by Steven Fernandez
Daily Lobo
It's basketball season already, and I don't know if I'm prepared to take on the grueling season ahead of us. Luckily, there are a few major subplots that will help the NBA steal some headlines from the NFL in the next few months. Here are a few of the questions I have as the NBA season gets underway.
1. Can the Spurs be stopped?
Late last season, LeBron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers on an amazing run, single-handedly beating Detroit in the Eastern Conference Finals and into the NBA Championship. Even the most casual basketball fan remembers King James' amazing performance - which almost destroyed ESPN's weasel of an
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analyst, Skip Bayless.
However, James and the Cavaliers got absolutely throttled in the Finals by the Spurs, making for one of the least entertaining championships in the past few years. Cleveland's management did a terrible job of trying to get LeBron some help, so they wouldn't stand a chance against San Antonio, even if they improbably made it through the East again.
Will anyone in the Western Conference knock the champions off? I don't think so. The Suns are an immensely entertaining team and help the marathon 82-game season go by quicker but manage to meltdown in the playoffs each year. Houston has the talent but even more playoff baggage than Phoenix. As for the Dallas Mavericks? Well, they just might be the mentally weakest team in the league. With the way the league looks right now, I wouldn't be surprised to see Duncan and the Spurs make another solid, albeit boring, run to a championship.
2. When will the Kobe Bryant drama end?
All offseason we've been subject to the circus involving Mr. Black Mamba. One day, Kobe is demanding to be traded, the next he is saying he wants to be a Laker for life, and then he wants to be traded again. Bryant might be the most talented player in the league, but he has proven to be as schizophrenic as he is skilled. Britney Spears and Lindsay
Lohan are more stable than Kobe. Besides, I really don't see how he can be traded. Outside of LeBron, Dwayne Wade and maybe Tracy McGrady, there is no one player the Lakers can get that has equal value for Kobe. So the Lakers either need to announce that a trade will not take place or give him away for cheap and get it over with.
3. Can world domination be prevented?
I said earlier that I think the Spurs will defend their title, and that really needs to happen if we are going to prevent Armageddon. By the time the NBA Playoffs roll around, the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots will have won the championships in their respective leagues. Before this season, the Celtics probably couldn't have competed in the Pac-10. However, adding future hall-of-famer Kevin Garnett and deadly outside shooter Ray Allen has all of Boston dreaming about bringing the city back to glory and the rest of the country sick to its stomach. Because the Eastern Conference has been such a joke lately, the Celtics are in good shape to make a Finals run if they show any depth behind Garnett, Allen and Paul Pierce. Let's just hope LeBron can find a way to pull off a miracle upset of Boston, preventing the Earth from exploding while sending a whimpering Bayless into hiding at the same time.
