Look no further than these storylines to know why the NBA is the best professional sports league going. (That's right — better than the NFL.)
1. The League's Two Most Interesting Guards Now Play For The Same Team
It WOULD be pretty interesting if Rockets GM Daryl Morey (left) signed himself to play point guard alongside James Harden, but despite what this picture/headline imply we're actually referring to Harden and Jeremy Lin.
Image by Pat Sullivan / AP
James Harden is the bearded pick-and-roll savant with the dead-eye shot and ball-handling skills as good as any two-guard's in the league. Jeremy Lin is the fan-favorite floor general who's the basketball equivalent of a running back, barreling down the lane for incomprehensible layups. Together, they've turned the formerly moribund, personality-devoid Houston Rockets into the league's most charismatic squad, that one team that will make you say, damn, I wish I was a Rockets fan. The fact that Houston's not even necessarily a playoff team makes them even more exciting — beyond Harden and Lin, the roster's filled with untested rookies (Royce White, Terrence Jones), three-point specialists (Daequan Cook, Carlos Delfino), and unconventional bigs (Chandler Parsons, Marcus Morris). Nobody knows how this experiment's going to end, except that we'll all have a hell of a lot of fun on the way.
2. The Lakers Must Win The Championship, But They Might Not
Image by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
If the Lakers, a flock of basketball ubermenschen assembled at great cost and with huge fanfare, do not win the NBA Championship this year, their season will be considered a failure. Steve Nash is 38; Kobe Bryant is 34; Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace are 32; the window for these four guys is closing fast. Plus, the combined weight of their salaries means that the Lakers are paying a tremendous amount in luxury tax to put them all together. When you factor in coach Mike Brown’s questionable-ness, Dwight Howard’s mental inconsistency, and the fact that the Heat appear to be even better than they were last year, you start to wonder: does the Lakeshow even have that great of a shot at winning it all in 2013? Of course they do. It’s just going to be far from easy. After all, they’ve lost ten games in a row (two real and eight preseason) — they should try winning a game first.