Drew my first prep basketball assignment in at least a couple of years tonight — Westlake's 72-52 win over Simi Valley in the Marmonte League boys' race — and was immediately reminded of two things: One, how out of practice I am at keeping all my own statistics (we get spoiled about that stuff at NBA and college games), and two, just how much whining there is in the stands.

You can't hear that stuff from the field at a high school football game (one reason I always prefer the field to the press box) but you just can't escape it in the gym. I'm under no illusion that this is anything new — my dad, an otherwise reasonable man, believed referees were responsible for every loss in every sport when my brother and I were in high school — but it was a funny thing: when I graduated from high school and stopped having a rooting interest, all of a sudden the referees seemed a lot better. Not to say they didn't make mistakes, but they tend to be distributed evenly, and aren't some kind of arch plot against (fill in name of team here).

A certain amount of complaining is, I know, inevitable, but if people ever really listened to themselves or thought about what they were saying, I'd like to think they'd be a bit embarrassed. Really, how many decades has it been since "Go back to Foot Locker" was a remotely clever remark?

LOS ANGELES — Luke Walton was on crutches in the Laker locker room before Sunday's game with San Antonio, optimistic about his sprained ankle, which he said had "minimal" swelling and little brusing. "I just couldn't put weight on it," he said. "Today, I'm able to put a little weight on it as I walk."

He was also maintaining a sense of humor about how the injury happened in Friday's game with Charlotte.

"When I jumped, I was off balance, and when I hit a foot, my whole body just went down. I’ve got to stay down. I jump way too high. It’s dangerous when you get up that high." He was laughing as he said this. So were his listeners.

He also said he'd heard from his father, Bill, who knows a thing or two about foot injuires.

"He said your body doesn’t know the season, doesn’t know it’s the middle of the season, so make sure you get healthy. Good fatherly advice." Perfectly mimicking his father, he added, "It was like, 'Luke, I love you no matter what. My love for you is unconditional."

LOS ANGELES — Lamar Odom returns to the Lakers' starting lineup tonight, but he won't be joined by Kwame Brown, as the team had hoped at the start of the week. Brown practiced one day, but it was clear he wouldn't be ready to face Charlotte.

"I responded well to straight-line running," said Brown, "but basketball’s not all straight line. The jumping and cutting still gives me problems."

So, it seems, does coach Phil Jackson. Asked about Brown's status, Jackson — referencing the recent, bizarre cake-throwing incident in the South Bay — joked, "Well, he's stil out of jail. He's not under indictment."

Brown got the joke.

"Some guys can’t take it, but he knows I can, " he said. "... I learned a long time ago, when he’s not joking, that’s when you’ve got to worry. When the coach is not talking to you, you’re probably on your way out. So at least I know I’m here a couple days longer."

Hey, if that's a good enough way to announce a presidential candidacy — making the decision sound like nothing more than a hand in a poker tournament — I suppose it's sufficient to announce another guy elbowing his way into the blogosphere.

Since this is a new venture, I can't exactly say where it's going to go. But I've suggested the name "All Over The Place" because that's what I foresee, in both a literal and content sense.

Had this blog existed throughout 2006, it could have included entries from Italy to Indianapolis to inside Staples Center. There's no telling where the job will take me in 2007, but even if I never leave Southern California, I'll be bouncing from venue to venue and sport to sport.

And this is not necessarily going to be a sports-only forum; if the idea of these blogs is to expand on the content in The Star, one of the best ways for me to do that is to venture beyond my normal subject matter. That could mean movies, it could mean politics, it could mean an occasional rant about driving on the freeways of Los Angeles, which I do far too much.

It's mostly going to be sports, though, because that's my home turf, as it were, and there's more ground to cover there than I can get to, even in three or four columns a week. There are some things I'd like to address in less than the 850 or so words that make up my regular columns, just as there are some things that might occasionally not fit into those columns. This should be the perfect outlet for such material, as well as the occasional smark-aleck one liner that doesn't really have a home anyplace else.

So welcome aboard. Let's see how this goes.