The Millennium NBA Preview: Lakers

Tweet With NBA previews and predictions up seemingly everywhere, it seems redundant to rehash the same old questions: Who will be the MVP, who will win the title, who will make the playoffs etc. There is a lot more to an NBA season's stories than just numbers, awards, and predictions. So in the coming weeks, as the NBA picture begins to unfold, we will examine some of the more interesting teams and story lines associated with them.In the first part of what will be many features about the 2012/2013 NBA season, we will examine the overhauled Los Angeles Lakers and a potential change in mentality of Kobe Bryant.

When the news that Kobe plans to retire at the end of the 2014 season came out, I was genuinely surprised. Like many, I thought that Kobe would attempt to break the all-time scoring record before he hung it up, but it seems that he wants to try and accomplish what so few in the NBA have done: go out both as the leader of your team and as a winner (Bill Russell is the only one I can think of that did this, Jordan did too until he ruined the perfect end to a career by playing with the Wizards). Think about it, Magic, Bird, Shaq, Isiah, Hakeem, Barkley, Miller, Stockton, Malone, Payton, Ewing, and many others, how did their careers end? Some said "F*ck it, I gave it my all, I am happy with what I've accomplished and wont resort to latching onto a contender to try and win a ring" - Stockton, Reggie, Barkley, Ewing. Some just realized that their run was over and that they would never be the main guy on a title team, so they too called it quits - Bird, Magic, Isiah, Hakeem, Shaq (who actually managed to try and latch on to every contender he could in a sad attempt to tie Kobe). While the rest shamelessly pursued a ring, regardless of their role on the team and in some cases succeeded (Gary Payton) or failed (Malone). If the Lakers manage to capture the title in Kobe's last season, it would be a truly unique accomplishment that very few NBA players can say they achieved. You can make the argument that Kobe wont be the best player on the team, but this is still very much 'his' team as far as anyone is concerned. You don't associate Dwight Howard with the Lakers, you do associate Kobe Bryant with them.

The Millennium NBA playoff preview

Tweet With the NBA playoffs starting today, how can we not put up an article with some analysis (may contain predictions), but we will do more than that with Luka doing a full on running diary of the day's action that will be posted later. So, without wasting too much of your time, let's preview each series (in the order of the weekend TV schedule).

# 1 Chicago Bulls vs. # 8 Philadelphia 76ers

Or as I like to call this one "integrate Derick Rose into the line-up" series. Chicago could not have asked for a better match-up. The 76ers like to play defense and slow it down, they are offensively challenged, and some would argue that Philly didn't even deserve to make the playoffs with the way they closed out the season. On our podcast (which should be posted fairly soon) Luka made the argument that all teams need a closer, or at least someone who they know is going to be taking all of the big shots late in games, Philly definitely does not have "that guy" and it will probably hurt them in this series. There really isn't much to say about the Bulls, they are a contender, they managed to win 50 games despite Rose missing a significant chunk of time, and they will be ready. Expect a quick series, with few entertaining games.

The prediction: Bulls in 5.

# 2 Miami Heat vs. # 7 New York Knicks

Regarding Harry Potter

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It started differently for everyone; for me I guess it started in Mrs. Storrey’s grade 3 class. This is where I got my first taste of the wizarding world that J.K. Rowling had created and I haven’t looked back since. To make it clear, this is not a review of the latest Harry Potter movie (I thought the movie was fantastic and a great finale to the series), if you want to read a well-written one, go here. It is simply one fan’s way of giving thanks to a franchise that has been a part of my life for about as long as I can remember. When Mrs. Storrey told us that she’d be reading the first three books in the series out loud to the whole class, I met the news with indifference, after all it was grade 3 and reading wasn’t one of my favourite things to do at time. But as soon as she started telling us the story of Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione and their adventures at Hogwarts, I was hooked. It further helped that she split the class into four groups and made us draw a Hogwarts house out of a hat. I picked for my group and drew Hufflepuff, I’m still not fully over it (no one wants to be in Hufflepuff, doesn’t it seem like Chris Bosh would get sorted there?).

So right away I was fully immersed and captivated by the happenings at Hogwarts. I remember getting the box set for Christmas one year and starting to read the third book (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) right away (Also, for people who have the books, can someone tell me who the person on the back of the first book is? I’ve heard Dumbledore which doesn’t make sense because it doesn't look like him, Hagrid, same goes for him and Gilderoy Lockhart which really makes no sense as he made his first appearance in the second book). When I finished grade 3 I didn’t stop reading the series but rather couldn’t wait for the fourth book (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) which finally arrived in the summer of 2000 (just to continue the NBA players sorting, Lebron James and Kobe Bryant would go to Slytherin, Shane Battier would be in Ravenclaw, Dirk Nowitzki, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant would be Gryffindors and Linas Kleiza would most definitely be a squib). I finished reading it in 3 days, devouring the pages as if the winner of the Triwizard Tournament had a personal effect on my life.

I even got to hear JK Rowling read the book at what was then called the Skydome (now Rogers Centre), I remember the large crowd anxiously and restlessly awaiting Rowling, not paying any attention to what Kenneth Oppel (author of the underrated Silverwing, Sunwing, and Firewing books) was saying and I was one of them. Even though I was seated in the nose bleeds (why are they called this? Shouldn’t it be “the eye sores” or something like that?), I was excited to see the woman who had provided me with such joy to that point in my life. In the end she read an excerpt of the first chapter saying that the parts of the books with the Dursleys were her favourites. It was that same winter that the first Harry Potter movie was released on November 16 which just happens to be two days before my birthday. Naturally I decided to have my birthday party at the movies to see my favourite book series come to life (All of the movies have been entertaining with varying levels of faithfulness to the books. Why does Voldemort have a nose in the first movie though? My favourites of the movies are The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Half-Blood Prince, and The Deathly Hallows part 1 and 2). The first thing I noticed about the movie was the way Hermione was pronounced, up until the movie I had always pronounced her name Her-Moyn for reasons that are now unclear to me. The second thing was the near perfect casting for all of the characters; could anyone else portray Severus Snape as well as Alan Rickman or Professor McGonagall as well as Maggie Smith has? The three main roles were cast how I imagined them to be so leaving the theatre that night I had no problem with how the book was translated.