(Don't pay her any attention, that's just my ring advisor...)

A few months ago I wrote a blog in which I called the NBA boring and predictable, and said I'd rather watch the NFL. On Pluto. Alright I didn't really say that last thing, but I should have.

In direct response to my inspirational comments, the NBA took action. A number of incredible trades, the best Western Conference race in the history of the league, the most interesting MVP race in recent memory, and the revival of storied franchises from horribleness to best in the NBA and from mediocrity to contender.

You're welcome, fans.

I said the NBA playoffs at seven games was horrible. That it created a scenario where the best team NEARLY always won and there was no excitement. Can you imagine this year's Western Conference playoffs? Potentially seven games of absolutely brilliant basketball. Hornets, Spurs, Lakers, Mavs, Warriors/Nuggets, Rockets, Jazz, and Suns swinging for their playoff lives - and I think it'd be safe to call at least six of those teams legitimate contenders.

Even in the East where we expect the Pistons and Celtics to meet for a chance to go to the Finals, the storylines are great.

The Celtics are the class of the East, but will the Pistons experience take them to the big dance? Will Lebron be able to save the Cavs from a quick ousting? How will a seemingly revived Wizards team fair? What will we see from Superman? How will the young Sixers do?

The storylines are endless.

And on the player side of it, there are even more storylines. Will Kobe FINALLY prove he can win without Shaq? Will Lebron's streak of successfully carrying a weak team deep end? Will  Shaq prove that he is truly the difference maker that Shaq fans have always believed him to be? (I actually thought he was a difference maker, but thought he'd suck in Phoenix) Will Nowitzki shake that 'soft' image? Will Chris Paul prove that despite his age and lack of experience, he's a top 3 player in the NBA?

The worst part about the NBA playoffs is that it overlaps with finals, thus putting some extra strain on me to be able to get into both. Ah well, finals aren't that important. I don't plan on staying in college for the full 4 years anyway, just the mandatory 1 year.

Oh, and enough with this whole 'The playoffs have started' nonsense. No they haven't. A dip in the seedlings now means nothing with the West being as tough as it is. Homecourt is great, but it's not the end all be all. Unless you're Utah.

Who else is excited as hell for the playoffs?

(Lebron telling Kobe the directions to the 40/40 club...)

First of all, I don't particularly like Kobe. This is known by most, and I don't try to hide it. I think his BS this summer was completely out of line, and while some of the truly slow don't believe that someone can dislike the best player on his favorite team, it is what it is.

It is worth mentioning however, that I've never used to like Lebron. I respect Lebron, I think he's absolutely amazing from a basketball standpoint, but I've never been a Lebron fan. I even wrote a blog about how I couldn't figure out why I disliked Lebron on my previous FSN account.

The problem with not liking Lebron however, is that there is really no logic behind it. I saw this when I wrote that blog I just mentioned. There is absolutely, positively, no reason to dislike Lebron James. Hate for Lebron James comes either from pettiness or jealousy, but nothing that Lebron himself could control. I'll delve more into this in a minute.

Now I know the Kobe lovers will fall from the sky and hop on my back, but the truth of the matter is Kobe Bryant's issues and issues that others have with him are all by his own doing. HE is the one who hated playing Robin to Shaq's Batman, HE is the one that called Shaq out, HE is the one who threw management under the bus this summer, and HE is the one who demanded a trade when the going got tough.

Now for the sake of full disclosure, many fans believe that Kobe was right to do what he did with both Shaq and management over the summer, so they don't fault him for that. I don't buy into to that school of thought, and I hold Kobe at fault for his tirade over the summer and subsequent trade demands - but that's just me.

The thing with Lebron James is, there's nothing to dislike him for. There is nothing that Lebron did  that would warrant the hate that he gets. What's a common thing that people say about Lebron? "He's overrated..." Well hell, let's ignore his talent and all his achievements for a second and just ask this: Who's fault is it that he's overrated? How is OTHER PEOPLE saying he's better than you think he is his fault? Why dislike Lebron for what OTHER PEOPLE rate him as? He's not the one who comes out and says he's the best player in the NBA. In fact, he CONSTANTLY calls Kobe the best player in the NBA when asked about it.

