ESPN.com's senior NBA writer Marc Stein admitted last year that the 2006 NBA playoffs were probably the most entertaining in his adult life. He added a warning however, that the 2007 playoffs would seem like a let down without a miracle.
That turned out to be a huge understatement.

Let's start with what went right last year.

Golden State upset the Mavericks.

My brother, who loves the Mavericks-- especially Dirk-- more than anything, will never forgive me for saying this, but Baron Davis and those crazy Bay Area fans were a God-sent. The Warriors played up tempo, fun to watch basketball, and it seemed like they weren't aware that they were supposed to lose. There was of course the wonderful subplot of Don Nelson destroying the creature that he created, not to mention the terror in Avery Johnson's eyes as he knew that Nelson, to no fault of Johnson's, was devouring him.

The only thing that could have made this scenario better would have been if Golden State had debunked the Spurs, but we'll get at that more later.

LeBron James turned into Superman.

Prior to game 5 between the Cavs and Pistons, everyone just repeated like a parrot, "the Pistons have been here before... it took Jordan a few tries... LeBron will have to grow." It was one of the most spectacular things witnessed by sports fans ever when LeBron shut all of them up. He scored 29 of his teams last 30 points, giving him 48 overall and the game 5 win in Detroit in double OT. And he looked like MJ's big brother doing it, too. Without exaggeration it was one of the greatest performances in any sport of all time.

Unfortunately, everything else went wrong.

After what John Hollinger called the best game in 55 years on March 13 between Dallas and Phoenix, we didn't get to see these giants match up in the playoffs. Instead, we saw terrible officiating widespread and a San Antonio team that no wanted to win take the west. We saw silly suspensions, a bloody faced Steve Nash, a cheap shot from Robert Horry, complaining from the Spurs and a referee scandal.

In the east, there was a Magic/Pistons match up that couldn't end soon enough, a totally pointless Cavs/Wizards series, a Chicago/Detroit bore-fest that got headlines if a team scored 75 points, and no superhuman performances from Dwayne Wade.

Hope For This Season

We can hope that the Boston Celtics are fun and add a new dimension to the playoffs in the East. We should also pray for Tim Duncan to retire or break his ankle. Or ankles. The Spurs set a record for futility in the finals this past year, in fact a new record in each of the four games for lowest ratings of all time. It's not only boring, it's bad for basketball and the NBA.

We can hope that the Knicks don't do anything dumb this year. We can hope that Kevin Durant gets tons of attention for playing like a stud. We should hope that the improved LeBron and Melo that we saw dominate for team USA will continue to improve.

Finally, we can hope that the best team wins. The real beauty of the NBA's playoff format versus the NCAA "one and done" style is that the best team should win in a seven game series. I honestly believe that the Spurs should not have won the championship last season, and that poor officiating and direct dishonesty from the league made it happen, and I think that most people who know what they're talking about would agree with me.

You can email the JackDaddy, as bitter as he is, at jackhoops@gmail.com