As the new NBA season approaches, it seems that there are more preseason story-lines than I can remember in a long time. This season, some of these questions are:

Is this the last season of the Big Three in Miami?

How will Dwight Howard fit in with James Harden and Houston?

Will this be it for Tim Duncan?

How will Kobe play when he comes back from his injury?

There are many other story lines coming into the NBA season but with story lines comes predictions, something many people enjoy doing. I have made my predictions for each the Western Conference and Eastern Conference but have yet to make my Conference Finals picks and NBA Finals picks. It has taken me a long time to finally decide which two teams will be playing for a title at the end of the season but I have made my picks and here they are:

Can the Indiana Pacers be the team to finally de-throne the Miami Heat in the East? By Marta Sand (Flickr: Heat vs Pacers, 2012), via Wikimedia Commons

Eastern Conference Finals

For respect purposes and the fact that I do believe Chicago and Indiana will play each other in the second round thus handing the Heat a spot here.

Opposing them will either be the Pacers or Bulls. While both teams play defense, I favor the Pacers over the Bulls because of the experience of a year ago. So, Indiana vs. Miami in a rematch of that epic seven game series last season but this time, I believe Paul George and the Pacers will pull through and de-throne the champions.

The Pacers are going to be a very hungry team after the end of last season and if not for a dumb mistake by Frank Vogel in game 1, I think the Pacers would have won the series a year ago. This year I believe they will get it done and make it to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2000. Adding Luis Scola and Chris Copland help boost this team past the two time champions.

Western Conference Finals

This is a tough pick because I believe that there are at least six teams that can represent the West in the NBA Finals. I am going to go with a somewhat bold prediction here and say that the Western Conference Finals will take place solely in Texas. The Rockets and Spurs are my picks for the Western Conference Finals.

The addition of a (healthy) Dwight Howard to an already pretty good Rockets team is a huge factor behind this. I think James Harden and Howard will play together much better than Howard and Kobe Bryant did last season — resulting in wins rather than losses. That being said, I don’t believe it will be the Rockets representing the West in the Finals. This is going to be a test year for the Spurs since they have never dealt with a Finals loss. Will this old team fold after losing such a tough Finals series? Or, will they use the loss as motivation to get back and win another title? I’m going to bet on the motivation. So, the Spurs do it again, looking to redeem themselves from the heart-breaking Finals loss last season.

NBA Finals

Pacers vs. Spurs.

David Stern’s worst nightmare.

This will be another tough, grind it out type series much like the Heat-Spurs series was last season and as much as my heart wants to pick the Indiana Pacers to win, my mind won’t let me. I have counted out the Spurs for too long. My pick to be the 2014 NBA Champions is the San Antonio Spurs. They added another shooter and in my opinion a tough-minded player in Marco Belinelli which should help the already explosive offense. After their first NBA Finals loss, I believe that Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and especially Tim Duncan will be extremely motivated and hungry to get one more title as a core unit. Tim Duncan and the Spurs pull a page from the Baltimore Ravens playbook with Ray Lewis and send Duncan off into the sunset on top of the NBA world, gathering his fifth NBA ring.

2014 NBA Champions: San Antonio Spurs 

Paul Pierce (seen here without his trademark wheelchair), may be getting old, but he still made L-Man’s top-10 active players. By Keith Allison, via Wikimedia Commons

LeBron James recently was awarded his fourth MVP award in five years which is an astonishing accomplishment, only have being done by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (6), Michael Jordan (5), Bill Russell (5), and Wilt Chamberlain (4).  Not too bad of company I’d say for LeBron to be in but this got me thinking, who are the top ten NBA players currently in the league? Many people have disagreed about this fact and now I am here to put my input in about the debate. I am basing my order not only on statistics but also mental aspect, hustle, and winning. So here is in my opinion, the top ten current NBA players in order:

