Ten SoCal sports stories that mattered in 2023 – Orange County Register

Ten stories that mattered in SoCal sports in 2023, in (sort of) chronological order:

• Chargering: If there were any doubts that the phenomenon is real, or that there’s merit to the Urban Dictionary’s definition – … “the act of blundering when you should have things well in hand … when you are screwing up or under-performing at an almost comical level” – those doubts should have been dispelled on the evening of Jan.14, when the Chargers blew a 27-point halftime lead against the Jaguars in the wild-card round at Jacksonville.

That was, indeed, the beginning of the end for Brandon Staley, who lasted 14 games into this season before a 63-21 blowout at Las Vegas on Dec. 14 forced the Spanos ownership to fire both the head coach and General Manager Tom Telesco with three games left. The Chargers are now 5-10, 26th in the league in defense and 0-6 in games decided by three points or less. Chargering, indeed.

• LeBron, G.O.A.T.?: The best part of LeBron James’ chase for the NBA career scoring record, which he broke on Feb. 7 at home against Oklahoma City, was that we were reminded of – or, for younger generations, introduced to – the skills and accomplishments of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The worst: It renewed the hoary and boring G.O.A.T. debate, of which there really is no one true answer. Also, it was a distraction to a Lakers team that spun its wheels for four months before being transformed at the trading deadline and improbably reaching the conference finals before running into the future champ Denver Nuggets (whose followers probably still feel upstaged by LeBron).

• Whither Auto Club Speedway?: The Inland Empire has lost two major motorsports facilities in the last 45 years, Ontario Motor Speedway and Riverside International Raceway. So when Auto Club Speedway in Fontana hosted the last NASCAR race on its 2-mile layout on Feb. 26, with plans to rebuild the track into a “state of the art” half-mile oval, the conspiracy theorists on social media wondered if this was actually another permanent closure and redevelopment.

Track president Dave Allen tried to reassure fans otherwise, but it will be a lot more reassuring once the plans for the new layout become public. Now, clicking on an Auto Club Speedway link takes you to a NASCAR.com page with lots of vagueness and not many specifics.

• A shocking trade: Jonathan Quick was the best goaltender in L.A. Kings history. General Manager Rob Blake made that claim, and the statistics – and, specifically, the only two Stanley Cups in the franchise’s history, both under Quick’s watch, backed it up. That said, the Feb. 28 trade that sent Quick to Columbus (temporarily) was not unexpected, such had his game slipped.

But Quick might have the last laugh. The Blue Jackets flipped him to the Vegas Golden Knights, where he won a third Cup ring as a backup, and he’s now with the New York Rangers – his childhood favorites – and has a 9-1-1 record, .920 save percentage and 2.27 goals-against average as well as a 4-1 victory over the Kings in Madison Square Garden Dec. 10. (And if you’re wondering, Quick and the Rangers play in L.A. on Jan. 20.)

• Going broke in Vegas: A veteran UCLA men’s basketball team was within a half of reaching the West Regional championship game on March 24, but there were two problems: They were playing Gonzaga, and they were playing in Las Vegas, where they’re 13-16 in the last decade and 4-8 under Mick Cronin. The result was another Bruin heartbreaker, an 11:20 field goal drought in the second half and an ultimate 79-76 loss on Julian Strawther’s 3-pointer from just inside the logo with 7.2 seconds left, ending the careers of a senior class anchored by Tyger Campbell, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and David Singleton.

The 2023-24 Bruins could use some of that experience and leadership, it seems.

• A major when golf was secondary: The U.S. Open reached Los Angeles Country Club in June, its first visit to L.A. in 75 years, just in time to be upstaged again by the business of golf – this time a tentative agreement between the PGA Tour and its LIV Golf adversaries that caught players on both sides of the divide by surprise. Said Jon Rahm at the time: “I think the general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management.” Then again, earlier this month Rahm – No. 6 in the world rankings – jumped to LIV for a contract reportedly north of $300 million.

• The end of the Pac-12: USC and UCLA made the first move at the end of June 2022 when they jointly announced they would leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024. But blame incompetent commissioners and feckless university presidents and chancellors for the disintegration of the conference in August, plus a rapidly changing TV sports landscape that said commissioners, presidents and chancellors had a hard time grasping. Bottom line: College sports in this part of the country will be balkanized by next fall, fans who grew up with Pac-12 football will be faced with a large void, and however Washington State and Oregon State reimagine the conference, it’ll never be the same.

• Kershaw’s exit?: We realized, far later, why Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw had gotten by on guts, guile and limited stuff most of the second half of the season: He was pitching with a shoulder that needed surgery. It caught up to him in Game 1 of the National League Division Series against Arizona, when he got one out and gave up six runs and six hits before Dave Roberts mercifully asked for the ball. That 11-2 Arizona victory set the tone for a series the Diamondbacks would sweep, and it left the question open of whether that would be the way a future Hall of Famer’s career would end. It won’t, but we still don’t know if Kershaw – who will be ready to pitch by midseason 2024, will continue as a Dodger.