Final Thoughts on 2009-10 NBA Season: Where being right feels wrong

After two rounds of pretty lackluster basketball, the final two rounds of the NBA Playoffs finally delivered the goods—most notably this year's Finals, the same matchup I had predicted at the beginning of the year (for the second straight year). And if this post doesn't end up looking as catastrophic as the NHL Final Thoughts did, my logic was still the same in hoping that like my 2009 picks, the predicted runner-up would actually triumph once again. Instead, things ended up exactly as I pretty much feared they would, with the Lakers pretty much waltzing through the West before getting probably the stiffest challenge they've had for any of of the five titles Phil Jackson has brought to the team.

My own prognosticating this post-season was an improvement over last year's mark (and at least this year, I was no worse than Jalen Rose), but there were certainly those who did better:

Final Thoughts on 2009-10 NHL Season: Did that really happen?

The curse that I failed to mention in both the last round of predictions and the ones made at the beginning of the year—as well as anywhere in between, I would assume—is actually one I consciously factored into my original decision to pick the Chicago Blackhawks as runners-up this year. That would be the fact that my predicted runner-up when I made NHL predictions for the first time here on BMC in 2009 actually wound up winning it instead. And now for the second straight year, I'm delighted to say I was wrong. Wonderfully, gloriously wrong.


But as it relates to how I did once the playoffs began, I amazingly finished with the exact same mark I had last year—although with one less in the number of series with exact number of games. The important part, of course, is how my picks stacked up to the "experts":

NBA Finals Predictions: Saving the best for last

Even with those beloved Blackhawks a mere pair of wins away from claiming their first Stanley Cup of my lifetime in a series that's featured three intensely competitive games to kick off the final hockey contests of the season, there's no denying that this NBA Finals promises to be the best finale for the sport in a number of years—even superior to the last time these two clubs played a couple of years back. 

So if you were expecting me to whine about our umpteenth meeting between these two franchises for the NBA Championship, I'm sorry to disappoint. Lest we forget, this was, after all, the exact matchup I had in my pre-season picks.

So do I stick with what I said then? Well, the video there—if it hasn't made your browser crash (and sorry if it did)—should be a pretty good indicator of what I'm really hoping for. Although, any Laker in tears should suffice.

But before we get to my selfish desires, here's an updated look at how the experts and the non-expert (READ: Me) stand after last round's picks heading into the final round: