TORRANCE TRIBUNE July 2, 2015 Page 3 “With the second overall pick, the Lakers gambled and selected guard D’Angelo Russell from Ohio State.” KIDS BOWL FREE! 7 Days a Week – 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. KIDS SUMMER MENU $5.50 (plus tax) your choice of: Grilled Cheese Peanut Butter & Jelly Slice of Cheese Pizza Hamburger Hot Dog Apple Juice or Skim Milk Apple Slices or French Fries Register at www.kidsbowlfree.com/palosverdes For more information please call Charlotte at charlotte@pvbowl.com; or 310.326.5120 SOUTH BAY WORKFORCE INVESTMENT BOARD ASSISTS JOB SEEKERS, EMPLOYERS AND YOUTH THROUGH GOVERNMENT-FUNDED PROGRAMS For more than 30 years, the South Bay Workforce English skill levels and set up on-site training. Since Investment Board (SBWIB) has administered employment September, the affected employees have been attending and training programs for LA County’s South Bay Area. Business English classes three days a week with several of those individuals now being considered for promotions. Within the 11 cities serviced (Carson, El Segundo, Gardena, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Inglewood, Recruitment assistance, pre-screening of applicants, Lawndale, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Lomita On-The-Job training and Transitional Subsidized and Torrance), the SBWIB accomplishes its goals Employment (TSE) are other programs available to local through partnerships with local committees handling companies and small businesses. business and economic development, One-Stop locations, performance and evaluation, as well as a The SBWIB also prepares youth for entry into the Youth Development Council. workforce by emphasizing education and services that promote relevant workplace skills and experiences Through workforce investment funds, the SBWIB offers leading to industry-recognized credentials and career dislocated workers with free training programs and pathway employment, including apprenticeships. Special job-searching resources. Job-searching equipment, emphasis is aimed at the reengagement of disconnected as well as seminars, workshops and job placement youth through intervention and prevention services. assistance are available at the four One-Stop Business & Career Centers (Gardena, Inglewood, Carson and The SBWIB is one of the highest performing Workforce Torrance – effective 7/14/15). Investment Boards (WIB) in the state and is often recognized by the California Workforce Investment The SBWIB assists businesses through an innovative Board (CWIB) for its achievements. Rapid Response Program geared towards layoff aversion. Parker Hannifin Corporation’s Carson facility Continuous collaborations with business, economic is a recent success story. An initial meeting revealed that development, education, government, labor and nearly 60 employees lacked sufficient English skills and community organizations, helps the SBWIB provide a were facing potential layoff. A layoff aversion plan was dynamic, efficient and effective workforce development formulated that resulted in the SBWIB approaching system, ensuring a skilled workforce and vibrant a local adult school partner to assess the employees’ economy in the South Bay Area. For more information please call: 310-970-7700. Lakers Choose to Pass By Adam Serrao They passed on making a trade. They passed on taking Jahlil Okafor. But the Los Angeles Lakers didn’t pass on taking a passer in last week’s NBA Draft. With the second overall pick, the Lakers gambled and selected guard D’Angelo Russell from Ohio State. It’s not often that the purple and gold are faced with tough decisions like the one that they recently addressed in the draft. The last time L.A. had a top-two pick was in 1982 when the team took James Worthy first overall. Before that, it was Magic Johnson. If Russell amounts to anything close to those two players, then Laker fans are surely in for a treat. The Lakers choice to go with a guard over a starting center, however, mean that it won’t be long before “Showtime” is back in full effect in Hollywood. Players like Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, the aforementioned Worthy and Johnson, Jamaal Wilkes, and Byron Scott made up the “Showtime” Lakers squad of 35 years ago. While Scott is now the Lakers head coach, the team certainly has a long way to go to become anything like the five-time NBA champions of yesteryear. Last week’s draft gave this year’s Lakers a good shove in the right direction. While many people expected the Lakers to go big with their No. 2 pick and select Duke’s Okafor to play center in Los Angeles, the selection of Russell is the biggest tell possible as to what’s in store for the team. Russell gives the Lakers a player who makes everyone around him better. He can pass the ball, score and most importantly, he can lead the team after Kobe Bryant officially calls it a career (whenever that might actually be). The addition of Russell is not only a smart choice because the Lakers must compete in the Western Conference, but also because of the talent that will be available on this year’s free-agent market. Free-agency kicks off July 1st in the NBA and you can certainly expect the Lakers to be among the most active teams this offseason. Big name players (both in size and definition) like Marc Gasol, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, and DeAndre Jordan are all available and able to be had if the Lakers pitch and offer is right. That means that General Manager Mitch Kupchak and the rest of the Lakers front office decided that finding an elite center on the market would be much easier than finding an elite guard. Coach Scott says that Russell has a chance to become a “superstar” in