L.A. gets to hoop it up thanks to NFL

It didn’t used to be like this, but we have become Hoop City, USA. We need another sign in the Hollywood Hills. We don’t just follow the bouncing basketball, we worship it.

Thank you, NFL.

Had you not left us without a pro pigskin to our name, we would be heavily engrossed in the Rams and Raiders right now. Or, had you left us at least one of those teams, had you had the courtesy of recognizing that Los Angeles is a huge and deserving sports market, we’d still be worshipping at your altar on Sundays.

But no, once you could see we wouldn’t be giving you our firstborn, nor an option on four freeways and 80% of Beverly Hills, you decided, presumably during one of your decision-making cocktail parties at some $500-a-night resort, that you could live happily ever after without us.

Now, we are deciding the same about you.

Recently, several of the people who tried the hardest to get you back so we could spend billions of dollars on you have seen the light. The red light.

Coliseum commissioners David Israel and Bill Chadwick have said in various settings that maybe this pursuit of the NFL is futile, that maybe we ought to pay more attention to the football franchise we have at USC. That maybe we need to get on with our lives. Their message seemed to be:

“THEY AREN’T COMING!”

Even if you love football, you have to admit that we are way better off than others who have also been refused admission to the oak-paneled, premium-wines-only cigar lounge of the NFL. We have USC, which many years might make the NFL playoffs, and we get an occasional Bruins uprising in Westwood. In 11 more days, the Coliseum will be jammed with the tradition, pageantry and intensity of USC-Notre Dame. Much the same the week after, except the intensity is more local, when USC plays UCLA at the Rose Bowl.

Would you rather be getting all gooey over Buffalo-Jacksonville?

We are free. Free at last. We are a basketball city.

Ben Howland’s Bruins, coming off a run to last season’s NCAA final, are looking as if a repeat isn’t all that far off. Tim Floyd’s Trojans will play their games in the sparkling new Galen Center, finally exiting the pigsty that the Sports Arena has become.

Front and center, we have the Lakers and Clippers. Both are competitive and both fill the fall-winter entertainment gaps quite nicely here. Lots of story lines, lots of personalities.

We know all about Kobe Bryant, we watch the maturing process of Lamar Odom, and we see a big season ahead for Luke Walton, who seems to have finally been able to translate to the pro game those things that made him one of the smartest and most instinctive college players in his era.

Bryant is a walking headline, a superstar whose fan base recovered quickly from his indiscretions in Colorado. Recently, he made big headlines when he was confronted by a local columnist -- who will not be identified here but whose work seldom appears on Page 1 of Sports -- about possibly tanking a game last season.

Bryant dribbled the moment off his foot, responding defensively, rather than questioning how much column-tanking Page 2 does.

There doesn’t seem to be enough newsprint available, or even space on the Internet, to satisfy the demand for Lakers news. We have reporters for the paper, reporters for the website, and even people doing blogs.

We thought at first that “blogs” was a reference to the old movie, “The Blob,” about a slow-moving, garbage-gathering pile of gook that had no redeeming social value and just scared people a lot. On second thought, we might have been right.

The Clippers may be better than the Lakers, and we never thought we would write those words. A soon-to-be rejuvenated Elton Brand, along with crafty Shakespearean actor Sam Cassell, haircut-challenged Chris Kaman, sneaky-good Cuttino Mobley, glue-man defensive star Quinton Ross and superstar-in-waiting Shaun Livingston make every game great theater.

Who needs prevent defenses, inane sideline interviews or, for that matter, Terrell Owens?

Our pro basketball coaches? We couldn’t do better.

Phil Jackson has won nine NBA titles, and we need say no more, except that his girlfriend is gorgeous, once posed for Playboy and just happens to be the owner’s daughter. Top that in your afternoon soap operas.

The Clippers’ Mike Dunleavy, given the right circumstances, has the ability and time to win maybe half that many. He doesn’t date the owner’s daughter, but he actually seems to have that owner’s trust and admiration, and apparently wields some influence on the owner’s check-writing hand that, over the years, has suffered from paralysis.

Even the announcers are fun.

In the post-Chick Hearn era, his replacement, Joel Meyers, along with sidekick Stu Lantz, are more buttoned-down than their counterparts at the Clippers, and that’s OK. There was only one Chick, and his game should remain forever in the refrigerator.

The Clippers’ Ralph Lawler has been around so long, he used to bring in the peach baskets from the truck. His sidekick, former player Michael Smith, is knowledgeable, opinionated, and slapped down a lot by Lawler, who has seen it all and is constantly amused at Smith’s adolescent hyperbole. Sometimes, when they get off on one of their tangents, it’s like listening to a women’s book club. Great fun.

Come June, we will all have those glazed looks from hours of watching the playoffs. We’ll be as happy as we are tired. In Cincinnati, they’ll be holding a news conference to announce the signing of a third-string nose guard.

Thank you, NFL.

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.