1. LeBron James: I can’t even argue this; the man is a freak of nature on the basketball court. This is the easiest placement of the players on my list so I won’t take too long on it. Career Stats: 27.6 PPG, 6.9 APG, 7.3 RPG
2. Kobe Bryant: A lot of people would have placed Kevin Durant here instead of Kobe but I am a person of resumes not just the “now” part of this. Kobe is still the best closer in the NBA defying basketball odds and opponents over and over again. At 34 years old, he can still put up the same of not better numbers than the younger players, which is incredible. Many people overlook the Mamba, but not me. Career Stats: 25.5 PPG, 4.8 APG, 5.3 RPG
3. Kevin Durant: Once Kobe retires then Durant will move up into the number two spot at least on my list but until then he is third which isn’t that bad at all. Durant is a unique talent with his length and shooting ability and I believe he will go down as one of the greatest scorers this league has ever seen. Durant said he was tired of being second all the time, well Kevin you aren’t second…you are third. Career Stats: 26.6 PPG, 3.1 APG, 6.8 RPG
4. Chris Paul: The best point guard in the NBA lands in the fourth spot on my list and I think he fits perfectly here. The way Paul can run the floor, pass and shoot is incredible. Almost like Kobe, Paul is a killer. By that, I mean he is clutch and will end you in a game. Paul is of my favorite players in the game and a great leader on the court. Career Stats: 18.6 PPG, 9.8 APG, 4.4 RPG
5. Dirk Nowitzki: This one might be a bit of a surprise to some as Carmelo or Russell Westbrook are neither in this spot but as I said, I base this off of resumes and every aspect of the game and Dirk has it all. He has won MVP awards, a championship and hits huge shots in huge moments. I don’t care about the age factor, he still is one of the most versatile big men to ever play this game and is still highly productive. The “German Moses” is about a year removed from many people agreeing with me, but I don’t care. He is the fifth best player in the NBA. Career Stats: 22.6 PPG, 8.2 RPG, 0.9 BPG

   //www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU6UHBYJOUw

6. Carmelo Anthony: Carmelo is a tough one to cover because he has so many skill sets but lacks the mental aspect of the game. To me the mental aspect of the game is just as important as the skills part. He is a superstar, no doubt about it, but he needs to learn how to act like one. If he can do that, he could be in the top-5. He can flat-out score the basketball and in my opinion the best scorer in the game at the moment but until he finds his mental toughness he won’t get any higher than here. Career Stats: 25.0 PPG, 3.1 APG, 6.4 RPG
7. Russell Westbrook: Now here is a player that is great at getting people out of their seats, he can shoot, he can dunk, he even plays defense. And what a scary thought that two of the top ten NBA players play on the same team (Thunder) and both are under 25 years of age. Westbrook has a lot of talent and with experience with continue to grow as a player and leader. He might just want to get the ball to Durant for a few more shots during a game. Career Stats: 19.9 PPG, 6.9 APG, 4.8 RPG
8. Tim Duncan: Four championships. That is all I have to say about Duncan, who I believe will go down as the greatest power forward to ever play the game. Career Stats: 20.2 PPG, 11.2 RPG, 2.2 BPG
9. Paul Pierce: The Truth. Well, the truth is that Pierce is still a top ten player even with his age and it is sad that he may be done soon. Even as a Laker fan, I admire Paul Pierce and his game. He has a knack for silencing the crowd on the road and hitting clutch shots. He grew up near the Forum in Inglewood and with the exception of the wheelchair incident, he’s been a pretty tough player throughout his career. Although he had to beat the Lakers to do so, I am glad that he won one title. Career Stats: 21.8 PPG, 3.9 APG, 6.0 RPG
10. Dwight Howard: Much like the Thunder, the Lakers have two of the top 10 NBA players on their roster (for now) and hopefully it stays that way. Howard may not be the offensive beast that Shaq was but he can flat out play defense and is a force at the rim. Many players could deserve to be number ten, but I gave the nod to Howard because of the defense aspect. Defense does win championships and maybe one day Howard will be holding up the trophy he is coveting. Career Stats: 18.3 PPG, 12.9 RPG, 2.2 BPG

While people may disagree with me, at least we can agree to disagree. Obviously this list will change yearly with players retiring, age and just the progression on younger players but for now this is in my list of the top ten current NBA players. What do you think? Leave your comments below.

For the San Antonio Spurs, none of this new. While the league  has celebrated the Lakers, Hollywood part deuce — the Clippers, the return of the Chowds — Boston Celtics and evil three (now two) in Miami, the poised veteran Spurs quietly go about their business, methodically behind the scenes. 

There is only one man who can answer these pondering’s, that being “Big Shot Bob,” otherwise known as Robert Horry, who made a living with the Rockets, Lakers, and Spurs, en route to seven rings by nailing the clutch shot.

Why does this matter? He was never a star, but he has rings galore bronzed on his swish- svelte fingers. 

In today’s NBA we judge  all-time greats by how many rings they’ve won and whether or not they led their teams to title town. But is this a fair assessment, considering a life-long bench guy like Horry can be carried to seven?

Never was Horry the franchise guy. In fact, as great as he seemed in closing minutes, Robert Horry never became the player we expected him to be after his timely three point shooting for Houston’s 2nd title run.

Horry’s brief stint in Phoenix after a trade in 1996, proved he was not endowed with a star motor. A hot tempered, dramatic and aloof head case, Bob languished averaging 6.9 points at a career low shooting clip: 41.8%. A trade by mid-season to the L.A. Lakers–a team filled with Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell, and Cedric Ceballos changed the trajectory of his failing career.

