The Young Turks: Rick Strom & Brett Erlich: Top Five Lakers of All-Time

Source:The New Democrat

You could make a very good case that both Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Earvin Johnson are among the best basketball players of all time.  Kareem played most of his career for the Lakers and Magic, his whole career.  That, alone, puts them in a tie for greatest Los Angeles Laker of all time.  Then, for 3, 4 and five there are plenty of other great Lakers to choose from.

For the rest of the list, I would start with Big Game James Worthy who was a franchise caliber player in the prime of his career.  He would have been the best player on almost every other team in the NBA.  He played with the Lakers for nine seasons with Magic and seven seasons with Kareem.  He almost won games 6 and 7 against the Detroit Pistons in the 1988 NBA Finals on his own and was the MVP of that Finals.

So I would go with Kareem and Magic at one without being sure who's one and who's two and then I go to Big Game James at three. Then I'm looking at Jerry West at four and then Kobe Bryant, Jerry West or Elgin Baylor at five. Shaquille O'Neal is not on my list because after he played half of his career with the Lakers, it went  almost completely downhill.  He wasn't even the best Laker of his era.  He dominated, the 2000s, a very weak era for NBA big men.  Shaq has some big strikes against him.

Jerry West and Kobe Bryant finish off my list.  Jerry's not only in the top five or ten players of all time but perhaps the best NBA general manager of all time.   He built the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s. So I would put him at four and then go to Kobe Bryant, the best all around NBA player post Michael Jordan.  He was the best player since Michael retired up until Lebron James arrived in Miami to play for the Heat. Oh, by the way, Kobe's won five NBA Finals as well and, without the injuries late in his career, he's perhaps still the best player in the NBA right now.

Movie Clips Classic Trailer Vault: Rear Window (1954) Starring Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey & Raymond Burr

Source: Movie Clips Classic Trailer Vault- Jimmy Stewart.

Source:The New Democrat

Rear Window might be the best not so believable movie I've ever seen. . It's about Jeff (Jimmy Stewart), a photographer  in a wheelchair with a broken leg solving a murder, practically. on his own.  He gets some help from his girlfriend (Amazing Grace Kelly) and his nurse (Thelma Ritter).  It's not, you know,  the most believable plot ever written.

Jeff has a friend (Wendell Corey) who's a lieutenant in the NYPD.  The lieutenant is the only person in the movie who has any real life, detective or police experience.  Jeff has a theory about how a supposed murder goes down in the apartment across the courtyard from his.  The lieutenant doesn't believe Jeff's theory.

The movie takes place in Greenwich Village in the middle of one of those famous humid heat waves  they get every summer.  Jeff has nothing to do all day but to look out the window, talk to his nurse (Thelma Ritter) when she comes by to check on him, and, of course, hangout with his hot sexy baby-faced girlfriend (Grace Kelly) when she comes by at night.

From his window, Jeff notices some strange things going on in the apartment across the courtyard.  A woman who's sick and confined to her bed is suddenly missing.  Her husband (Raymond Burr) does strange things at night.  He goes out with a suitcase when it's raining and comes back shortly thereafter.  Jeff thinks there's something suspicious in the suitcase, like the body parts of the missing wife. He wants his detective friend to look into it.

All the while, Jeff thinks his girlfriend is too perfect for him, his job being very stable.  He's always traveling.  He thinks that they would both be better off keeping things as they are.  She wants to marry him and that is not a commitment that Jeff wants to make.  He just wants to recover from the broken leg and go back to work and have his girlfriend available.

This movie stretches credibility but it is very well written and has a great cast, Jimmy Stewart, Wendell Corey, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr and others.  It has a lot of great humor, especially between the lieutenant and Jeff.  The cop sees his friend as an amateur sleuth, at best, and makes fun of him.   He's doing his best to show that Jeff only has a theory and a weak circumstantial case.  It becomes a great murder mystery.
Source:Classic Movie Clip Trailer Vault