Kobe's Lakers one and done?

Congratulations NBA fans. Coming off the weakest NBA season in a quarter century, you are now being rewarded with odious pronouncements designed to quell your minds into twirling rapturous beliefs that next year's NBA season will only transcend you into a golden era of star-studded domination.

We hear from some, the Lakers will absolutely repeat. Others mention that the trio of Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Dwight Howard will only continue in their progression and thus they have been anointed the Eastern Conference's team to beat.

Now for the reality check. Should the hypochondriac, Kobe suffer a real injury, the Lakers are the Memphis Grizzlies. Not only that, even at full strength we saw how difficult it was for them to beat the various mediocre teams in the Western Conference.

Clearly, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol are not the twin tower combo that is worthy of mention in the likes of David Robinson/Tim Duncan and Ralph Sampson/Hakeem Olajuwauon.

Lamar Odom will still be the guy that shows up on some nights and not on others. Kobe will still be the me-first player. And the Lakers will still have no point guard. Despite all of that, they are arguably as good as anyone. Last I checked, that is not the type of shortcomings that dynasties are made of.

The Magic still have a coach that only screams. It may be just as well, when you have up and comers like Courtney Lee who cannot accept responsibility for choking at the end of championship games. The Magic needed seven games to beat the KG-less Celtics. We can argue that they passed the Cavs as the second best team in the conference. But nothing about them jumps out as a championship pedigree.

We are exactly where we left off last year. The Celtics and Lakers are a smidge ahead of the rest of the competition. But with guys like Dwayne Wade and Dirk Nowitzki in the shadows, Jerry Sloan coached Utah Jazz teams and the like, we know that anything is possible and that the talking heads making definite claims are merely blabbing.

The draft and free agent signings will have a tangible effect on the balance. Not too mention, if the Spurs can do a quick remodeling, we know that the trio of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili when healthy are still the champion of champions in this current National Basketball Association.

Enjoy the 2010 NBA season, but know that absolutely nothing is in stone. As the great Doc Brown would say, the future is not written.