So why then is Bob a champion? Why not franchise guys like Barkley, Malone, Stockton, Dominique, Ewing, or Reggie Miller?

Each of those listed above were worthy of winning gold, were they not? All of them were respective franchise pieces with the heart, skills, and late game heroics to hold the O’Brien.

The answer to their problems was Michael Jordan’s Bulls: a team of role guys surrounding the king of the sport with that IT factor needed to win it all. Something today’s critics use to gauge greatness and rank the all time elites.

So what is the issue then with the tautness of this old-time equation? Why not turn a blind eye and allow this to be the answer to everything?

Simply because it just does not add up. It does not offer enough answers. If Big Shot Bob has seven, or the likes of Jack Haley–former twelfth man for Jordan’s final three peat has three, the equation’s a bit off. We need something else, a new perspective when thinking of the greats and why and how they never hung the O’Brien.

And I believe individual luck IS the partly the answer, luck, a maddening machine random like the California Lottery. Historians prefer the term historical happenings–a notion that choices are made for no other reason except that they were made, and the dominoes re-arrange the cosmos of a world more closely inter-connected than we might wish it to be (think guy who smells like farts at the movies, or the swine flu victim winding a cough onto the back nape of the neck.)

Luck.

To think Michael Jordan fell to number three in the 1984 draft could be easily overlooked for a variety of reasons: Sam Bowie, the number two pick before MJ, was a  college superstar and a big man compared at the time to the greats. The Blazers already had a gifted wingman in Clyde Drexler andat the time the league was built around bigs: Kareem, Sampson and Olajuwan, Robert Parish, Patrick Ewing, and Moses Malone.

But that doesn’t make things less ludicrous.  Look at how the draft shaped the NBA forever. MJ goes to an ordinary Bulls team built in perhaps the greatest city in America, where he wins ROY, ultimately five MVP’s, slam dunk contests, becomes the games biggest mogul, and wins six titles. Alongside Oprah, MJ is easily the greatest name in Chicago history and can be attributed for an economical explosion that saved the lower West side of the city once run with crime: drug abuse, gang wars, and prostitution.

Bowie, in the annals of the NBA, is known as ‘the bust.’ He never won a thing in the pros: no all star games, no shoe deals, thus injuring the once bright ideal the Blazers had in trading their franchise Center Bill Walton to Boston.

This, my friends, is the Sam Bowie, a supernatural element that cannot be ignored.

Luck.

Yet like so many children born into inner city poverty without the tools necessary to change their lives, we cannot judge the stars through the a similar bias, because not all players are born lucky into a posh franchise. The gift of playing in Los Angeles or Boston does not come to everyone. Not every player is born into a showtime era, a team so deep they make the ocean look like a kids pool.

For some, seeking a new home is like divorcing an abusive wife. In order for Mitch Richmond to adorn gold, the talented and true shooting guard had to eventually break ties in the perils of Sacramento. Karl Malone found it necessary to join with Kobe and Shaq in 04′ after a long tenure in Utah. And even the humble Clyde Drexlerleft a hell of a situation in Portland to win it Houston. All three of which were great with or without (Sing it Bono) a championship.

The reality of the situation is heart breaking for most. We as childish dreamers wish our favorite player could be greater than the others, but this is not real. Embracing a pragmatic approach to the sport tied less to your heart strings will allow you to see greatness wrapped in many different packages. 

Reality 1: Great players DO NOT win championships, great TEAMS win championships. The 2004 Detroit Pistons are a perfect example of this. A team of role guys without a future hall of famer, the Pistons had the momentary IT. Call it faith, hard work, purity, and any other beautiful thing you want, but to explain why they won a title over an L.A. Laker team stocked with four future hall of famers would be absurd.

Reality 2: Like the stars in the sky, NBA STARS need other STARS. Think for a moment about the teams who’ve won championships the last thirty years. All of them have one thing in common: team depth and stars surrounding stars. Magic had Kareem and Worthy; Bird–Mchale and Parish; Dr.J–Moses Malone; Isaiah–Dumars and Rodman; MJ–Pippen; Hakeem–Clyde; Shaq–Kobe and Wade; Duncan–Robinson, Parker, and Ginobili; Pierce–KG and Allen.

Reality 3:  Winning titles does mean a lot, but it does not mean everything for a myriad of reasons. If the 1919 Chicago Blacksox or dirty referees like Tim Donaghy can throw World Series and playoff games, then how serious can we take this thing? Not very. Take everything with a grain of salt and learn other decided facets when it comes to judging all-time greats: MVP’s, All Star appearances, Career Totals, Game Winners, Ability to close, Athleticism, Re-defining the sport, dominance-ometer, and sociological affects.

