Los Angeles Lakers
57-25
1st seed in the Western Conference
The History:
It seems like only yesterday that the Los Angeles Lakers were headlined by all-world center Shaquille O’Neal and the
favorite to win their respective conference year after year. Kobe Bryant, now widely believed to be the best basketball player in the world, was merely a sidekick in those days. This season, and for the past six, he’s been the top dog in the City of Angels, and his revived version of “Showtime” is making their third Shaq-less Finals appearance in the past three years.
Bryant, once widely criticized for his selfish behavior, has seemingly embraced the mindset that teams, rather than individual performances, win championships, and this mix of players seems poised to repeat. Only the Boston Celtics stand in their way.
The Superstars:
Kobe. That’s all you need to know. The Lakers will win because of Kobe Bryant or they will lose because of Kobe Bryant. He’s such a dominant force and brilliant basketball mind that he can literally take a game over by himself. 
The only problem with this is that he knows it. He knows how good he is and has often been accused of trying to do too much. If Bryant knows his boundaries and continues to trust his teammates like he has all season, the Lakers’ chances of winning the series improve greatly.
No basketball team can rely solely on one player, but they may need to if Pau Gasol plays like he did the last time these two teams met in the NBA’s days of summer. In the 2008 Finals, Gasol backed away from every bit of contact like the frightened center a high school girls team. Hopefully the Lakers’ prized off-season acquisition Ron Artest can bring his streetwise attitude and give the gold and forum blue a little bit of mental toughness.
The Storyline:
If the Lakers can manage to take four games from the C’s, they’ll find themselves merely two titles away from Boston’s league-leading seventeen. It’s apparent that Kobe Bryant’s days of single-handedly dictating the pace of games are quickly fading, and his team may only have a few years of Western Conference domination remaining. He’s still two titles behind Michael Jordan, the man he strives to be compared to. Don’t think he doesn’t know this.
Upper Deck Underdogs 