The Houston Rockets were looking amazing during this year’s playoffs. They were the surprise team in the Western Conference, who almost took out the mighty Lakers during the second round. Even after injuries to Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, we saw the other players come in and win some games, challenging the Lakers in a way that they hadn’t expected. McGrady’s injury will take him out of the first half of the season. But the one that has surprised everyone is Yao Ming’s, who is still quite injured. He broke his foot in the game. But it hasn’t healed right and he might miss the entire season. There are also reports that it could end his career altogether if they aren’t able to figure it out. He says he feels just fine, but the CT showed that it wasn’t in good condition at all. It’ll take a little while to figure it out but the Rockets may be in big trouble without their two main team leaders.

The NBA Draft was noticeably free of major headlines with essentially the expected players being drafted by the expected teams. The Clippers took Blake Griffin in the first spot. That’s about the only big information. Often teams will get a good rookie but will then need to support them somehow. It’s hard to expect someone who just came out of college to lead a bunch of veteran players and they need someone to show them the ropes. They will need to be moving forward with stronger players all over the court, so we’ll see what happens this fall when the teams go back to work!

While their brethren on the other side of the city are still celebrating their championship, the Los Angeles Clippers are looking to be another kind of number one team. They want to keep their #1 pick in the first round of the draft. And they know which player they want to have. A young Oklahoman named Blake Griffin. They hope that this pick will bring them back into contention, like they were several years ago. Meanwhile, there is a little controversy about the announcement that they made about this, because there is a policy in place that teams should not announce their pick before the draft. It’s interesting because they have been dealing with Griffin in a very public way since before the playoffs even ended. This is a fairly clear breaking of the rule, so it will be interesting to see if there are any consequences. Either way, they’re really excited about this player, so keep an eye on him.

President Obama made some time this week to meet with the winning coaches of the NBA and NHL. Phil Jackson, coach of the LA Lakers, has met presidents before and won several championships, not only with the Lakers, but with the Chicago Bulls as well. This makes it a little bit interesting, I can imagine. The conversation with Obama, who used to live in Chicago, and the former coach from Chicago. Perhaps Obama said that he wished the coach had remained in Chicago. They probably discussed basketball in detail, since it’s Obama’s favorite sport. Just imagine, you get to talk with the tactical genius behind 10 NBA championships! Among other things, they discussed the triangle offense, a system which has made Kobe and MJ two of the most effective NBA players in the world.

First off, as you certainly know by now, the Lakers have won their 15th championship against the Orlando Magic. It really wasn’t a tough series like people had expected. Orlando was quite overmatched, it seems, and that was about it. A quick 5 game series almost had the NBA finishing up before the NHL this year. Kobe finally has his own ring without Shaq.

Speaking of Shaq, there was a lot of discussion about whether the Suns were about to trade him to Cleveland to save money. But they have just declared that they will actually not do this. It might’ve been a good idea, but it’s also unclear whether it would be a good fit or not.

In the first three games, it’s been a little bit hit-and-miss with the watchability factor of the NBA Finals. This year, it’s a little bit hard for the final series to be nearly as good as some of the series earlier in the competition. In particular, the Bulls vs Celtics was one of the most fun series that we’ve seen in many years in the league. But now that the Lakers are in Orlando, the series is completely different. On their home court, they’ve been very dominant. But Orlando took Game three on the parquet floor and they hope to even the series now. It’s a tough call, but we’ll be watching tonight for game 4, where the Lakers will try to take the commanding 3-1 lead. Or else they will be tied up with the Magic. It all depends on whether the Lakers show up or if the Magic are right on their game again. Stay tuned!

Los Angeles is up 2-0 in the NBA Finals and it’s going to be a lot of fun to see how this continues. Kobe was unable to put in a superstar performance last night, but the other players were able to hold off the Magic during the Overtime period. The Magic have had trouble deciding when to heavily guard Bryant and when to keep everyone else equally held in place. It’s getting to be a challenge for the Magic to effectively keep their team in these games. When they’re back home on the parquet, they will probably be able to take at least one of the games. But if the Lakers are too dominant, this may be a short series! But the Magic seem like they should be too good to just fold up after 4 games. We’ll see what happens!

There’s quite a bit of basketball news right now. First off, yesterday, just before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, commissioner Stern decided to fine LeBron James for having avoided congratulating the other team and talking with the media after his team’s Game 6 loss in the Eastern Conference Finals. Last night, in Game 1 of the Finals, the Lakers were able to beat the Magic by 25 points. This makes it seem like it wont be a real series and that the Lakers might just take the whole thing right quick. But the Lakers and Magic being what they are, it might take quite a bit to call this series wrapped up and certainly after one game that’s not possible. We’ll just have to see in the next week or so!

The short break between the end of the Conference Finals and the NBA Finals gives us a chance to look at some of the other things going on around the league. The Philadelphia 76ers have named Jordan as their coach. No, not MJ, but instead it’s Eddie Jordan, who has coached the Kings and the Wizards over the last several years. He says that this is a team that is ready to win and hopes to give them a real chance to jump into the playoffs. They haven’t won a playoff series in more than half a decade, but they have some great players. It just hasn’t come together for some reason over the years. We hope to see the 76ers give the other playoff contenders somewhere really big!