LeBron James is not a sell out because the guy wants to win, he’s a realist. A star unselfish enough to admit that NO star including himself, can win a title completely on his own.

LeBron is stuck in the the Bill Clinton Vacuum. Though he does great things, he is brushed aside because of one unlikeable decision.

But greatness is not a grade school quiz on being friendly, it is brutal giftedness. And likeability is not the twin brother to being great.

LeBron made a  decision to better his career andhis life. Leading a Cleveland Cavs team the last seven years, that never boasted anybody better than a has-been version of Antawn Jamison warrants James departure.  No it does not warrant the overdone TV cinematic’s regarding “the decision,” nor the Pat Riley blowout introduction party in South Beach. Yet neither should it foster the illogical hysteria across America attempting to deny the man’s sheer dominance and greatness.

This isn’t patty cake kids. We are talking about a production entertainment, where all titles are but a decorative decor. They might help the woman look fine, but if that woman is not fine without the jewelry or the tight fitting jeans, I say run, run as fast as you can.

Drop by the nearest bar and have a scotch on me. Look through the world with freshness and at what is truly great (it is not the girl next to you.). It is the scraggly bartender able to whip up drinks faster than the average Joe.

Watching Sir’ Dirk diggler his way between double teams then drop the off-foot fade away, with feathered bangs haunting his brow is like hot chocolate with a bust of hand-whipped cream lapping at the tongue…sizzle sizzle and more busty sizzle.

My nizzle.

Fans swore off of Dirk after his Mavs famous meltdown in 06′ and 07′; said he was overrated, couldn’t hit the big shot, seven feet but soft as butter, a lanky vanilla–sweet but melts with contact.

Well not so fast.

In the meantime Nowitski has collected an MVP, eclipsed twenty thousand career points,and freeze framed his Shaggy Doobie Do face in the list of all-time greats. Dirk’s freakazoid bar, with his insante giftedness to dribble like a point, hit the fade away like a guard, rebound as a forward and finish inside is Lady Gaga unparalleled.

Did I just say Lady Gaga unparalleled?  I did because Dirk is the the greatest powerforward to ever play this game.

Yes you heard me. My condolences to Timmy Duncan, but today I am writing with a blasphemous resignation to the truth of things. I have post stamped this through the mailman, and asked his caddy Sir Charles, to verify its arrival. Dirk is not only the greatest powerforward, but when it comes to closers is listed as: MJ….Bird…..West…..Kobe….Dirk.

Monday’s performance was one of the greatest this league has ever seen. Dropping 48 on OKC in game one of the Western Conference Finals, he did it in Gaga fashion: 12-15 shooting, 24-24 from the free throw line, hitting clutch jumpers late to close out the Thunder in the fourth quarter. Setting the tone from the get go, Dirk started 4-4 with the Mavs first ten points, and twenty in the first half. It was obvious  that this Sir’ Dirk is no longer living under the devils of his past.

OKC looked stupefied in his wakes and had no answer for him all evening, throwing seven different defenders his way including: former Defensive Player of the Year Thabo Sefalosha, and block king Serge Ibaka. His unguardable abilities and size caused former NBA coach turned ESPN TV personality Jeff Van Gundy, to continualy pose the X and O question, “How do you stop that?” His sidekick, former point guard Mark Jackson returned, “You got to close the air space.”

Air space?

This is not about some make believe air space, this is about fate. As much as I love the twenty-three year old Durant–a two time scoring champ, and gifted 6’10 wingman with the ability to hit the three, take you off dribble, and get up and finish, I am aware that his moment has not arrived yet.

It was obvious Monday who the better team is. This is not your usual lay-down and die Dallas Mavs team who’ve become more of a hard-nosed defensive squad with their yet classic art of tres droplet supremes. Key moments on Monday included: Barrea sparking Dallas with twelve straight points in the third, and Jason Kidd bringing stability at point when Darantula made it a game scoring Jasseven of his teams ten points in a 10-0 run in the fourth to pull to within five with 3:34 to play. Like a black widow spider dangling from a single thread, only to lose her luscious prey a few inches from her triangular grasp, that is as close as things would get. This year there is no hesitation from the Mavs–a collective of cast-aways, bridging their way to title ascension.

And with a German juggernaut like Dirk taking them there, it bids the question, “will this finally be their year?”

I am a realist with specks of surrealism poking through my veins.  When I see mountains, I see mountains, though I admit, beneath their weighty crouch of pine trees, one can see shadows that resemble crow-dark figures. But the difference between a person like myself and those who dream of trolls and witches, is I prefer reality, whatever the hell that is*.  What-ifs are a futile form of phantasmal thinking. They are as pointless as is asking for charity from the big wig munchers sitting in Armani suits atop the towering buildings of American money trade.  But I must confess, as I grow older, more restless with the direction of Father time, and mount toward a gush of a pre-midlife crisis, the what-ifs linger like tinkling pennies in the piggy bank of the soul. Why, what, when, and how become a blabbing second personality–they control you from the inside-out with illusions of a glittering fantasy world.

