Every year just before the NBA playoffs begin, the postseason, the 16-team tournament or “second season”, seems to be sold as a story with plot points at every round and a black and white biopic for every charismatic player or superstar for each remaining team.

Last season the playoffs unfolded beautifully in a Finals match up between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. The stock footage of the two most storied franchises in the league was dusted off and played over and over again on ESPN Classic. The return of the Celtics from the lottery abyss was celebrated as the story of the return of an aged hero like in a Die Hard movie where John McClane has to overcome super-human German mercenaries or martial arts experts half his age.

In the end, the NBA bathed in the profits of this fairy tale playoffs complete with the Lakers-Celtics series and the Celtics win. David Stern truly had his cake and ate it too. This season the story boards were laid out and a new concept was conceived.

This year was to be the official passing of the torch from Kobe Bryant to LeBron James. No number of MVP trophies, scoring titles, or triple-doubles can compare to the validation of a championship (a.k.a. the Bill Walton rule) and this year James is supposed to meet Bryant in the NBA Finals and undeniably usurp him as the best player in the league.

The major networks quickly put together all the footage comparing the King and Black Mamba. Analysts compared their careers, two players who came into the league out of high school and the paths they have taken. The advertisers quickly put together imaginative comparisons of their own (my favorite is Nike’s Most Valuable Puppet series). This may be all for not though, after four games complete in the conference finals.

The Los Angeles Lakers are tied at with the Denver Nuggets at two games a piece. I may have miraculously foreseen the series evolution in my conference finals prediction blog, but I do not know if my conclusion will be correct.

I, like everyone else, though the Lakers would win. However Denver seems to have truly embraced defense and the only way the Lakers can win is if Kobe eclipses the 40-piont threshold. It has been a long two years for Kobe with an NBA Finals last season, the Olympics, this year’s regular season, and the current postseason that has demanded his best efforts to keep the team advancing. I do not know if he will have enough left to post 40 points two more times.

In the Eastern Conference the Cleveland Cavaliers are down three games to one to the Orlando Magic. LeBron has done his part averaging 42.3 points, 7.3 assists, and 7.3 rebounds a game and making unbelievable last second shots, but the rest of the Cavs seem to be just giving him the ball and waiting for him to make beautiful basketball.

In the meantime, I have seen far too much single coverage on Dwight Howard, lazy double and triple teams, and a pathetic perimeter defense that is simply playing to Orlando’s strengths. Last night’s overtime loss may have been the big blow that has the Cavs just trying to find their feet while waiting for the final smack to the head before they are eliminated.

It appears that a second storybook ending with all the right players landing in the right circumstances is not on the horizon. David Stern will neither have his cake nor eat it.

Instead he will be left in the stands with an agonizing forced smile on his face if the Cavs or the Lakers do not end up in the finals and the smile will surely turn into a grimace if neither team is able to come out of the conference finals victorious. That worst case scenario will leave him holding the abysmal marketing share projections of a Denver Nuggets-Orlando Magic NBA Final.

This potentially shattered storyline is a reminder that the playoffs are not a Hollywood human interest story. They are a competition that often never results in the anticipated match ups, leaving those scenarios as conjecture to be discussed inanely at bars and at the office while trying to avoid work.

NBA Tickets