The trend throughout this year's NBA culture seems to be that it's Steph Curry's world, and we are just living in it. I am here to tell you why that is not the case. Similar to recent years the West is full of a bountiful amount of elite teams and superstars, while the East is Lebron against a bunch of teams who were just barely not bad enough to be in rebuilding mode.
The Eastern Conference semi-finals will have Lebron and company easily taking care of the Hawks whose fan base might not even bother to show up for the fourth and final game of the series.
On the other half of the bracket the Heat will defeat my upset pick of the first round Indiana Pacers in a hard fought series where the Pacers lack of height will catch up to them against rebounding machine Hassan Whiteside.
This means that Lebron will again be taking his talents to South Beach, in what has become a sadly overly friendly rivalry. The Miami Heat will surely give the Cavaliers their strongest test in Eastern Conference play, but with their aging wings: Dwayne Wade, Luol Deng, and Joe Johnson account for 99 years of age between the three of them, who is there to left to put up any defense when Lebron drives through the lane. This means for the second year in a row the Cleveland Cavaliers will be headed to the finals, except this year much healthier, and with much better flow than last.
Then in the Western Conference the Clippers lead by Steve Ballmer will lose in a quick series to Steph and the Warriors.
The Spurs will meet the Dubs in the Western Conference finals after defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder. With Durant being shut down by Kawhil Leonard, and big Russ Westbrook coming up small again the fourth quarter the Thunder won't win more than two games all series, and they will have to watch Durant play in a Thunder jersey for the last time.
The Spurs will then head to Golden State in what has to be Tim Duncans final playoff series.
Every dynasty has to end sometime, and Curry is just the man to make that happen. Gregg Popovich will pull out all the stops to try and slow down the sharp-shooting Warriors, but to no avail, and I predict that the Warriors will make it back to the NBA Finals for a rematch against King James.
In this heavyweight battle between two sides practically seen as good vs evil with Curry's popularity ever rising, and Lebron's fans and hairline exponentially declining, the Warriors will be major favorites. After defeating the Cavs in the same position a season ago, and then winning a record breaking 73 wins this season the Dubs will look unstoppable heading back to the finals.
Unfortunately for Steph and company the stark difference between this year's Finals and last year's is the health of the Cavaliers. People forget how beaten up the Cavs truly were last year with the loss of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving often on the sidelines Lebron was heading into battle with the help of Matty Delavedova...
With the resurgence of their full squad and under the light of new head coach Tyronn Lue the Cavaliers will again play the Warriors in a full 7 game series, but this year they will prevail in the end. The return of the King is only possible because his court is full of other all-stars to lighten the load, but either way James can finally claim he brought a ring to Cleveland, and J.R. Smith can finally claim he actually helped a team win.