Okay, not really. But the build up was quite nice. Writing Fan-Fiction ranks 209th on my list of literary successes, behind a research paper on the mating practices of cockroaches*.  I guess I’m learning to become more intrigued with the futurist perspective, the cruel reality of what the intellectuals call historical luck. So I’ll give this elementary form of literature a shot.

When M.J prematurely bolted from the NBA in 1993, after being crowned with vice-God status, oh, and three consecutive titles, David Stern and co. found themselves swallowed in the belly of “who next.”  David Robinson? Hakeem Olajuwan? Patrick Ewing? Reggie Miller? Shaq? Penny Hardaway? Chris Webber? and the list of plausible courtship’s continued. But none of them fit. For one, Robinson, Olajuwan, and Ewing all split time as the best centers in the NBA. They tore each other apart, night in and night out, passing title hopes to one another like a plate of chicken wings. Miller was just too funny looking to take serious. Shaq was dominant, but didn’t have the “that’s it” factor like his airness. C-Webb was a poor man’s Charles Barkley, and Penny Hardaway, a second fiddle to the big fella.

So as it was, after nearly two years in limbo, MJ stopped the pathetic whiff of the bat,  saving the NBA from the folly of ESPN2 status. But he was 35, and though God can’t be held by the shackles of age, clearly he had only three years left. So for three years the NBA garnered another glory run. We watched MJ’s greatest moments. 72 wins in ’96 and title 4; 69 wins in ’97, a heroic 38 in-game 5 with the flu, and title 5, and then his best, at 38, without a healthy Pippen, he won title 6 in ’98 with a game winner. The replay of the legends final moment paused in our minds forever. We fixated on what he’d given us for fifteen years, yet he wasn’t coming back, so we began to croon over the “what now?”

And this is where the world got murky. What-ifs clouded the senses. We glorified the likes of Jerry “score twenty on twenty-five shots” Stackhouse, and Grant “got hurt tying my shoe” Hill, as the ones who’d ascend this trialsome period. Because the compass of greatness passed over us with a gray fog of finality, we wandered lost, like the Israelites begging for redemption. Yet along it was not us, or his airness, that would lead us out of this dark place. It was the powers that be: historical luck, a.k.a., the Sam Bowie syndrome.

Draft day, 1996. Pick 1: Allen Iverson. Pick 5: Ray Allen. Pick 13: Kobe Bryant.  The boyish eighteen-year-old face, with pleasurable dimples, and a rail thin body, shyly bumbled to the stage, beneath a veil of lights, and a flutter of pictures. He wears the Charlotte Hornets’ shades of blue on his ball cap, perfectly slack at the side, further admitting to his school boy demeanor.  Charlotte is ecstatic. The cities deflated NBA economy inflates a bit with a keen interest in the High School boy who’s been compared to his airness. Pedestrians walk about the city whispering the what-ifs, the could it be’s, for a team coming off an average 41-41 season, with a superstar wing in Glen Rice.  Still lamenting over the tragedy of losing Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson to trades, the city hopes for a revival of the 1994-1995 season which saw the Hornets boast 50 wins. Surely the young kid could evolve into a dynamic threat, creating the most explosive duo in hoops–Bryant the athletic poster child, and Rice, the cool, collect, three-point aficinado,  segwaying the Hornets into a true playoff contendor.

Yet like me, the Charlotte Hornets are realist.  They wagered on Bryant to be a bust like  Harold Minor or Isaiah Rider.  And in so doing, they traded the thirteenth pick of the 1996 draft, Kobe Bryant, to the Los Angeles Lakers for veteran center, Vlade Divac, altering the league forever, and Hall of Fame faces such as Shaquille O’neal, Phil Jackson, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, and Pau Gasol.

But what if the Hornets froze with a premonition of the boys greatness, further tossing historical luck down the philosophical drain? And Sam Bowie acted as the sports George Santyana, reminding Charlotte not to repeat history, but to transcend it with wit and insight? Assuredly the man known as the Black Mamba would be the face of Charlotte, a team with successes and failures, and his legacy slung in blue, not purple and gold.

1996-1997 would be a season of building blocks. Rice would continue as the teams breakout superstar, while Mugsy Bogues runs the show, and Anthony Mason controls the middle.  Bryant would come off the bench for hard-working Dell Curry, at nearly twenty-five minutes a night, and show enough flashes of greatness to replace the veteran Curry the following season.

