NBA Season Recap

Lebron has a title! After years of disappointing his fans and delighting his critics, Lebron stepped it up this postseason and led the Heat to a championship. He and the Heat were deserving winners that truly outplayed the competition. They weren't handed a thing and were pushed in three series. But they overcome all opposition, injuries, media, and major pressure to win it all.

Even though this season will go down as Lebron's (MVP, Championship, Finals MVP), there are many OTHER story-lines that made it another great and intriguing year. Here's my look back on the 2011-2012 NBA Season (in no particular order).

The Lockout - Possibly the only story that got more media attention than James this year was the stupid dispute that disrupted the season. We're lucky that things got straightened out and we finally got to see some basketball.

Lin-sanity - Take that back cause Jeremy Lin was the biggest story of the year! It was unbelievable when he got inserted in the lineup and ignited great play and a winning streak. Not only that but he made game winning shots and top 10 plays on a nightly basis.

Spurs Win Streak - Most will forget that the best team this year wasn't the Heat or the Thunder, but the Spurs. Their stretch of 20 straight wins at the end of the year and into the postseason was epic. And if they didn't collapse against OKC, they could be holding the trophy right now. After seeing Miami play in the Finals, I truly believe they were the only team in this year's playoffs that could beat them in a seven game series.

Rose Injury - Miami wasn't even the best team in the East this year. It was Chicago led by phenom Derrick Rose. But when he went down with that devastating injury in the first round, it took the Bulls right out of contention. This will be a story to watch heading into next season too.

Lob City - The Chris Paul saga was a huge headline at the start of 2012. Remember that it was the Lakers that had a deal in place to acquire his talents. The league stopped that. Then, the Lakers made that terrible move and dealt Lamar Odom. Later, they traded Fisher away to help the Thunder. But the other team in LA capitalized thoroughly and brought CP3 in to pair with Blake Griffin and company. They did give away Eric Gordon (which ended up costing them some scoring), but the move created major electricity. If they didn't deal with injuries this season (namely Billups), they could have been a dangerous postseason team.

Dealing with Dwight - It was a weird year for Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic. They were up and down and seemingly in the media a lot, mainly for the wrong reasons. They have issues to work out this offseason and some tough decisions to make.

New Blood - The Thunder came of age this season to advance to the NBA Finals. They weren't alone in this youth movement though. The youthful Pacers had the fifth best record in the league this year and gave the Heat all they could handle in the second round. Rubio arrived in America and had the world watching. Irving entered the league and won ROY. Memphis, Denver, Philly, and Utah all made the playoffs with a slew of young guys and depth (with key vets mixed in of course). I think this trend will continue into the future.

The Benefits of Sucking - One of the more recent and important stories was that the Hornets won the Anthony Davis sweepstakes. Those poor Bobcats. The Bobcats deserved to draft him after having possibly the worst season in NBA history. ONLY 7 WINS! Good thing it's a deep draft right?

Next up for the league is the NBA Draft on Thursday. For analysis on that, feel free to look at and comment on my NBA Draft Preview I posted earlier this week. As the NBA would say, it's been a BIG year and were sad to see it end. But congrats to James and the Miami Heat!

Andrew