The Lakers' latest gesture is a long overdue olive branch, of sorts, and one that can hopefully ameliorate the NBA All-Time leading scorer's displeasure in simply wanting more "respect" from a team he anchored towards five NBA championships.
Now, the Sky Hook will be forever immortalized in a celestial form common only to the sport's greatest heroes.
No Laker is more deserving of this great honor than Abdul-Jabbar.
His stats are downright ludicrous. He changed the Lakers franchise and the game of basketball, for that matter, with the most unstoppable move ever seen on the floor.
A lifelike version of "Cap" is the perfect complement to the Lakers' other golden effigies adorning the Staples Center pavilion (Magic Johnson, Jerry West, Chick Hearn) and an elegant way to mend the soured relationship between a player and his beholden organization.
All too often, relationships can get in the way of business.
And when you hold the Buss Family's feet to the fire, in the spirit of their successful, entrepreneurial patriarch, they'll choose business every time.
Justice, it seems, has been served on one front.
But for the modern Lakers fan, this latest act is still not enough.
Quite simply, the Lakers owe their other captain and five-time NBA champion this same level of respect.
Derek Fisher—the 38-year old point guard who poured his heart into the Lakers organization for 13 years—deserves to have his No. 2 jersey hanging alongside fellow Lakers greats in the Staples Center rafters.
Of course, deliberation over retiring a jersey can take years, and such a move can (and should) be long debated by the organization's hierarchy.<...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
