last night was game 2 of the best of 7 series between the laker and the nuggets. the result being the nuggets taking a road win at staples 106 to 103. i’m finding these playoffs very interesting in that many of the top tiered teams have been hit with injuries to their star players. case in point is the boston celtics without garnett and the houston rockets without tracy mcgrady – with yao falling out more recently. these injuries have taken them out of the playoff in the 2nd round. at full strength, these teams may very well be in the conference finals. the magic, while impressive, in my opinion would not have advanced to meet with the cavs. the rockets may very well have beaten the lakers to be playing the nuggets. now with all of that said…

here we have all four teams in the conference finals with four of the top stars on each team…each a name which with the league can market itself.

kobe bryant
lebron james
carmello anthony
dwight howard

i find this very rewarding for the nba and its profits because all of these names are sellers. kobe is the top player with (arguably) lebron not very far behind as the top name of the league. carmello is another player who, if he finds success in the playoffs, can really bump himself up to the next level to “lebron/kobe status”…eh…well not quite but almost. dwight howard has been extremely popular this year with him fully emerging during the all-star break with the dunk contest performance and his charisma.

if it all had played out with each team in the playoffs at full strength, we may not be seeing these matchups. these are, in my eyes, everything the nba has been hoping for this year.