1997-1998 would be a season in which Bryant starts at the guard position. Rice now thirty, begins to be haunted by the lack of a championship, and chooses to demote some of his shot totals to the nineteen-year-old.  Anthony Mason plays third fiddle, and continues to play as one of the leagues premier do- it- all big men.  David Wesley, Bobby Phills, and Del Curry battle for back-up minutes, and Wesley wins. Phills fades into obscurity and Curry becomes a veteran, on a guard heavy team with little to any usage and retires. Bryant averages in the mid-teens, struggling down the stretch, and the Hornets lose in the 1st round.

1998-1999 was the season of the lockout and first post-Jordan experiment, acting as a minimal launching pad for Bryant. The Rice and Mason injuries allow for Bryant to assert himself offensively as the teams go to guy. Though there are flashes of stardom in the wake of the teams injuries, the youngster still lacks a consistent jump shot, and the assertiveness to tell off veterans like Derick Coleman, and J.R. Reid, who both shoot far too much for players with their lack of offensive abilities. The team misses the playoffs.

1999-2000 was a season of fine tuning the teams direction. Now season four of the Bryant/Rice experiment, the Hornets feel the pressure to make this thing work. Bryant now expects to be the man on a team stacked with paling reflections of one time all-stars. Coleman comes to camp overweight and is nothing more than a seventh or eighth man off the bench. Rice still has the ability to score, but at 33, with brittle knees, and a bad shooting elbow, his percentages drop, as does his demeanor. Mason’s ruptured leg causes the greatest decline, and though he averages a double-double through determination, he is unable to be counted on as anything more than a role guy. Rookie Baron Davis comes excited and both he, and Bryant, give life to a team in steep decline. Bryant averages 20-25 a night, Rice at 17, and Davis around 12, but the team misses the playoffs for a second straight season.

2000-2001 was a new beginning. The Rice/Bryant experiment did not work. Rice is dealt to a playoff team in need of a shooter, as is Mason, gone to free agency.  The pick up of Jamal Mashburn gives the team a much-needed offensive punch at the swing position. Bryant continues to shine, and records his second straight all-star appearance. He averages 25-28 points a night, while Davis continues to grow into a good point guard, though his shoot first attitude perturbs the star Bryant.  Both have a slightly poor relationship, and the friction causes the quiet tempered Mashburn to fade far into the background. The team makes the playoffs but fails to get anywhere but the second round.

2001-2002 was the final recordable season. Season six for Bryant, and the cities lack of drawing power for big name free agents, causes him to seek a new home. They still have the trio of Bryant, Davis, and Mashburn, but they are unable to upend the Eastern Conference elite: Pacers, Sixers, and Nets. Davis is nothing more than a poor shooting eighteen point, six assist point guard, and Mashburn is on the steady decline. Bryant averages 30+, but has become the same type of player as a Vince Carter or Tracy McGrady, a shoot first player with few playoff credentials.

2002-present has been a vague unreadable sign. Bryant, McGrady, VC, Iverson, Duncan, Garnett, Shaq, Wade, Bosh, Nowitski, and Durant all battle for superstar supremacy. It is fair to say, at this point, there would be no comparison between Bryant and Lebron. Lebron would clearly be the best of the best, lacking playoff successes. Duncan would probably have six titles to his name, and Garnett two. Bryant gets caught in the free agency fray much like a McGrady  or a VC, and continues to experience nothing more but all-star appearances and playoff losses.  Though a phenomenal athlete and tremendous scorer, Bryant is a poor man’s Dominique, nothing more than a top thirty to fifty player of all time.

The problem with WOW & Fan Fictionites, is they live in a world with little to any REAL credential*. It is creative in that it feeds the never-ending need to enslave oneself to something born far from reality. But what greatness is there in a world nobody cares about*? As I sit back, sipping on a beer, shooting the shit with friends, I am amazed at the tremendous ability life has to shape things with the hard and near impossible decisions. We all have made piss-poor choices, shoot, choices meant to be regretted over. But in the regret, we become better people, and learn how to fruitfully shape the real world. We will no longer (hopefully not) concern ourselves with our Bryant for Divac swaps, because whether we are the recipient of greatness or not, we’ve given ourselves over to the great collective–a fabric of souls interconnected by the dominoes of our lives.

I’d trade Bryant for Divac full well-knowing the kind of player he’d become.

For every Bryant there’s a Divac, both serving their place in the ying-yang world of sports.

Divac: hard-working, playoff contender, smart, and the greatest flopper of all time.

Bryant: five time champion, Olympic champion, top ten great of all time, top five scorer of all time, thirteen time all-star, one time MVP, and the list continues to mount.

The greatest flopper of all time lends itself to a round of merry humor– which we all need.

