Warriors have little to fear from high-handed Lakers

Sixty years have

passed since the Warriors joined the Lakers on the

West Coast, and we’re still waiting for some sort of

spark.

Stephen Curry brings the ball upcourt for the Golden State Warriors and autumn turns to springtime, full of youthful panache and a sense that wondrous occasions are in store.

LeBron James appears doomed by the burdens of doubt in the Lakers’ camp, but did you hear he’s investing in Major League Pickleball?

Klay Thompson gathers himself for a 3-pointer and it feels like Larry Bird in Boston, fans rising as one to witness the pure mechanics of greatness.

Russell Westbrook plays that role as a tone-deaf drummer, spectators shouting, “Don’t do it!”

Draymond Green steams into the season as the essence of soulful influence, bound for distinctive status among the all-time greats. (He’s also investing in Major League Pickleball.)

Anthony Davis can’t help but notice a headline proclaiming he “seems to lack the heart and drive the Lakers need.”

Jordan Poole comes off the Warriors’ bench and it’s a feast for the imagination, all about 20-point outbursts within a few spectacular minutes.

Here comes the Lakers’ version of an energy-pumping reserve, and it’s … Patrick Beverley?

Welcome to a “rivalry” that doesn’t actually exist, and never did. The Giants-Dodgers baseball dynamic is so ancient, the New York Times once noted that “they had already played each other 757 times when sliced bread was invented in 1928.” Well, 60 years have passed since the Warriors joined the Lakers on the West Coast, and we’re still waiting for some sort of spark.

The teams haven’t even had a playoff confrontation since 1991 (play-in tournament games don’t count), so forget any recent memories for the majority of fans. There were seven postseason meetings prior to that — six one-sided yawners and just a hint of intrigue, in 1977, when the Warriors of Rick Barry, Jamaal Wilkes and Phil Smith lost Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals, 97-84.

And so we wait, if we even care. The Warriors have far greater concerns in the Western Conference — Phoenix, Memphis, Denver, Dallas and the Clippers come to mind — and the Lakers have been so roundly dismissed, even the great LeBron feels the sting. In the wake of James’ recent contract extension, L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke predicted “two more years of injury reports, bad drama and embarrassing mediocrity” as the Lakers “cling to an aging star even as the sky is falling around them.”

That’s terribly unfair to LeBron,

but otherwise deadly accurate. No NBA team had a greater priority than the Lakers in needing to trade Westbrook, a hopeless failure with the club, but they couldn’t get it done. (At least so far.) New coach Darvin Ham is expecting Westbrook to hit jump shots, play relentless defense and work off the ball, and he won’t do any of that.

The backcourt crowd of Westbrook, Beverley, Dennis Schroder, Kendrick Nunn and Austin Reaves contains no reliable shooters. Beverley and Westbrook claim to have made peace, but they’ve been bitter enemies on the court since 2013. A Golden State bust, Damian Jones, is on the team as a backup center. The inspiring Juan ToscanoAnderson is there, as well, and one can only hope he finds salvation so far from his East Bay roots.

A delicate balance

From his days at Santa Clara to his stellar NBA career and a warm working relationship with Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, Steve Nash is a cherished figure in Bay Area lore. It remains to be seen if he can coach a Brooklyn Nets team with two players, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, who have publicly questioned his worth. The fascinating part is that Nash finally has all the pieces in place — KD, Kyrie, a fresh and optimistic Ben Simmons — to field an Eastern Conference powerhouse. All seems promising and tranquil at the moment. But personalities don’t change overnight. … At some point, the Nets will need a voice — and I’m hearing Pat Riley, Chuck Daly or Gregg Popovich — to storm into the locker room and start shouting: “We’re going to win the championship if you divas wake up, play the damn game, show up every night and trust each other! Not maybe get to the Finals! I mean the whole damn thing!” Is the ever-placid Nash capable of that?. … Personal note: I’m tired of joining the parade of ridicule. I’d love to see the Nets flourish, for real, because it could be amazing to watch. “It’s going to be sick,”

Simmons predicted. “I can’t wait.”. … One reason the Phoenix Suns appeared a bit shellshocked during the media day interviews: They have learned the truth about their racist bully of an owner, Robert Sarver (in the process of selling the team), and reports make it clear that a number of highlevel employees — men just as despicable as Sarver — remain on the job, making a lot of people nervous. … The Suns’ Deandre Ayton had such a severe disconnect from head coach Monty Williams, the coach benched his star center for most of the second half as their melting-down club got destroyed by Dallas in Game 7 of the second round. Now Ayton says he hasn’t once spoken with Williams since that day. Williams is a good man, one of the best, but unless he has no use for Ayton and wants him gone, an earnest conversation should have been top priority in the offseason.

Raiders/Las Vegas Aces owner Mark Davis made a great hire in Becky Hammon, who immediately led her team to the WNBA championship and won the Coach of the Year award. Davis may have blown it with Josh McDaniels. There are people in Denver who can’t believe he got any head-coaching job after his disastrous 28-game run with the Broncos in 2009-10. … College football coaches go to ridiculous lengths to keep injuries private, but Stanford’s David Shaw — always one of the worst in this regard — hit rock bottom when promising running back E.J. Smith was declared out for the season and Shaw refused to disclose the injury. That takes paranoia into the realm of the pathetic. … 49ers scene nobody wants to see again: The postgame Jimmy Garoppolo broadly smiling, looking downright delighted, as he greeted members of the victorious Broncos last Sunday. Not a good look for a quarterback who deserved much of the blame . ... Salinas honored one of its own, Cal football legend Joe Kapp, this past week. The football field at El Sausal Middle School now bears his name, and there was a special guest at the ceremony: Palmina Brunelli-Rende, 94, Kapp’s teacher there in 1949. She took Joe’s homeroom class on a field trip to the Berkeley campus that year, and the boy’s path was set for life.