Is winning everything? (Comment).

So suddenly, everyone loves the Trojans. They're L.A.'s team, maybe even America's team. Undeniably talented with 6-foot-6-inch quarterback Carson Palmer at the helm, USC finished the year winning seven games in a row, thumping Notre Dame the other week before a national TV audience, and is now primed for a major bowl appearance.

Those are the facts, but there's more to it than that. Here is a team that you actually want to root for, a curious turn for a school that had been stereotyped for so long as the academic capital of spoiled and underachieving rich kids. For all the efforts to undo that image, USC still has its "Animal House" side, especially when it comes to football, that breadwinner of all college sports. And yet, watching Coach Pete Carroll rush over to congratulate his players after a good play makes the casual fan suspect that the enthusiasm is genuine and unconditional.

Winning, of course, has a way of making any team look good. Without having the slightest idea whether these young men are worthy of our admiration each Saturday, we suspend logic and give them the benefit of the doubt in the hope that they're indeed hard working students who are nice to their parents and clear-headed about their futures. It's a pleasant thought, even if we realize by Sunday morning that it's probably a nonsensical one.

Losers, by contrast, seldom get the benefit of the doubt. The Lakers are surely testament to that this fall. For three years, fans have turned a blind eye to their early season carelessness and off-court mood swings because each spring, Shaq, Kobe and a veteran supporting cast somehow managed to deliver the goods. They not only won, but they won with last-second heroics normally reserved for screenplays and dreamers.

These days, the Lakers are a mess and even this early in the season the numbers do not look promising: As of last week, the team already had lost 13 games, compared with 24 for all of last year (Sacramento lost only 21 games). To simply match 2001-2002, the team will have to play 51-11 ball from here on out, an improbable scenario at best--and that's just to get a good spot in the playoffs.

All of which must be prompting untold chuckles around the league, where the Lakers are heartily disliked not only because they win so much but because of what's perceived as the cocky manner in which they do it. Some of this is sour grapes borne out of a relentless desire to "BEAT L.A.!!!" but it's undeniable that the team has walked around with a swagger--up to now anyway--somehow unbefitting a group of adored, God-gifted millionaires.

So now comes payback time. Not that Shaquille O'Neal is about to slip quietly into the night, but when guys like these lose, the dynamics around them change. Not as many national sportswriters follow their every move. No more laughs over tasteless asides about bathroom habits (O'Neill), or snidely calling faithful fans adorning their cars with Lakers flags "flagettes" (Coach Phil Jackson).

A year from now it might all change. USC could go back to mediocrity and the Lakers could have righted the ship. That's why sports is such a romp (even among those of us who should know better). It's one of the few things in life where you never quite know how things will turn out.

For now, however, L.A.'s scoreboard could not be clearer--both for the kids at USC and those rich guys at Staples.

Mark Lacter is editor of the Business Journal.