Lakers win 2010 NBA Championship!

Wow! What a season and what a finals run. Over the summer, the defending NBA champs acquired former all-star and defensive player of the year Ron Artest and still managed to retain all their core pieces. On opening night, on his first trip to the free throw line, the MVP chants rained down from the rafters of the Staples Center for Kobe Bryant, marking a perfect start to the perfect season. Their young phenom center Andrew Bynum dropped 26/13 on that opening night and the Lakers proceeded to rattle off a 20-1 winning streak to open the season. They eventually shattered the 1995 Chicago Bull's 72-10 overall season record and in the playoffs, the Lakers would beattheir own 15-1 playoff record from 2000 by sweeping all their opponents for their 17th NBA championship.

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Oh wait, no, that's not it. What you say? It's only the first week of the season and the Lakers have only played two games? Are you sure? Cuz it sure didn't seem that way based on the national presentation of the Lakers so far. On Tuesday, the Lakers were only up 2 pts at the start of the 4th quarter against the lowly Clippers and won with a margin of 7 pts, yet the TNT crew (Barkley, Kenny, Webber) all agreed that the Lakers will totally start the season 20-1 and challenge the Bulls 72-10 record. And then there was tonight's ESPN broadcast of the Lakers/Mavericks game. I know I'm a Laker hater and all, but that was seriously the most homeristic presentation I have EVER seen, and I'm a league pass subscriber. I've heard broadcasts from every team's home broadcast teams (incl. Boston's infamous Tommy Heinsolm) and this just takes the cake. ESPN's Mike Breen was just incredulous that the almighty Lakers could be down to anybody and would loudly exclaim every change in the score like it was an impossibility. Um, last I checked... the Mavs are still one of better teams in the West. They still have Dirk and Kidd and reloaded themselves over the summer with Marion and Gooden. They'll definitely be playoff bound come April and I think its just rude and disrespectful to dismiss them in such a way. And in case you missed it, the Mavs were up as much as 19 with 2:38 left in the 4th and eventually won by 14, 94-80.

The moral of this rant? It's a long season and every team and player has good days and bad days. Stop with the early over reactions. FWIW, I think the Lakers will probably be 17-4 at the end of 21 games. Yes, that's still an awesome .800 record and will likely be the best in the league, but it's a far cry from 20-1 and even farther from any notions of the 72-10 Bulls. For a little more perspective, the Celtics last year opened the season 23-2 and still "only" reached 62-10 by season's end. As for the those Bulls? Jordan, Pippen, and crew opened the season 41-3. Yeah, 41-3, that's a .931 winning percentage. So please shut up ESPN/TNT and all your national pundits. The Laker hype is in overdrive and I'm already sick of it and we're 2 games in.

/RANT