The Lakers Are Playing in the Finals Tonight and I'm Thankful

I’m going to try to be short.

It's about 7:30pm eastern time, which means tipoff to Game 1 of the 2020 NBA Finals is about an hour and a half away.

I am in my dorm, donning a ‘23’ Laker jersey in my favorite shade of solid, proud yellow.

Tonight, my favorite basketball team will play in its first Finals since I was nine, in their first playoffs since I was 12.

Between that last playoff berth and now, I’ve gone through the tumultuous gauntlet of adolescence, puberty, and all of my teenage years. I am a much different person now than then, as we all are. I know people who were not yet born into this world when the Lakers beat the Celtics in a seven-game series that I, honestly, have no recollection of following live.

I have inches and pounds on my body that were simply God’s plans when the Spurs swept my Kobe-less Lakers out of the 2013 playoffs.

That 2013 year is one of my favorites of my life because I was absolutely enthralled with the possibility of Kobe’s 34-year-old heroics night-in and night-out single-handedly nudging the Jazz out of the coveted eighth-seed. Because once that happened, it was a foregone conclusion in my hopelessly optimistic sixth-grade brain that my favorite athlete ever would continue his dominance through the Western Conference and into a Finals matchup with a certain South Florida team that ran the league back then.

That did not happen.

What happened instead was a hopeless attempt at keeping Dwight Howard in LA, shots and misses at the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Love, and Kevin Durant, lottery pick after lottery pick that is not on the team anymore, and a whole lot of Andrew Goudelock, Kendall Marshall and Xavier Henry.

My focus quickly shifted to the NFL.

However, tonight, I sit in this chair, on this keyboard, as a Western Conference Champion. Something seemingly reserved for Northern Californian teams for the majority of my adult life.

I sit in this chair, on this keyboard, a proud advocate and defender of the same Lion King, I had my squad written in to slay in June 2013.

I sit in this chair, on this keyboard, eternally grateful I got to see Kobe Bryant’s last great year as a player and also admire his ambitious years of retirement as a father and a husband.

I sit in this chair, on this keyboard, moments away from a Lakers-Heat Final that has the storylines and implications to rival any of the past decade.

I thank God for life today because it isn’t promised to everyone. Neither is watching your team in a championship. After tonight, I can say I actively watched my two favorite professional sports teams compete in championship games with my own eyes.

I just hope this one ends a bit better than the first time.

#KeepPounding

#LeaveALeagacy

By Billy Listly

September 30, 2020