MVP! MVP! That’s what you heard coming from my MSU student apartment! Kobe Bryant put the Lakers on his back as they easily defeated the Boston Celtics to take a 1-0 series lead in the NBA finals. My neighbors, who are Celtics fans, were sick, and I didn’t hear a peep coming from their Chandler Crossings apartment! Even though this was the first game, it didn’t look good for the Green Machine. I’m picking the Lakers in 5 games, who do you think will win?

In only his 3rd year in the league, barring any major injuries, Durant is on his way to becoming the next Michael Jordan and the first Kevin Durant. The other night, after playing basketball with a few of my friends at our Chandler Crossing apartment, we were sitting in the clubhouse watching SportCenter highlights. Durant had a monster game, scoring about 34 points in a victory. He has scored 25+ points in 29 straight games, no one has done that since Jordan. His ability to score is uncanny, surreal and just scary. Not Kobe nor Lebron has even come close to what Durant is doing.

But those players might have a say before everything is said and done. Kobe Bryant is a stone cold assassin and Lebron Jamesis an all around phenom. Bryant has already lived up to Micheal Jordan’s hype and James seems to be next in line to surpass MJ’s legacy. So I ask all of you NBA junkies, who do you think will be the next G.O.A.T.?

Posted by Ernest M.

The intriguing part of all this is the inevitable clashing of two of the NBA’s biggest stars.  Regardless of who ends up winning the Eastern Conference Finals, Kobe Bryant finds himself on a crash course with one of the NBA’s top five players.  Behind door number one is Lebron James, the “King” himself.  The NBA’s white knight.  He has served up what could be conservatively put as an “inspiring” playoff performance thus far.  The Kobe/Lebron match-up is undoubtedly what the NBA and the American public want to see.  Just think, we would all get to watch the “great debate” unfold between these two players instead of just arguing about it to no avail.  That is all fine and dandy, but we must not forget that Cleveland is still facing elimination tonight.  No matter how badly we may want to, we cannot write the Orlando Magic off yet.  They are built around the league’s six-foot eleven brick-house defensive MVP in Dwight Howard and they have three to two series lead.  This is a team that is riddled with athleticism, can tear you up from beyond the three point arc, and their star, Dwight Howard, is easily one of the NBA’s top five players.

No matter who ends up winning the Eastern Conference, the NBA Finals are going to contain a player trying to prove something late in his career, and a player trying to start his legacy early in his career.  Will it be Kobe Bryant silencing his critics?  Will it be Lebron James forcing his name early into the conversation of the NBA’s best ever?  Or will it be Dwight Howard showing us why he has arrived as the next dominant lock-down franchise center?  Only one can come out on top.  Tune in June 4 on ABC to see history unfold.

-Alex Shikany