I do not like Mark Cuban.

Now, I do not hate the Maverick’s owner by a long-shot. But if I were to ever run out of Christmas Cards, he would be getting the recycled ones I received the year prior. However, as much as I hate to say it, when he is right, he is right.

I am not one to blow sunshine up your ass so I will give it to you straight: The Lakers suck. The season is over. Pick a new team to root for.

Let me explain. All year long, Laker fans, including yours truly, have been in denial. The Lakers are good people-–they will not let us down.

We have the best center, the best all-around player, and the best coach. This has let us to believe it will only be a matter of time until things turn around. When will the Lakers smile one day, shrug their shoulders like five-year-olds, and tell us, "Just kidding?"

We would laugh and playfully point at them and do that strange Arsenio Hall thing and in four months the stork would show up with a new championship banner and Macy’s will throw a parade down Figueroa.

Reality check. Not in our wildest dreams is that coming true. As Homer Simpson once said, "It’s all make-believe, like elves, gremlins, and Eskimos."

If there were ever a time for the Lakers to turn things absolutely around and start afresh, it would have been in the first few games of the season.

In the first five games back, the Lakers are 3-2, one of those wins a close overtime victory against the Nets.

Currently, only two teams are worse than the Nets in the East, which translates into them being the third worst team in the league.

The second win came against the Charlotte Hornets 99-94, a team struggling to remain afloat above .500 and ranked seventh in the East.

The third win on Tuesday was against a formidable Dallas team, but only after allowing the Mavericks to score 109 points and only after Shaq hit a freak 11 of 15 free throws.

The 15 point loss to the 76ers? Sure, that’s somewhat excusable; Philly’s a good team.

You might say, that’s not so bad. Let’s forgive and forget and buy more season tickets. But we cannot forget the Indiana game.

I started watching this game with the full intent of singing praises for my dear Lakers; thinking to myself how this game would mark the season about-face for the Lakers. It was going to be drenched with emotion, brimming with action words like "Vindication!" and "Emotional Intensity!"

And for a while, it was going beautifully. The Lakers were destroying the Pacers in high fashion, commanding a 14 point lead and beating them.

Then, sometime in the final eight minutes, something smelled terribly rotten in Walker lounge. The TV muttered something in the background, dejectedly, quietly. "Pacers 110-Lakers 109." My plan was crumbling. How could this happen, I screamed.

Then I started to cry, then some girl named Jenny came over and she cried. Then we made love. It was all very awkward.

Then I began to understand what just happened. Visiting a struggling and hapless Indiana team that has only scored 100 points seven times this entire season, the Lakers had actually allowed them to surge back and drop 110 on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

A frail shell of the team that once was, Reggie Miller, Jermaine O’Neal, and Jalen Rose had all been seriously struggling. That is, until the Lakers showed to up to town with those bright shiny rings. Then they had 33, 17, and 19, respectively, all shooting above 50 percent. In fact, Indiana as a team shot 50 percent.

"Defensively, we got soft," Jackson said. "Our defense has been really suspect. We’ve been talking about it. Yet there’s something else we’ve got to work on defensively."

How suspect?

For the six games Shaq was injured, the Lakers did not allow 100 points in any game. Now that the 325 pound, 7’1 monster is back in the middle, the Lakers have allowed 110, 112, 94, 110, and 109.

Where’s the beef, you ask? Why no defense? Simply because nobody ever really wants to play defense except when it matters. It is one of those formalities they stick in sports so less talented but more spirited people can win. When you have the two best offensive weapons in the league, defense does not seem to matter all that much.

This entire Kobe-Shaq feud? Bollocks. I don’t care who scores what, the Lakers are second in the league in points per game with 100.3 and third in field goal percentage at 46.5 percent. Defensively, however, they are the fifth worse team, allowing 97.9 points per game. Of the five teams that are worse none are playoff bound. The closest good west coast team is Sacramento, ranked 19th with 94.4 ppg.

Even if the Lakers get their act together, they will not be able to overcome a rejuvenated Spurs team, a vengeful Portland squad, and a now confident Philly team. The Lakers do not yet realize, as they will realize sitting at home in June, how embarrassing it is for them to lose. And how we are going to throw rocks at them come summertime.

Add to all this a new J.R. Rider situation, a Kobe Bryant ankle injury, two feuding stars and never was there a story of more woe, than this of the Lakers and their crappy show.