The Time for Talk is Over! 10/26/10

The time for talk is over, done with, finished! In just a few short hours the NBA will kick off perhaps its greatest season. Media hype, the fall of one king and the rise of another dominated the busiest off season of all time and now as the era of the three kings dawn more fade away. Already experts are lining up to voice their opinions on who will make all the way to the end but I am here to tell you that one shall rise and one shall fall. 

This will be a five team race; please don’t be swayed otherwise because foolish thinking leads to foolish expectations just ask the Orlando Magic. With that being said the Orlando Magic are one of the four teams that could reach the NBA Finals in June but they are not my pick to win it all. The Magic have one thing going for them and that’s the fact that its “superstars” Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson has been together for years and Team President Otis Smith has made great personal decisions in his tenure “excluding Mr. Lewis”. The Magic’s biggest weapon is not Dwight Howard; it’s the teams’ ability to run the inside outside offense that is three point essential and created by non necessary double teams on Mr. Howard. Their offense is a beautiful one to watch and they may threaten the Phoenix Suns this season as the leagues best offense. The most glaring weakness that the Orlando Magic has is the inability of the teams’ offense to be prolific when they face teams such as the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, Detroit Pistons, or LA Lakers. The Magic have the offense and they have a nice talented team and that’s exactly why they won’t win it all, they are too nice, there isn’t a nastiness to them that you need to get through tough and long playoff series. Last but not least and definitely the last time I will state this, STAN VAN GUNDY AKA THE MASTER OF PANIC IS NOT A GREAT PLAYOFF COACH, HAD HIM FOR TWO YEARS IN MIAMI….TRUST ME! They will end up being the second seed and I can’t wait to see the Orlando Magic in the conference finals. 

The Boston Celtics last season were one quarter away from completing the perhaps the greatest playoff run in the history of the NBA. They almost took down three of the top five players in the NBA by defeating Wade and the Heat, King James and the Cavs “with help from Delonte West/Gloria James” and of course were minutes away from defeating Kobe and the Lake Show before they simply ran out of gas due to old age. The Celtics retooled their bench but they did the one thing that no one thought they would do after their heart breaking defeat, they actually got older. WTF! This team needs a major youth movement and no, Nate Robinson isn’t enough, Shaq and Jermaine O’Neal are exactly what Boston didn’t need! I predict that the Celtics will be the third seed in the east and are the most likely to be upset in the playoffs by a second tier team “Chicago or Milwaukee”. 

All summer long I have heard that the Lakers are the team to beat until someone beats them, I’m not sure if “pure basketball fans” saw the same NBA finals that I saw from last season but the Lakers escaped with the title, the Celtics should have and if Perkins wouldn’t have went down with injury in Game 6 would have won the title. I like Kobe and I like the Lakers but as I said during my last post, no team has been to the NBA finals four straight years in almost 50 years.  Kobe’s knee worries me because he’s at only 60% to start the season and his can’t explode like in the past due to the knee and old age. Father time catches up with every athlete and Kobe will not be an exception. The Lakers are already talking about monitoring his minutes to start the season and the brunt of the offensive responsibility will be put on Pau Gasol but if this Lakers team limps into the playoffs as I expect, the next team will be waiting to dethrone them. 

Let’s set the stage, Game 6 in Oklahoma if the Thunder secure one more defensive rebound at the end of the game, there would have been a game 7 in LA and the Lakers would have been scared shitless. The Oklahoma City Thunder who are led by future MVP Kevin Durant and the super exciting Russell Westbrook. If they face the Lakers in the playoff this season they get the job done, they will stop the fourth Three-Peat of Phil Jackson’s career and end the current Lakers mini dynasty. Case Closed! Do they win the NBA Championship this year? My answer is a resounding no but they take their steps towards it. Any true basketball fan knows that each great player/team must go through the step process. Magic had to beat the Celtics, MJ had to beat the Pistons, and Duncan beat the Lakers. The pain of losing must be felt before you can fully enjoy the journey of winning an NBA title for the first time. Mr. Durant is almost guaranteed one trophy for the upcoming season, now let’s see if he can do the impossible and make it two.  The Oklahoma City Thunder and for my old heads, the former Seattle Super Sonics will be the team to beat in the western conference. 

Without further ado, the team that I am picking to go all the way is the team that everyone loves to hate for no apparent reason other then feelings of inadequacies and insecurities and little men syndromes. The Miami Heat will win this years' NBA Championship and here’s why. Pat Riley had a vision from God and that vision delivered Lebron James “The greatest weapon in the NBA”, Chris Bosh, the most skilled big man in the league and the artist formerly known as Flash Dwyane Wade who is and still will be the second best player in the NBA behind Kobe. These three Kings of Miami took a sacrifice because of the vision of Pat Riley they believed in the Class A organization that created basketball monsters Tim Hardaway and the most intense center to ever play Alonzo Mourning! Chris Bosh was stranded in Toronto, cold and lifeless until the Heat called and he accepted. Lebron James was stuck in Cleveland, a fake city full of fake fans and an owner who is complete and absolute garbage. When a real team called him, not the dysfunctional Knicks, Bulls who can’t keep a superstar, or Nets who need to be contracted, the King answered and came to a place where he would be given the keys to the door of success. 

All I hear is that media and fans hope the Miami Heat fail and that Lebron James is garbage and for a time he didn’t get but it was the Cavaliers fault but now that he’s with a championship organization the King has focus, he’s no longer dancing and fooling around on the sidelines, he’s focused and angry and more hungry than ever. So I implore anyone to tell me just why exactly are the Heat are going to lose, I challenge anyone to speak their mind. Will they lose games, yes but they will stand tall in June and here’s why: The Heat can beat your one, and they can beat your two, and when it comes to the old team with three the Heat will simply run past them but my question is can you beat our three?