While I despise the Lakers and their fans as much as all right-thinking people do, I can't find the result of the 2009 NBA Finals all that disagreeable.
First of all, the Lakers are a great team. I know some people like the cinderalla team- an average team that gets lucky at the right time to defeat superior teams, but I don't. I feel like the point of competition is to determine which team is best. If the championship goes to a team that isn't the best, isn't the system of competition a little screwed up? This season, there were only two candidates for team of the year, and the Magic weren't one of them.
I'm not using the term "great" lightly, either. The Cavs and Lakers each had gears that no other teams had. Between Jordan's last championship in 1998 and the Celtics' championship in 2008, the poster-team of the NBA was the Spurs, a very good but not legitimately great team (except for 2007) that took advantage of the absence of great teams to win four championships. The only great teams between 1999 and 2007 were the Shaq-Kobe Lakers, who repeatedly thrashed the Spurs, and the 2007 Spurs. In the last two seasons, there have been three great teams, and it's only appropriate that two of them went on to win championships.
Secondly, putting aside Phil Jackson's douchiness, and Kobe's superdouchiness, the Lakers play how basketball is supposed to be played- tough defense and a frenetic, uptempo, and improvisational, non-micromanaged offense with constant moving and unselfishness.
To the extent that basketball is a beautiful game, it's because it showcases individualism, creativity, improvisation, and of course, mesmerizing athleticism. While Phil Jackson doesn't make players more athletic, his offensive philosophy doesn't involve micromanaging automaton players like a football offense. His players are not chess pieces to be manipulated by the master strategist a la Larry Brown's boring-ass teams. Instead, they work in a flexible structure where players work together to create shots and read and react to the defense.
Thirdly, Kobe. Kobe's detestable characteristics are less severe than they have been in the past. He still has his flaws (shot selection, horrible teammate, etc.) all of which are rooted in the same personal defect (he's a narcissist sociopath), but he is very good. Basketbawful regrets living in a world where Antoine Walker and Sasha Vujicic are NBA champions, but can anyone say that Kobe is not a worthy NBA champion? Given my own avowed distaste for lucky teams and players, and my appreciation of worthy ones, I can't help but congratulate the Lakers on their 10th championship.
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My initial gut reaction is that you have glossed over the extreme super-hyper-douchiness of the Lakers as a whole, though they're not as offensively douchey as they were a few years back.
In any event, Phil Jackson can bite me, good coach or not. I can't take away from his success, but I still retain the right to hold something against this man I have never met. He's refused accountability for anything going wrong in a game or series, a few more times than I can take, and it's annoying.
All that said, I too find it hard to not begrudgingly offer respect to Kobe. One, seeing him in person is what it took for me to come to grips with how wicked talented the dude is. And two, it was clear from the start that he wasn't gonne be denied in the Finals. While I still generally refuse to watch any game that he's winning, and enjoy watching any game that he is losing, I gotta acknowledge the level of power he can exert on games played at the highest level.
And while I sort of didn't want to see the Lakers-Cavs matchup, since I'm sure that's what that turd Stern wanted, I have to think that that would have been a more fun, exciting, worthwhile matchup. Maybe next year. Although I would puke my guts out if there were ever a Kobe vs. Shaq matchup in the Finals (if Shaq does end up in Cleveland).
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