The teams I am rooting for to win the championship, in order:
1) OKC -- Kevin Durant will always rank as one of my favorite players because of his understated Twitter announcement of signing a long-term deal w/ the most unlikely city in the US to have a sports franchise. They have the best fans in the NBA. Russell Westbrook is one of the most exciting players in years. They have a guy named Thabo. They have a very enjoyable cast of role players. And they made the best trade of the year when they rooked Perkins from the Celts.
2) DENVER -- They have an awesome "Major League" kind of feel to them right now. They got rid of a moody, overrated "superstar" and instead became a very deep team that has a lot of fun players. I still think they have more than their fair share of headcases (J.R. Smith, K-Mart, The Birdman) but they have that awesome wildcard feel to them.
3) SIXERS -- Just because they're my de facto hometown team. If they take the Heat to 7 games (and they don't have anyone nearly as good as LeBron/Wade or even Cotton Bosh, but they're a lot deeper), then I can see a rebirth of the NBA in Philly. People who didn't live in Philly during Iverson's big run don't believe me when I tell them that the Sixers OWNED that city for a good two years. Their finals run was just absolutely nuts -- Sixers flags flew all over the city. Philly's a sleeper of a basketball town (five D-1 teams in the city and Villanova's right outside). I can see this getting fun.
4) PORTLAND -- The most snakebitten team but one that has absolutely come together in the face of their adversity. Aldridge is the most underrated player in the league. B-Roy will always be one of my favorite players to watch -- he's like basketball's Greg Maddux in terms of mixing in really weird "offspeed" things to his game. Awesome crowds. That city's a little too hipster-y for my tastes, but I liked the six Portlandia sketches that I saw.
5) SAN ANTONIO -- I should rank the Spurs higher because I think they play the most aesthetically pleasing form of basketball right now. Their Big 3 "play the right way" if you want to throw out an obnoxious cliche. Manu's such an incredibly fun player to watch that, for some reason, a lot of people hate. Matt Bonner makes those hilarious, bizarre "Coach B" videos. DeJuan Blair is somehow only in his second year in the league but seems like he's been playing for eight years. Pop does the best sideline interviews in basketball. But I can't root for Gary Neal -- he was involved at a sex scandal at my alma mater which destroyed the basketball program for a few years. He was a 19-year-old kid who did some horrible things and seems to have grown from it, but it's still a sore spot for me ten years later.
6) CHICAGO -- I don't see how anyone cam make a case against D-Rose as being the MVP of the league. He carried the Bulls to the #1 seed in the east. I now Boozer/Deng/Noah are good but they're not THAT good. They don't win the East if you have Chris Paul, D-Wil, Nash, Rondo or Westbrook running the point. He also seems like a really good guy and he's been a joy to watch all year. I also really love watching Noah play and have since he was on Florida. Just the perfect example of a guy who knows how to win -- he was obviously going to be a great glue guy on a playoff team when he came out yet somehow ended up as the ninth pick in the 2007 draft, two spots behind Yi Jianlian.
7) DALLAS -- Dirk might be the most underrated player of my lifetime. He's one of the greatest scorers the league has ever seen and is the definition of consistent. He'll always take crap for choking against Golden State the year he won MVP and for not winning the finals that year but I'd love to see him get some redemption. He's also so ridiculously bizarre -- his Locke-style "walkabout" after choking away the title; the fact he almost got married to a career con woman until his live-in "guru" ran a background check on her, etc. But I don't care about anyone else on that team.
ORLANDO -- Dwight Howard's a great player, although I think he's a bit overrated since blocking shots out of bounds is pretty silly. Stan Van Gundy is a pretty entertaining person. And I'll always love Jameer Nelson since he went to St. Joe's which is pretty much the same exact school as La Salle. I saw him play in person about six times and can't stress enough that he was the absolute best college point guard possible. But aside from that they're not that likable.
9) KNICKS -- I grew up as a Knicks fan (living right outside the city) but my feelings for the New York sports teams I loved as a kid have waned since I moved to the superior Philadelphia region (for the most part) in 1995. Anthony Mason, John Starks and pre-Bulls Oakley rank as three of my childhood heroes -- right up there with "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert, Evan Dando and the Kids in the Hall. I like Amare (and his dabblings with Judaism) and I think Chauncey's terrific. But I am not a fan of Melo at all or his obnoxious wife. And the fact that I am a spurned ex-employee of the MSG family doesn't help things, either. Still, an excited NYC for basketball is a ton of fun and my brother's an obsessive fan, so I can't quite hate them.
10) NEW ORLEANS -- Largely because I love Chris Paul and you can't help but pull for any New Orleans team just because.
11) MEMPHIS -- Somehow sneaking into the playoffs. I had Zach Randolph on a few fantasy teams the past few years so I have that bond with him. But aside from that, I don't really care about this team.
12) INDIANA -- Indiana deserves to have a good basketball team every single year just because it's such a great basketball state and Hoosiers is quite possibly my favorite all-time movie.
13) THE CELTICS -- I detest any Boston sports team for the reasons listed above (Boston's reputation is a fraud) and Kevin Garnett is a bully and they've won a lot. The "Red on Roundball" video series, though, prevents them from being my most hated team. I actually kind of have a hero worship of Red Auerbach in this bizarre way -- he was probably the first "heel" sports figure with the whole pompous cigar smoking routine and, once, even had the governor of Massachusetts light his cigar for him after winning the championship. That's just AWESOME and he managed to hoodwink the entire NBA for decades. But he's dead.
14) THE LAKERS -- They represent everything I hate about life -- annoying celebrity bandwagon fans, etc. I also absolutely detest Phil Jackson and his dippy Zen routine to the core of my soul. There's Pau Gasol and PAU DOUBLE, who I talked about on our podcast. And I have a bizarre relationship with Kobe. Kobe was going to go to La Salle (his dad was the assistant coach when he was in high school) but instead decided to go to the NBA, thus depriving me of a college experience that was truly awesome aside from the fact we had a crappy basketball team. There's the sex abuse thing. There's his general obnoxiousness. But you know what? I respect the hell out of him because he's such an insanely hard worker and will literally do ANYTHING to win a basketball game. He's kind of like Pearl Jam -- I'm not a fan of their music but they're one of the biggest bands of all-time despite hiding away from the media and fighting Ticketmaster and stuff like that.
15) ATLANTA -- Atlanta's just a dreadful sports town that really doesn't deserve to have four franchises. They call their arena the "Highlight Factory" which makes no sense since highlights aren't constantly repeated in the same exact manner.
16) MIAMI -- Duh.
