Old School Friday: Pieces of a Dream

This is the time of year that I enjoy watching the NBA playoffs. I was born and raised in Los Angeles ... so I've been a Lakers fan for all of my life. The Lakers have won 16 world championships ... but, they've lost quite a few championships as well ... including the one in 1982-1983. That was the year that Moses Malone and the Philadelphia 76ers kicked our butt.

The Philadelphia 76ers were a remarkable team that year. Before the playoffs began, reporters asked how the playoffs would run. Malone answered "four, four, four" — in other words, predicting that the Sixers would sweep all three rounds to win the title, with the minimum 12 games. Malone's deep voice made his boast sound like "fo', fo', fo'."

The Sixers backed up Malone's boast. They demolished the East with a 65-17 record; swept New York in the Eastern Semifinals; beat Milwaukee in five; and then overwhelmed the Lakers in the NBA Finals in four straight. It was a playoff run with only one loss. Malone was named Most Valuable Player for both the regular season and the Finals.

A jazz group called Pieces of a Dream rephrased Malone's prediction as "fo', fi', fo'" (four, five, four) in a song that I still think about every year when the playoffs come around.

Do you remember it?



Pieces Of A Dream - Fo-fi-fo (Funk #24)
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Do you have any ol' school songs that you think about when basketball is being played? For that matter ... do you remember Pieces of a Dream at all?

Wordless Wednesday: World Champion Los Angeles Lakers

Wordless Wednesday: Los Angeles Lakers Sweep Boston Celtics in 2010 NBA Finals

World Champion Los Angeles Lakers Visit Obama's White House ... sans Brian Winters

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. As such, I've been a Lakers fan for over 50 years ... way before it was popular!

The Lakers that I grew up with were always getting beat by the Boston Celtics or the New York Knicks. I remember when the Lakers from yesteryear like Mel Counts, Happy Hairston, Gail Goodrich, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. Do you remember any of the Lakers from back in the day?


My favorite Lakers player back then was a guy named Brian Winters. I thought the Lakers made a mistake in 1975 when they acquired Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Milwaukee Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, and rookie "blue chippers" Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman.

Anyhow, I say all that to say ... it brought a smile to my face when I saw that President Obama was hanging with the Lakers today in the White House:





I do think that it is somewhat sad that Chicago Bulls' fans, like Obama, can't pay homage to the Lakers without bringing up Michael Jordan and other long-past days of glory...