About those “NBA Finals”

So all the Celtics fans are furious over Simmons’ ‘The Lakers are unbeatable’ column. And they should be. If national writer from Chicago with a profile as big as his wrote that before the Bears played the Colts in the Super Bowl, I would have been furious, too. Even worse, his follow-up column was equally lame: after taking so much heat from Boston fans, he responded by basically making a bunch of weak jokes about the Lakers.

It’s no secret that I like Simmons (after all, the site is named after one of his columns), but he’s handled the whole situation extremely poorly. He can think the Lakers are going to win. That’s fine. But to say the C’s don’t even have a chance….that just sucks. I don’t have a rooting interest in this series, but it’d be crazy to see how he reacts if the Celtics win.

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Okay so, the Finals! Now that all the hype is finally over, I think everyone can agree that this is going to be a sweet series. I’m actually a big NBA fan. The reason I never write about any team other than the Bulls here is because I didn’t get to watch any games because of my job. My thoughts don’t carry much weight if I didn’t actually watch anything. But now that the job is done, I’m pumped for this series.

I know some aren’t. It’s clear that these are the two most annoying fanbases in the league, but, really, who cares? There are just so many great players. KG has been one of my favorite players since he first entered the league. Peirce is easy to root for. So are Rondo and Big Baby. And who could dislike PJ Brown!? Remember in the Bulls’ second round series against the Pistons last year when PJ was just unconscious during the elimination game? Those were the days. (Really that was only a year ago. If John Paxson does his job this offseason, the team should look 100% from then.)

As for the Lakers, I’ve really grown to love Kobe. I think those rumors killed the Bulls season more than anything else. I said at the time ‘trade anyone to get him, he’s the best player in the league’, and they didn’t and look what happened. I like being right. So Kobe is ok in my book.

As for the new cheating allegations, I just feel like Kobe has a lot of bad luck. It’s no secret that MJ did stuff like that all the time too. He just never got a rape charge filed against him. For being so talented, I can’t escape the feeling that Kobe is one of the NBA’s most unlucky figures. He’s not the greatest guy in the world. We get it. But MJ wasn’t either. Kobe just seems to catch so much more hell than him. I'm not apologizing for him, Kobe is sort of a tool and MJ is my favorite athlete ever, but I'm just saying. 

It’s hard to dislike people who are as good as Kobe was this year. Kobe was pretty much as good as MJ was during some years in his prime. The only difference (as Simmons pointed out in his chat) is that MJ was that good for 10 straight years and was never a cancer like Kobe was.

Alright, enough for rooting interests (isn’t that Stompy’s job?): the Lakers are going to win this series. I think most of the games will be close, but I just can’t see them losing the series in any way. Even without home court. There is simply no way that Kobe gets this close and blows it. LA in six.