The Los Angeles Lakers used to be Camelot. Now they're used-car lot, with units moving in and out, mufflers dragging, fenders dented, prices slashed, EZ credit.
The end of the world is near. Benoit Benjamin is playing for the Lakers.They used to come at you with Magic and Silk and Big Fella and Savoir Faire (Norm Nixon).
Now it's Duane and Elden and Anthony and four 7-footers who, if they stood on one another's shoulders, couldn't toss in a Kareem sky hook.
It's Ben-Wa Benjamin, the kid with two left shoes, the nobody-understands-me blues and no clues.
Man, it's sad. You knew the Magic Era wouldn't last forever, but who are these guys, anyway?
It used to be worth the price of admission to watch the Lakers take the court, like lions entering the Roman Colosseum. Kareem's Red-Baron goggles and casual saunter, Magic's sore-footed shuffle, Cooper's evil grin, Rambis' goofy glasses and $3 haircut.
Then would come Riley, the world's most elegant gum chomper, his suit milled to the same tolerances as a Jaguar camshaft.
You didn't have to like the Lakers. They preferred you didn't. Hate was fine.
They dusted you, then blew town like bank robbers.
Now? Wow.
They'll probably make the playoffs, but the Lakers used to yawn at winning the Pacific Division. That, to them, was hors d'oeuvre.
They took in only players with impeccable table manners. Occasionally they'd try a Quintin Dailey, but if the Laker transfusion didn't take, Quintin's butt was on the next Greyhound.
They never messed with big-ticket mystery cases like Benoit, because you don't put a kazoo player in a symphony orchestra.
But last week they took Benoit because they had to. They traded Sam Perkins to Seattle, and the Sonics said, "You can have Doug Christie, promising rookie, only if you take Ben, too."
The Lakers probably feel that if they work hard with Benjamin, really take the time to talk to him and get through to him, use patience and prodding, they can persuade him to retire immediately.
"He'll be fine when he matures a little," one Laker told me.
Benoit is 28.
But this isn't about Benoit. It's about a memory.
"You can't pretend it's like it used to be, because it's not," Lakers coach Randy Pfund said Wednesday.
James Worthy and Byron Scott are still around, but the beauty of their games was the way they blended with Magic and the boys, how they pushed one another to new tricks, like fearless trapeze artists.
Wednesday night, as the Golden State Warriors tragically took turns spraining things, it reminded you of how the Lakers always had diplomatic immunity from injury.
In Magic's rookie season he went down with a knee injury in a game at Seattle. The Sonics' team doctor said it was ligament damage, Magic might be out for the season.
Jerry Buss chartered a plane to rush Magic home. He was examined. Just a bruise. He missed, I believe, one game.
So lucky, and so good.
At the Forum, pure craziness. It was L.A.'s church, you dressed for a Laker game, your best stuff.
Clifford Ray, the former Warriors' warrior, took in a playoff game at the Forum, and his review captured the scene, on the court and off.
"Legs, legs, legs," Ray said.
The Lakers' locker room, always an adventure. You might bump into Stevie Wonder, or Hammer, or Stephen Stills, or James Garner, or all four.
Buss always brought his celeb du jour into the locker room. One night he had Don King and Henny Youngman. What a pair - the two-bit, over-the-hill vaudeville comic, and Henny.
Other teams had petty front-office bickering, the Lakers had palace intrigue. Riley's ever-increasing power and fame made waves all over the building.
When he left, there were no tear-drenched bon voyage parties.
That was in the beginning of the end, Riley jumping ship just before the iceberg. One day the Lakers woke up and they were the Indiana Pacers in purple uniforms.
Right now the Warriors are the NBA team most deserving of sympathy. You shake your head and you wonder where they're going.
But the Lakers, you wonder where they went.