When I became an NBA fan and WC Finals preview

If you are not following me on Twitter, you probably wouldn’t know that I’m a huge NBA fan. To be honest, I’d take an NBA team in Buffalo over an NHL team. I never could understand why so many Buffalonians and some in the media can’t stand the NBA. Actually, I have a couple of ideas why that’s the case.

Sorry to call the city out, but I happen to think there is kind of a race problem in the Queen City. I’ve read message boards about some fans stereotyping players as being a bunch of thugs with money that don’t play defense. Sorry, but if you believe those qualifications, you need to get your head examined. The NBA hasn’t been this good since the Jordan Years. Almost 2/3rds of the NBA have star players on each team. The type of Guys that you would pay your hard earned money to see play.

Sorry, but you can’t say that about the NHL. Seriously, there are like 12 NHL teams that have star players on their squads that are worth talking about. Don’t believe me? The possible match-up of the Habs vs Bruins has what? Miro vs Dominic Moore? Rask vs Halak? Yeah, that will have most of America glued to their seats. Sorry, I’m sounding like a d#$k right now, but when I hear people crap on the NBA, it just makes my blood boil.

Speaking of the NHL, the other reason, which I think comes from mostly die hard hockey fans and some in the media, happens to deal with jealously. The NBA will always be tops in this country over the NHL, and since Buffalo is such a hotbed for hockey, I think the anger towards the NBA is geared towards being envious of the Association. Trust me, if there’s one thing that most hockey fans have in common, it’s their jealousy towards the popularity of the other three major sports. And since the NBA plays in almost the exact same time frame as the NHL, I think most hockey fans view them as the biggest threat.

So, I’m a LA Lakers fan. Yes, you either love them or you hate them. The story of how I started watching the NBA or rooting for the Lakers is a little different than what you would think. My first legit memory of the NBA actually happened on a bus ride home from school. I was only 10 years old at the time and my school bus happened to only carry like 10-15 kids on it. I went to a school that had grades K-8th and only had about 10-14 kids per class. The older students (Which were two of them) were pretty much in charge of the bus, and the back seats were their domain. The kings of the jungle must have been in 8th or 7th grade.

Well, during the 1991 Finals between the Lakers and Bulls, these two kids were walking up to everyone on the bus and asking which team did you want to win? Well, the bullies were all about the Lakers winning and if you went against them, you wouldn’t get beat up, but you would get a tongue lashing of insults and wouldn’t be allowed to sit towards the cool back of the bus.

So, the ambassadors of the Bus came to me and asked the same question. At the time, I kind of watched the NBA in passing and knew of the star players, but I wasn’t really a big fan. So, in act of desperation of not wanting to get made fun of for the rest of the school year and beyond, I picked LA. So history of me becoming a major fan of the NBA resulted in me not getting picked on by older kids on a school bus. Strange, huh.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, they lost to the Bulls in five games and that pretty much began my hatred towards Michael Jordan for the next 8 years of my life. The loss also propelled me to follow the Lakers much more closely.

I had two teams as a kid; the Lakers and whoever the Bulls were facing in the playoffs. Let us start with LA. After Magic retired, I still remained a fan of the Lakers and thought the Nick Van Exel and Cedric Ceballos teams were very entertaining and vastly underrated. Ceballos will forever be known as the NBA Dunk Champion that was blindfolded during his contest clinching jam. However, the guy had a really unique/diverse game. He can dunk, he had an outside shot, he could post up and could drive to the net. LA also added Eddie Jones to the mix and the team really had a run and gun mentality.

Even as entertaining as those Lakers teams were, they couldn’t get over the hump. Until…they brought in Shaq and drafted Kobe Bryant. The rest was history. Yes, the two guys hated each other, but the duo brought three titles to the City of Angels. I was a Kobe guy. At first, I wasn’t big on Byrant because I thought he tried to channel being the next Michael Jordan a little too much. I’m not talking about his actual game. I’m talking about the way he carried himself and his little endorsement deals. He just seemed like a wannabe in my eyes.

Then, and t
his is going to sound horrible to say, but after the whole Kobe Bryant rap saga, Bryant began to change. He started becoming an a$$hole. I don’t know if it had to do with the Shaq drama or having people turn on him during the saga in Colorado, but, Kobe just decided to say f$%k the Jordan rules, as it was time to play by his rules; AKA…kiss my ass.

A prime example of it happened last week when Bryant posed for some strange/exotic photos in the LA Times Magazine. When questions were brought to Kobe about the oddity of his photos and whether A-Rod had a better magazine spread, Kobe just responded with this gem: The one with 4 rings. The rest can kiss my ass.

Yup, that’s Kobe in a nut shell. He doesn’t care what you or his teammates think of him. I’ve always said that I enjoy a spitfire type athlete. Well, Kobe Bryant pretty much sures up that description

OK, so that’s my background on liking the NBA. I’ll get into my hatred towards the Bulls and Michael Jordan for another day. Lets talk NBA Western Conference Finals.

If you like offense, this is going to be a playoff series for you. Unfortunately, it’s not going to last long. The Suns have surprised a lot of fans by making it this far in the post season. These haven’t been the Suns run and gun style that we have seen over the years. They have played a very physical/dirty style and for a change, they are playing great defense. Well, all that great physicality is going to need to be thrown out the window against the Lakers. There’s no way the Suns can play in a half-court game against the Lakers. When you have Amare Stoudemire and Channing Frye going up against Gasol, Bynum and Odom, the odds are going to be against the Suns.

This may sound remedial, but the Suns have to try and play at a fast pace and get in as many shots as possible. Pretty much they have to play their vintage style of run and gun offense. Unfortunately, the Lakers have guys that can run the floor and play at that sort of tempo. Plus, Kobe Bryant looks to have found his “A” game for the playoffs. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone because the regular season for the Lakers is mostly a tune-up for the post season. I assure you, Bryant’s finger is just fine, as he has been just lying in the weeds waiting until the post season to strike.

Bottom line: The Lakers are too big up front for the Suns to deal with. LA will make it to the Finals for the 3rd straight year.