Why I'm not a ESPN NBA Analyst

It's been a long playoffs already, and while I didn't make any concrete predictions, I feel like a prophet. In the first round I expected to Cavs to sweep, Nuggets, Lakers, Mavericks, Magic and Boston to all advance. The second round played out the same way I expected, with the teams who are now playing the in conference finals all winning.

While it's still too early in the conference finals to retract any of my predictions, I admit I'm slightly worried. The Cavaliers are down 1-2, but I truly believe Mike Brown's lack of coaching skills will be balanced out by LeBron's play. Cleveland will win the next two games, one in

Orlando and the second on the home court. Stan Van Gundy has proven himself to be stable in pressure situations, and has really amazed me with his preparation and strategy in these playoffs. While the Magic are better at every position besides small forward, they don't have the on-court leader, or superstar player who can hit big shots in the fourth. The Magic are a classic example of how good players become great players can be if they allow themselves to be coached.

It's still to early for Dwight Howard to be "that dude" when it comes to taking over a game with his scoring. But the Magic have all the right parts to be champions, and if they advance to the finals this year, they would only be ahead of schedule. Cleveland is in a hard situation; they made moves during last season, swapping Drew Gooden for Ben Wallace, and acquiring Delonte West for Larry Hughes and then getting Mo Williams from the Bucks in the off season. Trades that suggested the star player wanted a new cast. They hold they best overall record from the regular season, and loosing to the Magic would only make it harder to keep the King in Cleveland.

That said, I am a Pistons fan who loves all 30 NBA teams for 30 different reasons. I won't list those reasons, and I might actually only like 27 of the 30 teams.

JR Smith is that dude.

PEACE