Jimmy Bramlett

After Sports Illustrated’s piece on UCLA men’s basketball program went live on their website this morning, it’s apparent that the Bruins have a big problem on their hands. The problem is worse than those that author George Dohrmann enumerated in his piece: it’s the problem of irrelevancy.

Minnesota Timberwolves defeat LA Clippers 109-97. This was a close game through three quarters with the Clippers leading most of the way. Then Minnesota exploded all over the court in the fourth quarter 36-21, and that was that. So Blake Griffin had 30 points, DeAndre Jordan 14 points and 14 rebounds.

Nashville Predators defeat LA Kings 2-1. Dustin Brown scored the Kings late goal as they looked flat in the Music City. By the way, Brown has scored four of the Kings' last five goals as the Kings stood pat in the final hours of the trade deadline.

Can the threat of being shipped away to an irrelevant hockey team force an entire team to do a quick 180 turning their once laughable offense into something that resembles something respectable? That is apparently what happened to the Kings as they trounced the Chicago Blackhawks 4-0 with rumors of their Captain Dustin Brown and his hat trick being used as trade bait continued to make headlines on Twitter.

Oklahoma City Thunder defeat LA Lakers 100-85. The final NBA game before the All Star break saw the Lakers unable to withstand another poor shooting performance by Kobe Bryant on the road. While Derek Fisher’s 15 points in Dallas Wednesday night helped bail the Lakers out, no such luck against the best team in the Western Conference.

You can smell the desperation even as the news was breaking on Twitter. The Kings traded defenseman Jack Johnson and a conditional first round pick to the Columbus Blue Jackets for center Jeff Carter. General Manager Dean Lombardi had to improve the league’s worst offense, and this essentially was a shot in the dark.

LA Lakers defeat Dallas Mavericks 96-91. The Lakers actually manage to win a game on the road pulling a victory out of the jaws of victory. Kobe Bryant only had 15 points on 4-for-15 shooting, but it was Derek Fisher’s season-high 15 points that helped fill that void. Pau Gasol added 24 points and Andrew Bynum had 19 points and 14 rebounds.

Phoenix Coyotes defeat LA Kings 5-4 (SO). That’s it folks. Unless General Manager Dean Lombardi gets Rick Nash or Zach Parise or both or all or what not before the trade deadline on Monday, this is it folks.

Down and down the drain of irrelevancy the Kings continue to spiral. It was yet another 1-0 loss to a team that was two points behind them in the standings, this time to the Calgary Flames. And to add insult to injury, the Kings have dropped to the ninth seed of the Western Conference outside of a playoff spot.

The Kings lost to the Phoenix Coyotes 1-0. I’m trying to think of positive things to say about this game, and unfortunately the only thing I could come up with was that Dodgers’ pitchers and catchers report to spring training on Tuesday. Being Dodgers’ Pride Night, Dodgers’ General Manager Ned Colletti dropped the puck in a pregame ceremony.

There was nothing pretty about the Lakers’ 86-78 win against the Atlanta Hawks as the Lakers came back home from the irrelevant award show road trip. But the ugliness got started over the weekend with some words by Ron Artest.

Sometimes I still catch myself thinking the Clippers are that joke of the NBA that made visiting Los Angeles a pleasant experience for opposing teams. It was easy to make that mistake in the first quarter of the Clippers’ 96-92 loss to the Dallas Mavericks.