What's the other thing folks like to say about him? "He gets too much credit for taking a team in the Eastern Conference deep in the playoffs...". So? Again, Lebron did what he had to do. What does the fact that he was drafted to an Eastern Conference team, and then proceeded to beat a Pistons team that retained 4/5 starters from their championship squad, have to do with not liking Lebron James? So he plays in the East, so what? If getting to the Finals is oh so easy, why isn't everyone doing it? Granted the hobbled Wizards were an easy matchup, but weren't a lot of folks picking the Nets after that? And how did they advance the way they did the year before that against a healthy Wizards squad? How about the way they took it to the Pistons that year they got bounced in seven?

I mean it absolutely defies logic to hate on this guy. "He came in with too much hype...". SO WHAT? Has he not lived up to the hype more than any other draft pick in the last fifteen years? What other player came in with as much pub as him, and managed to accomplish as much as him? We're talking about a guy who prior to this season, led his team deeper and deeper into the playoffs in a way no other star with the same amount of bad players would have been able to do. A guy who made 50 wins in a season EXPECTED by Cleveland fans, when that all that god forsaken franchise was known for was being the fools that stood and watched MJ drop a famous shot on them.

I sit here and I read these absolutely crazy people try to insult Lebron and it boggles my mind that they actually try to argue that he's not as great as he is. HE IS AS GREAT AS PEOPLE SAY HE IS.

And please, save me your Lebron insults based on this season. This season that team and Lebron are both off, there is no denying that. But to use this one season as an excuse to degrade Lebron's skills as a baller is beyond dumb. Particularly by Laker fans, who of all people should know what it's like when your star player isn't surrounded by talent.

This blog won't be received well, but I don't care. I just can't stand reading this poorly written nonsense about how Lebron isn't all that when there is absolutely no grounds for the comments.

And I swear to god, if I see one person actually list Kobe Bryant's career stats side by side with Lebron's career stats like I did in another blog I may go crazy.

(His coaching is questionable, but he has great taste in watches...)

(I know Cuban and Trump aren't fans of one another, but I have a feeling Cuban is going to be using a famous Trump line once the Mavs get bounced in the first round...)

You know when you're arm wrestling with little cuz and you're letting him win for a bit, but then he starts getting too cocky and you gotta bring it back and beat him to show he doesn't have nothing on you yet? That was the Lakers last night.

Did anyone really think the Lakers would lose that game?

It appeared as if they were trying to make it seem like that game was up for grabs, but I wasn't fooled. You could tell that despite the half time deficit, despite the mini-runs that would always be responded to, despite the inability to take the lead in the 4th for what seemed like FOREVER, the Lakers never really had a shot at losing that game.

Kobe is a really good rebounder.  Crazy good rebounder. He's been great on the glass all year. It must be that weight he finally decided to lose this season. I was a bit tired of him coming into camp fat and out of shape. Seemed like he was in a mood to defer last night.

He did bug me when he started waving his hands at Sasha for what was a pretty awful pass on Sasha's part. That thing that got to me was Kobe was begging for the ball, and then got mad because Sasha coughed it up. Truth be told when Mamba saw he was covered, he should've stopped demanding the ball.

Gasol is a REALLY good passer. Much better passer than I thought he was.

Lamar is a boss, plain and simple. I love his length and his ability to work around the basket. I hope he gets re-signed some way some how.

31-10-5, 25-10-6, 25-4-7...what a beautiful line.

I still can't get over the way Sasha earned his way into the lineup when the game matters most. Good for him. I hope he doesn't pull a Kamaan on us after we resign him next season. His nickname is awful though.

Farmar is nice for a backup, but damn he's small. Chauncey will work him something terrible in the Finals.

Vlad Rad kills me. Why is he out there? As TimMoore so eloquently stated, I can't wait for Bynum to return at full strength so that Gasol can shift to the 4 and Vlad Rad can have a seat next to Mbenga. Better yet, sit him down next to Coby Karl on the D-Fenders bench.

