Nevertheless, I’ve got a ton of respect for Mr. Moore and his opinions, and I’m frequently blown away by his passion and the quality of his writing. It just irks me that unlike, say, Matt McHale, Moore tends to be fairly incapable of letting go of his hatred of the Lakers to ever give an honest assessment of them. I can’t ever recall reading anything even remotely positive about them from him that wasn’t fairly liberally tinged with bitterness, and it’s a shame. I guess every good story needs a villain.

I appreciate the humor of disliking the Lakers and Kobe, and enjoy that as much as anyone; but eventually I do like to have serious discussions about them, just as I do any other team. It just bugs me that the Lakers carry all this baggage that often prevents a real quality basketball discussion about them from taking place (and that’s not just the fault of the “haters” either, the idiots who refuse to acknowledge any faults or flaws with the team are equally irritating, and equally guilty of derailing a good conversation before it starts). Instead discussions about the Lakers to usually devolve into attacks both ways.

DKH – Portland may not have shown a whole lot this year, but IMO they showed enough. Don’t be surprised if they’re the 2nd seed in the West next year, and don’t be surprised if they’re in the WCFs. It’s really too early to make any real predictions about anyone, because there’s far too many good free agents out there who could end up on any number of teams; but even if Portland doesn’t do anything this summer and just keeps the same guys and gets a year older, they’re going to be a beast. All that team has really been missing is experience, and to their credit they got a lot of it this year. They will no longer be “just happy to be there” when they make the playoffs in April, and I don’t think they’ll be satisfied with just making it out of the 1st round.

I think a team with similar talent and more experience will upend them next year, but how many teams in the West will be able to compete with Portland talent-wise? LA and maybe Denver? I’m afraid my days of mocking Abbott and his Blazers are probably nearing an end. They’re going to be too good to hold back next year, and I really think they’ll give the Lakers a hell of a battle.

Come on – You know you want to. Plus it would save you about 650 words. Give in to your anger!

In the East, Cleveland and Boston will definitely be challengers to the Magic again. Actually, that could be interesting, in that there should be three really motivated teams in one conference. The Turkoglu/Lewis/Howard trio made for a lot of matchup nightmares (moreso for Cleveland than Boston), but Orlando also needed some pretty hot shooting to get by those teams. (That’s not a knock on them, that’s just how playoff series are. Brief hot streaks can propel teams pretty far. Small sample size and all that statistical stuff.)

I know you’re fairly consistently down on Bynum, and I can understand why considering the underwhelming playoffs he just had; but the guy is only 21 and still shows flashes of what he can do. Hopefully by the time next season starts he’ll have had plenty of time to fully recover and put in some more work and he’ll be ready to go right out of the gate, unlike this past year. He has a lot of doubters to prove wrong, and he needs to show everyone why the Lakers signed him to that contract.

Provided LA re-signs Ariza and Odom, these Lakers aren’t going anywhere. Not for a while. Fisher will be 35 next year and Kobe will be 31, but everyone else is in their 20s. This championship experience as well as just the experience of playing together for a number of years is going to make them even tougher to beat next year. If the Lakers stay healthy, I like their chances of repeating.

The Magic are much farther away from the title now than the Lakers were a year ago, IMO. The main reason is because a year ago LA had Bynum and Ariza returning. The Magic will get Jameer back (hopefully) at full speed next year, but I don’t know that that will be enough to push them over the top. It would have made a huge difference in this series, that’s for sure, but I don’t know if it would have swung the pendulum completely the other way. Time will tell.

Then I read WildYam’s links to some of your posts from last year. The Celtics put on one of the “greatest team performances in NBA history”? Okay…against a good, yet injury-ridden and inexperienced ballclub. The Orlando Magic this season were a lot like the Lakers from 2008, except better (an inside defensive presence. Still young and injured). So if the Celtics put together one of the greatest team performances of all-time against an inferior squad, what does that mean for the Lakers this season?

Oh…they just happened to be “better”.

Puh-LEASE.

I dunno, but last year you did so anyway. In fact, you held off on praising the champs until you’d thoroughly trashed the challengers, so go figure.

I said this in the comments the other day, but since you never answered I’m still curious: do you now realize why Laker fans were so high on Ariza all year? Much like with Bynum, you practically fell over yourself in the rush to pronounce Ariza an overhyped bust the second he had a mediocre game, and fairly well ignored him the rest of the time. Any updated thoughts on Ariza and his value as a basketball player?

I bring this up not to gloat (well, not ENTIRELY to gloat). I just wanted to point out, once again, that I think your blind Laker hatred does you a disservice when you write about them, as it precludes you from being objective at all. Even worse, it often prevents you from writing objectively about other teams, just because you’re so hoping they’re all actually better than they are simply because that might mean they could beat LA. Like you basically said above, it’s why you picked the Magic in 7.

Hate on though. It’s what drives you. Maybe it’s better than the alternative. As I wrote you before, I just hope that now that you don’t have any real legit reason to bash Kobe as a player, and now that your oft-pointed out shortcomings of the Lakers don’t have any real legs to stand on, I hope it’s not going to diminish your overall passion for writing about the game, because you really are a fantastic NBA blogger.

When you don’t let your bias against the Lakers blind you, that is.