High-Ranking Priests Visited the Lakers

Perhaps in search of some divine intervention prior to tonight’s huge game against the Dallas Mavericks, the Lakers had a couple of big shots from the Catholic Church at their team practice (and because this is HollyWeird, Lamar Odom’s reality TV show with his wife was also being filmed at the same time.) From the LA Times: “Along the sideline of the Lakers’ practice court stood a vast camera crew filming the upcoming reality series about Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian. But that’s not what made Wednesday’s practice unusual. No, what made it unusual were the two men sitting in folding courtside chairs wearing black shirts, white collars and crucifixes. Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, the archbishop of Lima, Peru, and Archbishop Jose Gomez, the new leader of the Los Angeles archdiocese, were invited by the Lakers to attend their practice Thursday where they witnessed a full-court scrimmage and had one-on-one conversations with Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson, Mitch Kupchak and Pau Gasol. Yup, it’s just another day in Laker land. ‘We offered them some prayers so they could finish a good tournament,’ said Cipriani, who was in town visiting his friend, Gomez. ‘They’re doing really well in these last games and hopefully they’ll be ready for the playoffs. Maybe they’ll repeat.’ … ‘A lot of people are praying and were telling me to switch from the Spurs to the Lakers,’ Gomez said. ‘Prayers work. Now I’m a Lakers fan. I’m also praying for the Spurs but a sign from God is that the Lakers are playing much better.'”