But if the Kobe accolades say enough for the name of reality, then, who the hell wouldn’t make that trade, and who would possibly have the guts to re-arrange the beauty of such greatness?

–Luke Johnson

Everything in the world of history is a mystical equation. And every equation has a variable. We are trained to solve the variable X-factor through basic deduction, arithmetic, and logic. Take away the numeric value to its right or left and divide the sum total by X. The answered NOW breathes in life, becoming more and more tangible, as the ability to solve the paradigm reveals itself.

Like a spring flower, our answered world grows in its vibrancy.

Life’s dominoes begin to fall one by one, aligning into our new normal. All interpretation becomes a reflection of what Quantum Physicists call a mirrored image–our new normals interpretation of current circumstance: time and space. But according to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, time is boundless and void of the boundary points of mathematics: X, Y and Z.

So where are we and why? We don’t really know.

This is where imagination becomes crucial and comes into play. Our emporium of memories are the elements that drive us into Einstein’s boundless dream-like state. The world tips, lilts, rocks, and the fathomable presence of NOW is lost in the surreal.

So we float.

Everything became surreal in the NBA after last summer’s shopping spree, and I believe we are in the most confusing shift between superpowers. In the midst of this all, the media has sounded like quaking tabloid writers spewing asinine hot topics.

Were not the Spurs too physical and too potent for the defending champion Lakers? Not if a 99-83 blowout at the hands of the Lakers two nights ago has anything to say about it.

So what NOW?

We know that we are top heavy with teams like the Bulls, Mavs, Thunder, Heat, Magic, and Knicks.

The Lakers, Celtics, and Spurs are still the elite of the elite. But what does that mean in an upside-down environment? It means I would abstain from betting the house, boat, or wife in Las Vegas.

A blockbuster trade involving Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups to the Knicks made things, shall we say, interesting. All of a sudden the Knicks have become a serious contender; a team that could knock off an over confident one, two, or three.

Even smaller trades can shift time’s mirrored world. When the Celtics rid themselves of Kendrick Perkins in a deal to Oklahoma City for an underachieving swing in Jeff Green, questions arose. Are the Celtics tough enough NOW? A team who had lived on its brutal team defense now has to rely upon a thirty-eight year old Shaquille O’Neal to anchor them defensively.

Most critics believe Perkins will act as the cog defensively that will help the Thunder deal with Western bigs like Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, Tim Duncan, and LaMarcus Aldridge. Yet can we really have faith in a team relying upon two teenagers in the world of stardom? It has yet to be seen if Kevin Durant or Russel Westbrook can hit the big shot.

Who really knows? Still twenty games away from the most talked about postseason in recent history, die-hard fans are feeling more insecure and unsure than ever before.

…

Security is a gift, and boy do I miss it.

It was mortgaged last Summer when the NBA’s star faces tip-toed elsewhere like dancing ballerinas, creating what scholar Malcolm Gladwell calls a tipping point: A tipping point is the moment when an idea created by either a large corporal entity or an individual, spreads to the masses. It’s a non-discriminatory personality that can be better understood by humanities need for evolution because everything “new” at some point becomes old and stagnant. Humanity tires of the old.

I guess the NBA God was sick of Lakers vs. Celtics, and so he decided to blow our minds and flip us off in the process.

If LeBron James had stayed a Cleveland Cavalier, it is fair to say much of this shift would not have happened. Whether you like the guy or you don’t, LeBron James is a very powerful athlete on and off the court. He is the association’s fault-line star, with the power to change the league.

On the court, the 6’8, two-hundred-sixty pound point-forward is athletically in a world of his own. His developed jump-shot has made him nearly impossible to guard. Blend in his power-forward like strength, his explosive speed, forty inch vertical, and you have a machine that cannot be stopped.

Well, you do; just ask him to deliver in the clutch…

LeBron is a fan favorite. He is the highest paid player off the court with various endorsement deals. He interviews well, which is something lacking in today’s athlete, giving him a like-ability that is a key component to a tipping point. This is what Malcolm Gladwell refers to as stickiness in his book The Tipping Point, making the evolution taking place as painless as possible. There is no tipping point without the stickiness (like-ability) of an emerging idea.

Does not a fad proceed what was at one point stylistically original?

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It is hard to believe Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh did not know about LeBron’s desire to complete the ‘trifecta’ in South Beach. Wade and LeBron have been close friends since splashing on the scene together in 2003. And I don’t know about you, but my friends and I talk. Also, considering LeBron had a more than a productive situation in Cleveland, it would be hard to believe he went into the South Beach Experiment without knowing first that Wade and Bosh would join forces with him there.