Dirk is REALLY good. I mean we joke about him being soft and his collapses in the playoffs over the past couple of years, but he is so talented on offense that it's not even funny. Josh Howard has always been my favorite Mav, but watching Dirk really makes you appreciate his talent more.

I said this yesterday, but the Mavs are crazy awful. What happened to that team? Two Texas squads worry me for playoff time, and neither of them are called the Dallas Mavericks.

I'd love to see the Lakers face the Mavs or Warriors in the first round.  

Any question that the play of the night was the sequence between Gasol and Lamar at the end? Was anyone else holding their breath when Gasol took a second to get up? I swear, I was already picturing him getting up slowly holding his back.

I've been toying with two blog ideas for the past few days but finally decided what I wanted to write on after yesterday's loss.

My first blog idea was addressing all the phony Laker fans out there who feel the need to act like they root for the purple and gold simply because Kobe's a Laker. I found this to be particularly obvious when TCBDOG, a known Kobe leg humper on this site, failed to recognize that Bobby Jackson had been traded from the Hornets to the Rockets despite the fact that said player absolutely put it on the Lakers when they played a few weeks back. Obviously TCB doesn't watch the games he pretends to know about, so I considered calling out him and all other fake Laker fans as a blog topic.

After last night though, I felt that we needed a more positive blog.

True, the losses to the Warriors and the Bobcats is something to be annoyed about, particularly when considering the lack of effort on defense on both occasions and the way the Lakers can't seem to come out of the gate the way they should. But when you look at this season as a whole as a Laker fan, even if worst comes to worst and they take a dip in the standings like I predicted they would with the injury to Gasol, they'll still make the playoffs and do damage with a healthy Gasol.

Before the season started, could anyone imagine that the Lakers would be where they're at right now? Competing for the top of the West, a West that's more competitive than it's ever been in NBA history? I'd say J-Dizzle and Vic the Brick Jacobs are the only ones who could've predicted this, and those guys have had the Lakers winning a title for the past five years.

Who could've thought that after the way Kobe whined like a woman on her period during the summer, and great NBA reporter Ric Bucher predicting that Kobe would never wear a Laker jersey again, that we'd have the Lakers in the position that they're in right now? That after Kobe's bags were all but shipped to Chicago, a team that wouldn't give up Luol Deng (17 and 7) to get Kobe, that Kobe would have the Lakers tied for second in the West and merely a game out of first?

There are a lot of people who deserve credit for this turnaround, but I think the people at the top of that list have to be Jerry Buss and Mitch Kupchak. These two men stuck by their guns as r-e-t-a-r-d-s from all over Los Angeles hurled insults at them. As Kobe Bryant, a player that Jerry Buss treated like a star and stuck by through tough times, threw all of management under the bus like the diva that he is. As analysts from all over the United States were questioning why they wouldn't trade Andrew Bynum for a stud like Jermaine O'Neal.

How did Buss and 'Cupcake' respond to their critics? They kept Andrew Bynum refusing to trade him for JO in a move that turned out to be brilliant, and further shocked the entire NBA by acquiring one of the best big men in the league to compliment the third best player in the league. Some of us have never questioned their genius despite the Kwame debacle and the Vlad Rad head scratcher , and it is those of us who were rewarded with this gem of a season courtesy of Buss and Kupchak.

The praise doesn't end there though. Kobe Bryant, a star I've hated on a lot on these blogs, proved to the league that he's STILL one of the best as he played the clean up role I've always imagined he'd play on a successful Laker team. He stopped forcing the issue, gunning to get 50 point games like he did last season (and sorry, but he WAS gunning for the last couple 50 point games, that's a fact) and put the team and winning first. His defense has been reminiscent of the D he played in the championship years (not as good, but closer than it has been in a long time) and has shown his ability to lead a team when he doesn't act like a toddler that got his candy taken away.

Derek Fisher, a guy whose presence has always outweighed his game deserves a lot of credit as well. I think he's obviously the leader of this team in the locker room, moreso than Kobe even, and I think he provided a much-needed link between Kobe and the rest of the squad. Sure his play is off a lot because he's a shooter and sometimes his shots just don't fall, but the intangibles he's brought with him are crazy and he's a big part of the reason the Lakers are as successful as they have been.

