Kobe Bryant is scoring

Sorry about the low output yesterday, but we’re hosting 26.5 people for Thanksgiving and are trying to figure out how best to present the canned tuna and carrot shavings we’ll be serving.

While that might not sound all that exciting, you must remember we’re in Los Angeles, where yesterday the city was a bit excited for the first Lakers-Clippers game of the year – first place in the Pacific was at stake.

The thing didn’t disappoint, although it could’ve been closer. Lakers win, and the big story was the possible full-strengthitude of the surgically repaired Kobe Bryant.

He put 20 point in during the first quarter, and had by far his best game of the season. He also managed to do it within the structure of the team. Coach Phil Jackson’s thoughts?

“The thing that I looked at was that he had one turnover tonight and he’s been having six and seven,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said of Bryant. “I think the decisiveness is evident in that. He’s doing some things a little bit quicker, making his moves a little bit quicker without as much hesitation and that changes that considerably.”

Yeah, that was nice to see – Kobe is actually leading the NBA in turnovers at this time, so cutting back on those will help everyone out, including the people who count themselves as “turnover enthusiasts”.

We have no idea what that means. Let’s move on to the question everyone is asking: are the Lakers for real?

Our vote would have to be a definitive “it sure looks that way, but we’re not committing because we don’t want to look foolish later.”

Andrew Bynum is a legit post guy in a league without any, Kwame Brown is like a poor man’s Horace Grant, Kobe is coming around, and Lamar seems to hve finally found his way. Luke Walton is solid.

If the team has one weakness it’s their fans, one of whom insisted to us this morning that LA could trade Chris Mihm (who hasn’t played in like a year and is out for the next 8 months) for Andre Miller.

We called him a fool, and then did barbell curls with a ton of extra weight to show him we were stronger and 19% more masculine than him. Mission accomplished.