Whether or not Wade is the better of the two (he is), he played second fiddle to LeBron in last season’s free agent fray. For most of the 09-10 season, Wade had hinted he would like to go back home to Chicago, joining a potent squad with the talent that has now become Derick Rose. His situation was average in Miami, and at twenty-eight, Wade with a lot of miles on his smaller 6’5 frame, was in need of making a decision that would alter his hall of fame career forever.

Chicago made an offer right away. Bosh had already made it known that he would leave Toronto.  Who would blame the guy?  He also made it known he would be comfortable as a secondary role alongside either LeBron or Wade. Spending seven years in the wasteland of Toronto, the lengthy perimeter-oriented forward had learned life the hard way in the NBA, that he was nothing but a second rate star.

Now he is nothing but a Horace Grant. Ouch.

Just because Bosh and Wade co-mingled their visits with Chicago together, does not mean they were intending to couple on the same team. I think it is fair to say that the league was awaiting LeBron’s decision before big names like Wade, Bosh, Amare, and Boozer landed elsewhere. If you notice the trend, every time LeBron visited one of his top picks–New York, Jersey, Miami, or Chicago; Wade and Bosh setup meetings a couple days afterward. It was almost as if they were gauging LeBron’s visits. It’s like a high-roller shop-around for a lap dance at a club. His first pick decides she wants to ride his richer, better looking friend, so he goes after her slightly less attractive twin.

The South Beach Experiment was the biggest heist in league history, a three headed Godzilla in the making, one that has ended up in lack of the “balls” needed to win big games. As of today the Heat are 1-9 against the top five teams in the NBA. And yet somehow it was LeBron who not only altered careers forever but changed our perception of the league with a trend as cheesy as an eighties horror flick.

“Attack of the Sporting Threesomes!” coming to a theater near you.

Everything from this point on fell into place. LeBron to Wade to Bosh to Amare to Boozer.

Amare signing with the New York Knicks for max dollars before the LeBron signing was like the Knicks dangling a piece of raw beef in front of a starving dog. The Knicks wanted LeBron and had made that known all along. So signing a dynamic piece like Amare gave them the thundering bargaining chip they needed when wooing the King.

Woo all you want. According to Andy Stevens on fansmanship.com, when you are wooing the King, you are wooing a “kingdom of clutch bricks.” Over the last week LeBron has wilted under the pressure. His Heat blew a twenty four point lead to the Orlando Magic, and lost numerous close games in which LeBron, like a pizza delivery boy in training, was unable to deliver on time.

It is interesting that Chicago never really made headlines when it came to signing LeBron. Though they were one of LeBron’s top choices, they courted Wade and Bosh as a duo. It makes me wonder if LeBron made it clear early on that he did not want to play with the Bulls. If so, the Bulls were trying to dismantle a powerful menage a twa. A triage that would be impossible to beat.

Uncertain and in need of a scoring big man, the Bulls did the smart thing, ditching the sweepstakes by signing Carlos Boozer; a guy who had toyed with the idea of signing in Miami with Wade early on. Boozer has solidified the Bulls, a group of team players who have the gel, firepower, and defense to terr Miami and many other elites a new one. They are the victors in this all, losing out on Bron, Wade, and Bosh, but as of today, with a core of Rose, Boozer, Noah, and Deng, are 3-0 against the Miami “Meat”.

Had LeBron stayed in Cleveland, I believe either Amare or Bosh would of paired with him there. This would have made the Cavs a bigger threat in the postseason and kept them at the top of the Eastern Conference food chain. Wade would of signed alone in Chicago, becoming the face of a fresh franchise. Bosh or Amare sign with the Knicks for top dollars. Boozer stays in the Western Conference and signs with his third choice, the Thunder.

Boozer in Oklahoma City voids the trade for Perkins because the Thunder as a small market team would be unable to take on his large contract extension. Therefore he stays in Boston, making our lives a lot easier because the Celtics are still, well, the tough-nosed Celtics.

…

Humanity relies on our greater purpose. We purport to have control over our circumstances, but life would say otherwise. Natural disasters, life decisions: good or bad, death, commerce, and history, creates a difficult and unsolvable equation. In the world of sports, things are the same. One player, just ONE, has the power to gamble away everything we knew or know. So let it take you, and dangle upside down. The dizzying merry-go-round of the world will, like a magician, continue to fool you.

Just because LeBron James has the power to shake the entire league, does not mean he is worthy of mention in the talk of all-time greats. Weren’t the Backstreet Boys a mentionable name in music in the late nineties? In and of the same, as of now LeBron, like Dominique Wilkins or Vince Carter, is a living highlight reel. Nothing more. His significance as a player took a nose-dive when he cowered as the face of a franchise and jumped ship to be a fellow juggler in a circus parade.

And as of now he can only juggle one, losing.