The NBA NEEDS the Lakers in the playoffs thus the Lakers will be in the playoffs. I want the Lakers in the playoffs because they'll make the First round interesting at least. Nobody wants to see washed up Dallas or boring Utah with no stars. (1) Spurs vs. (8)Lakers (2) OKC vs. (7) Houston (3) Denver vs (6) GSW (4) Clippers vs (5) Memphis I'd be interested in watching every single one of those games if that's how the matchups ended up.
And that's utter bull. The best teams should always get in by winning games, not by rep. Kobe, Dwight, Nash, Pau are big names and should be exciting to watch but still, if they don't deserve it they don't. Utah or Dallas fans shouldn't suffer because they have a bunch of "no star" players despite playing good bball. If the NBA NEEDS the Lakers, this is where it needs to stop.
