All David Stern wanted for his birthday is to see LeBron James face Kobe Bryant in the NBA Finals. He's close. Both the Lakers and Cavs are in the conference finals with a chance to advance, but there's only one problem. The Orlando Magic aren't playing ball. While the Lakers lead in their series over the Nuggets 3-2, the Magic are on the brink of taking out LeBron and his mates after going up 3 games to 1 in their best of seven series which resumes tonight in Cleveland.
The city of Cleveland hasn't won any sort of title since the Browns in the 1960's. That was before their was a Super Bowl, and before James was even born. Now, the city of Cleveland could once again be facing heartbreak as they could be out of the post-season by the end of tonight and possibly face a long off-season about what went wrong with arguably the best player in the NBA.
I'll be the first to say I want to see Orlando make it to the Finals. Yes, I do like LeBron and think he's the best player in the league. But I also love Dwight Howard who's by far and away the best center in basketball and have always liked Stan Van Gundy. It would be a great story to see Van Gundy make it to the Finals and even win it, after being denied the chance to win one when he was with the Miami Heat.
At 24 James wil no doubt be back in the Finals again during his career which should last at least another 12 years. If this year isn't the year, than there will be another time for him to get that opportunity and eventually win that ring. Sure Lakers-Magic doesn't have the same appeal that Cavaliers-Lakers has, but at the same token, that's what the NBA and sport in general is all about, the chance of not always seeing the match-up everyone was hoping for.
We did get that last year with Lakers-Celtics. LeBron-Kobe would be a bonus but it wouldn't be awful if we saw Orlando crash the party. Everyone loves an underdog, and this series would certainly provide seeing a team that has never won a title and when it made its lone NBA Finals appearance back in 1995, it didn't even win a game.
If LeBron and the Cavs are able to come back from this deficit which I don't count out, it would just make their series against O-Town that much more special. Let's see how much of an MVP James really is. Because it starts tonight.