Lamar Odom is just one of those guys that's a pleasure to have on the team. I've always loved what he brought to the squad, and I've hated that he's earned such a bad rep for being as inconsistent that he is. He has more heart than ANYONE on this Laker team, and just because sometimes it doesn't translate in his game, doesn't mean it's not there. This is a guy who delayed surgery to play with the Lakers in the playoffs. A guy who played his heart out after the death of his son during the summer. A guy who never EVER complained about playing next to a guy who jacks up shots at Kobe's rate despite the fact that he was supposed to be "Scottie Pippen" and Scottie got his fair share of shots. Lamar always took his lumps like a solider in LA, and I'm glad he's finally getting some recognition this season.

A poster on this site pointed out a while back that nobody seems to ever mention that Lamar has been absolutely killing it since Gasol went down, yet everybody automatically attributes every little bit of success to Kobe.

Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol have both been instrumental in this run, but they don't get their own paragraphs because they haven't earned them yet. Granted, 'drew was absolutely murdering it (Suns game, anyone?) before the injury, but for once, I don't think Kobe got enough credit for how good he made his teammate. I've always felt like Andrew Bynum is the one guy Kobe's made great in all the time I've seen him, because Andrew's offensive game isn't nearly good enough to be able to create without Kobe Bryant in the lineup. As far as Gasol, the guy just makes the Lakers a contender, plain and simple. Sure he's not the defensive beast we'd like to have, but that doesn't change the streak the Lakers went on post-Gasol's arrival and it doesn't change the fact that even without Bynum, a Gasol-Kobe-Lamar lineup gives you a chance to make it to the end.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much credit to give to Phil Jackson for this. I suppose keeping the locker room chill after the events of this summer is something that deserves praise, but I just don't see him having as big a role in the success of this squad as the people I've mentioned above. Phil is just Phil.

And finally, how can anyone forget the bench mob? Sure Jordan has cooled off and the bench isn't what it was early in the season, but they're still the ones who kick started this season off for us right. And that's to say nothing of the production Sasha and Ronny have been giving the team consistently for this season. Anyone else feel like there's something missing when Ronny starts and it's time for the bench guys to come in?

The Lakers may go on a losing streak, wind up in the bottom half of the West, and go home early as they had in seasons past and while I'd be whining and pissing and moaning like the rest of Laker nation, I wouldn't be able to deny what a pleasant treat this regular season has been as a Laker fan. After all the injuries, all the warnings that this season would end up like last season, and having a promising star like Bynum ripped from us just when we were getting comfortable, I don't think a single Laker fan can deny that the squad has played like absolute soldiers this year. Regardless of what goes down, the Lakers have handled their business the way we've all come to expect from them and while Laker fans on here may spend more time arguing whether or not Kobe is a punk, it feels good to acknowledge the team's success this year once in a while.

The Rockets tired after the beating they got courtesy of one Mr. Kobe 'Bean' Bryant on Sunday have their streak ended by some nobody in the Leastern Conference.

Houston's shots just weren't falling. Perhaps rumors of their cheating on defense in Sunday's game got in their head?

Showing why he's a multiple time All D player, Kobe Bryant holds T-Mac to 8 points without even playing him.

Vlad Radmanovic inspired by Kobe's comments this summer puts up a 21 point and 10 board performance.

Lamar Odumb cleans up on the boards AGAIN, proving what a waste of oxygen he is and how unlucky Mamba is to have had to carry his fat behind for the past few years.

Speaking of bald black people, according to FSN sports Luis Scola was the top performer for the Rockets.

Luis Scola
Pts Reb Asst FG% Min 15 8 0 .500 34

Denver gets beat by some Leastern Conference team on a fluke.

The Suns survive a pathetic 16 point and 15 board outing by the Big Nothing to beat Portland.

Miami shows how simply trading Shaq makes you a better team by beating Leastern Conference Finals contender, the Bucks.