2008 NBA Finals Preview: A Pierce-ing Analysis

The much ballyhooed NBA Finals matchup between the Celtics and Lakers starts tonight in Boston. We’re not crazy about either of these teams, or the idea of either of them getting a title, but we have to pick one of them. We’re picking the Celtics for three primary reasons.

1) Selfish crybabies shouldn’t get to win Championships. We realize that Kobe has matured as a person and a player. We also realize that life isn’t fair. But, and we’re not going to get into a detailed history here, what should have been a Lakers dynasty that should have won two or three more NBA titles was broken up because LA wasn’t big enough for both Kobe and Shaquille O’Neal. Kobe wanted the Lakers to be “his team.” This is similar to when Stephon Marbury left the Timberwolves because the team wasn’t big enough for him and Garnett. So now the Lakers are Kobe’s team. Because Kobe got what he asked for, and because he has so much to lose by not winning one without Shaq, there might be an element of added pressure on him in this Series. There’s also a Ray Allen/Kobe Bryant feud at play here, which favors the Celtics if only because Allen’s been dead-on in predicting how Kobe’s career will play out. And we’ve been reading lately about how Kobe Bryant cannot stand to lose; how he has for his whole life been “obsessed with dominating the court.” How does this play out? Is this the result of an inferiority complex? An obsessive disorder? These things don’t generally play out well.

2) If these games are fixed or manipulated in any way, and, as we’ve discussed, there is a tremendous perceived financial incentive for the league to fix these games, this favors the Celtics. If each game means millions more for the league, then we’re more likely to see a Game 7. Game 7 would be in Boston.

3) We think that the Celtics have better roster chemistry than the Lakers. We think that the Kobe/Lamar Odom/Pau Gasol troika has a similar skill set, and we compare Odom and Gasol to a poor man’s Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden as those two players fit with LeBron (see Venn diagrams here). These three are all primarily scorers. The Celtics should have a drastic rebounding advantage against the Lakers in this series, despite Odom’s and Gasol’s size. And finally, as explained in the best piece that we’ve read about this Series, by Free Darko’s Bethlehem Shoals, the X factor in this series is not Kevin Garnett, it’s the perpetually underrated Paul Pierce:

“Underrated on draft night, almost died from a stabbing, excelling with a relative lack of fanfare, suffered through some doldrums just as Garnett did, dealt with criticism, and now, is the real moral center of this series. He should be the pride of the Celtics, and as a Los Angeles native, this series couldn't have higher stakes for him. Checks the stats; as Nate Jones reminded me, dude's always energized by playing in front of the city he still loves. Pierce is about to hijack these finals the way Tony Parker so often with the Spurs, making himself into the marquee name when there's a surefire Hall of Famer defining his legacy.” (Read the rest here).

The Pick: Celtics +150 to win the 2008 NBA Finals over the Lakers.