The two most celebrated opponents

Last year the NBA brought back to life the greatest two player rivalry ever in the history of the league. The truth of the matter is that no matter how hard Magic Johnson and Larry Bird competed, there was a greater rivalry than the two of them. It was the rivalry between the two clubs they played for; the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. Basketball is a team sport and both Magic and Bird were on teams that were loaded with talent. Both legendary players made everyone on their teams better. The NBA realized this and put the focus on the rivalry between the two teams.

Boston Celtics vs L.A. Lakers

What the NBA never imagined was that the team play of Boston’s big three would whoop ass on the superstar play of the L.A. Laker’s Kpbe Bryant. The Celtics swept the Lakers right out of the finals. This year the NBA once again forgot that basketball is a team sport. The NBA is infatuated with superstars. All season long the debate has been who is the best player in the league, who is the MVP. All their promotions focused on the two best players in the league, Kobe Bryant and Lebron James. One big problem is there is no direct rivalry between the two of them. No problem for the NBA, they just create a rivalry between the two of them. MVP rivals, and rivals for commercial air time.

Who sells more shoes ?

Now the fortunate thing for the NBA is that both the Lakers and the Cleveland Caveliers led their conferences this year and both teams got the number one seed in their conference. The problem is that the playoffs are different from the regular season. In the playoffs, teamwork really matters and will be the difference between winning a championship and getting knocked off and dissapointing fans. During the regular season, a team with a superstar, surrounded by a bunch of schleps can win a lot of games. Its easy for the NBA officials to call the game in favor of the superstar. Fans pay money to see superstar players play, so they rarely foul out. The playoffs is another matter and in the heat of a 7 game series battle, the flaws of any team get exposed, especialy teams with an overly dependant reliance on a single superstar. Just ask the greatest basketballer of all time, Micheal Jordan. Once he understood this and got a team around him that he supported and that supported him, he found out how to win a championship.The problem is that promoting a whole team is really hard. The best team in the NBA, the riegning champion Boston Celtics, limped into the playoffs with their main superstar on IR. Add other injuries and the Celtic chances were doomed. They still put on two great series of team basketball, ending with pushing the Orlando magic to the brink and perhaps showing them how a team wins. The Celtics weren’t so lucky and they were bounced out of the playoffs. The rivalry of the NBA two greatest players was now in the hands of the two MVPs, Lebron James and Kobe Bryant.Is this rivalry over ?

His airness

Bird vs Magic re-newed !