in L.A. is fascinating.

Well ... it's not. Thousands of people in Ames, Ia, couldn't care less. Ditto thousands in, I don't know, Beloit, Wis., Grand Island, Neb., or, yes, Fort Wayne, In.

But the Lakers are done now, so we can talk about  teams worth talking about. Have you seen what Luka Doncic is doing right now for the Mavericks? Or Nikola Jokic, carrying an entire team on his back in Denver? Or Giannis in Milwaukee, or Joel Embiid in Philly, or -- holy crap, you mean the Suns won again?

Look. I get it. The Lakers have LeBron, and LeBron is always going to nudge needles. But they're an awful team, and not even a particularly interesting one. They're the Pacers with more laundry hanging from the rafters.

The only thing about the Lakers that intrigues me right now is the HBO series "Winning Time," which is both very good and very bizarre. It's about something that happened 40 years ago, when the Lakers became the Lake Show. The bizarre part is seeing Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly) and Jerry West (Jason Clarke) occasionally reduced to comic relief, and convincing us Adrien Brody is Pat Riley.

Now?

Now the Lake Show is the Lake D'oh. And I doubt anyone will ever make a miniseries about them.

Speaking of comic relief.