This is going to one of the best Christmas days in rest years for me. I will have my family next to me, some hot choco, and the 5 NBA games to watch. Since the NBA lockout took place, this season is going to be shorter, which is good for the younger teams in the league but bad for the older ones. Enough with the chit-chat, here are my 2011-2012 NBA predictions:

West Conference Playoff Standings:

1) Dallas Mavericks

2) Oklahoma City Thunder

3) Denver Nuggets

4) Los Angeles Lakers

5) Los Angeles Clippers

6) San Antonoie Spurs

7) Memphis Grizzles

8) Houston Rockets

Easter Conference Playoff Standings:

1) Miami Heat

2) Chicago Bulls

3) New York Knicks

4) Boston Celtics

5) Atlanta Hawks

6) Orlando Magic

7) Philadelphia 76ers

8) New Jersey Nets

Coach of the Year: 

Vinny Del Negro- LA Clippers

Defensive Player of the Year:

Jason Terry- Dallas Mavericks

Rookie of the Year:

Derrick Williams- Minnesota Timberwovles

MVP:

Kevin Durant

Championship Game:

Dallas Mavericks vs. Chicago Bulls

Winner:

Dallas Mavericks: 4 games to 2.

The Dallas Mavericks kept their team mostly intact and added the defensive player of the year, from last season (Odom). 

The NBA season is only one more day away, so I thought it would fun, for me, to predict where each team will be ranked, at the end of the season, and who’s going to win the NBA Championship. At the end of the season, I can look back and see how right, or wrong, I was:

Western Conference:

1. Los Angeles Lakers

2. Dallas Mavericks

3. Oklahoma City Thunder

4. San Antoine Spurs

5. Denver Nuggets

6. Portland Trailer Blazers

7. Utah Jazz

8. Phoenix Suns

9. Houston Rockets

10. New Orleans Hornets

11. Los Angeles Clippers

12. Sacramento Kings

13. Golden State Warriors

14. Minnesota Timberwolves

15. Memphis Grizzles

Eastern Conference:

1. Boston Celtics

2. Miami Heat

3. Orlando Magic

4. Chicago Bulls

5. Milwaukee Bucks

6. Atlanta Hawks

7. Charlotte Bobcats

8. New York Knicks

9. Detroit Pistons

10. Philadelphia 76ers

11. Cleveland Cavaliers

12. New Jersey Nets

13. Washington Wizards

14. Indiana Pacers

15. Toronto Raptors

NBA Finals Match-Up:

Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics

Lakers win series (4-2)

NBA 2010-2011 MVP:

Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant

I love game winning shots as much as the next guy, but when my favorite basketball team (the Los Angeles Lakers) have done it 3 times this season, by the hands of Kobe, it starts to scare me a bit. This Lakers are building a horrible habit, and that habit is letting other teams get ahead of them, in points, and making it harder on themselves to win games. It isn’t bad if your team gets down by 4 or 5 points but when other teams are getting ahead by 15 or more points is when you have to start to worry. After reading John Ireland’s blog post about last night’s Laker win it made me realize that the Lakers are on a troubled path. I still believe that the Lakers will win the 2009-2010 championship, but if they keep on playing games like this then I’m going to have to rethink the Lakers’ chances.

Losing is apart everyday life, but for sports stars, it is a little harder because their careers are built and distorted by it. This past Saturday, May 30^th, the Cleveland Cavilers lost in the Eastern Conference finals series to the Orlando Magic. The Cavs. were seen as the Eastern Conference favorites to go to the National Basketball Association (NBA) finals but the Magic were too much.  The most interesting and disappointing thing to see, after the game, is that the Cavs. leader, Lebron James, did not meet with the media and did not shake the hands of Orlando Magic players. LeBron did talk to the media after returning from the Orlando game (click the video to see what he said). Even though LeBron did talk to the media later his comments are off putting, and show me that Lebron is a poor sport. I know this lose was hard for LeBron, but he needs to man up and take his lumps.  LeBron needs to talk a lesson from one of the greatest tennis players right now Rafael Nadel.

Nadel is ranked number one in the tennis world and just the other day he was defeated by Robin Soderling in the French Open. Since 2005, Nadel has not lost a match in the French Open. That means that he has won the French Open four years in a row, which is amazing in itself, and after the lose Nadel faced the media like a man. It is not in this video clip, but I was watching his press conference, on ESPN, and one of the reporters asked Nadel what is he going to do to get prepared for Wimbledon, which is the next tennis major, and he replied with, “I’m going to get in my pool, relax, and think about Wimbledon later.”  Now that is something a real champ does. You talk to the media and you congratulate the other individual on their hard fought win. You do not go run and hide away. LeBron, you need to man up and give the Magic players the respect they deserve, because there will always be a next season.

It is September 8^th, 1998, I am on the edge of my seat and Mark McGwire is up to bat. If the next ball he hits is a home run he will become the new home run king. He swings, and it is going back, back, back…and it is gone! We have a new home run king! I jump up from my chair and run around my room, excited that I have just witnessed history. Now, flash-froward to 2005, I am watching McGwire and a handful of other great players testifying in front of congress that they have never taken steroids. The one question I have is “what happen to the game that I loved?” It seems like every minute I turn around another baseball player is convicted, lying, or accused of taking steroids, and this past week was no acceptation.

If you are not familiar of what happened this past week in baseball Manny Ramirez tested positive from a banned subtest and was suspended 50 games. Ramirez is one of those players that people were talking about going into the Hall of Fame but now all people are going to know him for is this. When I found about about Ramirez I was not shocked. Over the past 10 years Major League Baseball has been under this dark cloud of steroids, so hearing about this did not surprise me. All it did was just hurt me a little bit more. My first love was baseball and now it has become a joke. Even though MLB has done a good job of testing for banned substances it does not diminish the fact that players are still injecting themselves with drugs they might them an edge. Most of the players today do not have respect for the game of baseball any more, because if they did, they would not be doing this kind of crap. I do think I will ever get my love for the game back, and everyone time someone hits one out of the yard I will have a little voice inside my head that will be telling me that maybe, just maybe, that person is juiced.