this league. Scott is right. Quite literally, Russell has a 15.2% chance of becoming a superstar in the NBA. That’s a higher percentage chance than anyone else in the draft, even this year’s No. 1 pick, Karl-Anthony Towns. Russell also has the highest “bust” potential, however, weighing in with a 40.9% chance; also the highest of the draft. Clearly, drafting the guard for the Lakers was nothing short of a risk. A risk, though, that Kupchak believes will certainly pay off. “He’s got gifts that you can work really hard and long on and still not acquire those gifts,” the GM said of Russell. “Some of them you’re just born with or somebody sprinkles a little gold dust on you at some point. It’s just there.” The Lakers will need a sprinkle or two of that gold dust as a team. In an extremely aggressive and competitive Western Conference, they will be looking at weeks where they’ll start off against Russell Westbrook on a Monday, turn around and go up against Chris Paul on Wednesday, then face Steph Curry and Damian Lillard to close out the week. A potential perennial All-Star guard like Russell is exactly what the Lakers needed in a conference that is already driven by point guards, specially Curry who just won a championship. It’s not just Russell that will lead the turnaround for this Lakers team. Though he was a major piece added during last week’s draft, the Lakers roster us sure to look drastically different than it did at any point last season. In the Lakers final game of the season against the Sacramento Kings last year, the starting lineup featured Vander Blue, Ryan Kelly, Jordan Hill, Tarik Black, and Jabari Brown. For opening day this year, the Lake Show will be looking at D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, Kobe Bryant, Julius Randle and almost certainly a center along the likes of Aldridge or Jordan. A roster like that will put the days of 21 wins in the rearview mirror. It will take a while to determine what the best pick of this year’s NBA draft was, but the consensus right now is that the Lakers made a gutsy, but very good decision by taking Russell at No. 2 overall. Time will tell if the comboguard either becomes one of the league’s best players, or a complete bust, but in order to turn around a team that was among the worst in the entire league over the past two seasons, you’ve got to swing for the fences. Kupchak and the Lakers are certainly swinging and it looks as if they’ve got the bat on the ball. D’Angelo Russell is the next best step to turning around one of the most prestigious franchises in sports history and bringing “Showtime” back to the Staples Center crowd. Suddenly, it looks as if that turnaround will happen sooner, rather than later. • Softball Saxons Had Season to Remember By Adam Serrao The North High Saxons softball team’s season ended much earlier than they would have liked it to this year, but that doesn’t mean that the total season was a loss. In the Pioneer League division, it is a battle week-in and week-out to ascend to the top of the league. While being on your A-game on a daily basis can be rather difficult to do, these Lady Saxons, under head coach Howard Miller, found a way to be pretty good at it. A 5-2 loss to El Segundo in the second round of the playoffs wound up knocking the Saxons out of the playoffs and ending their season for good, but a few highlights of the season that has passed will surely stick with the players forever. Before league play began, the Lady Saxons found themselves to be having a great deal of success in tournament play. A 4-0 nothing Opening Day win against Carson at North High showed Miller and his team that they had the opportunity to be a very good team this year. Carson is one of those team’s that is pretty much always good, finishing this year with a 26-6 record and an appearance in the Division I championship game where they lost to Chatsworth. Though it was only the first game of the season for the Lady Saxons, that win is always a good win to have. The team used their initial success to their advantage and carried momentum over into the TNT Tournament at Wilson Park in Torrance. It was there that the Lady Saxons enjoyed five straight wins and took the Tournament title, beating Agoura 7-5 in the championship game. Key wins over Torrance (7-2), and Palos Verdes (8-2) helped the Lady Saxons on their way to the eventual title game victory. A twogame sweep over Palos Verdes following the tournament not only meant that the Saxons beat Sea Kings three times in one week, but also gave the team an enormous amount of momentum heading into the league play portion of the schedule. If anyone thought that league play was going to slow the Saxons down, no one told coach Miller or his team. They started things off on a tear and the Torrance Tartars were the first team to get in their way. An 8-5 win over the eventual Pioneer League and CIF champs not only temporarily won city bragging rights, but also had the Saxons thinking that they were the team to beat. Over the next four games, the Lady Saxons outscored their opponents 44-15 and won every game against Leuzinger, South, Centennial and El Segundo. The Saxons were rolling, but there was trouble on the horizon. Just as the Saxons were forgetting what the feeling of losing was like, they ran into a rough patch against a couple of league rivals. North’s 10-game winning streak was snapped as the team took a tumble against West High in a rivalry game that saw the Saxons lose 8-3. Two days later, the Tartars came to town with revenge on their minds and got it. A 1-0 loss against Torrance sent the Saxons to their first two-game losing streak See Saxons, page 4
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