Stephen A. Smith reacts to the Los Angeles Lakers clinching the top seed in the Western Conference after defeating the Utah Jazz and explains why he is still concerned about the Lakers’ title chances.
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Los Angeles is a sprawling Southern California city and the center of the nation’s film and television industry. Near its iconic Hollywood sign, studios such as Paramount Pictures, Universal and Warner Brothers offer behind-the-scenes tours. On Hollywood Boulevard, TCL Chinese Theatre displays celebrities’ hand- and footprints, the Walk of Fame honors thousands of luminaries and vendors sell maps to stars’ homes.
The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Lakers compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league’s Western Conference Pacific Division.
The National Basketball Association is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams and is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. It is the premier men’s professional basketball league in the world.
The National Football League is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference.
The territory of modern Utah has been inhabited by various indigenous groups for thousands of years, including the ancient Puebloans, the Navajo, and the Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region’s difficult geography and climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico.
Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah’s admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted as the 45th, in 1896.
A little more than half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City. Utah is the only state where most of the population belongs to a single church. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.
The state has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, and mining and a major tourist destination for outdoor recreation.
A 2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the “best state to live in the future” based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, and health-related outlook metrics.
The Utah Jazz are an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league’s Western Conference, Northwest Division. Since 1991, the team has played its home games at Vivint Arena.