Basketball and Web Site Hosting

This blog is generally about web hosting and what's going on at iPowerWeb. We provide readers with tips, tutorials and news regarding our company and Internet in general. This post will have nothing to do with hosting, rather I feel like talking about basketball - one of my favorite sports. Growing up in Los Angeles, I've always been a Lakers fan and probably always will be (even when we have some management and Kobe issues). As we said in one of our recent posts, iPowerWeb also has offices in Phoenix; so over time I have been exposed to Phoenix Suns basketball and as much as they keep beating on the Lakers in the playoffs, I am beginning to like them (in some way). The biggest news of the day is something that happened off of the court - which is quite interesting. We should note that the Spurs beat the Jazz and are headed to the NBA finals yet all we are hearing about is how Kobe demanded a trade from the Lakers and the management issues over in L.A. I cannot even imagine the Lakers without Kobe - is that possible (hopefully never). It is important to point out that the Spurs are now waiting to see who they will meet in the finals, it could either be the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Detroit Pistons. If it is the Detroit Pistons we may be in store for one of the least "exciting" Finals again. This is nothing against either team - both of them are great ambassadors for the NBA although the general public does not want to see this series. And I say this because the Spurs and Pistons Finals in the past was one of the lowest watch NBA Finals...this is very sad when you consider the quality of basketball being played. It is quite difficult to say why that is, that these teams don't get ratings when they play one another although neither team has an amazing superstar with celebrity status (Tim Duncan is not a celebrity) and they are not playing in huge markets such as Chicago, Miami, New York, and of course L.A. The NBA playoffs this year have been very interesting, Golden State and Utah really showed that "small" franchises without a history in winning could play with the best teams in the NBA. This was especially shown in the first-round battle between Golden State and Dallas, where the #1 team in the NBA (Dallas) lost to Golden State (a team with no particular history of winning). We should point out that there is absolutely no correlation between team salaries and they performance of the team. This is particularly true when you look at the New York Knicks this past year - they had the highest payroll in the NBA (BY FAR!!) and they were a lottery team.
Back to the news of the day, Kobe Bryant (one of the best players in the history of the NBA) demanded a trade from the LA Lakers, the team that he has played for his entire career. Kobe is upset with what the Lakers have done to build a team around him, which quite frankly is not much. The Lakers have had many opportunities to build a great team around Kobe but for some reason it never happens and it seems that he is just fed up. This led to Lakers and Kobe fans going crazy today about what the future has in store, this did not last for long though - shortly after demanding the trade on the radio - Kobe said he did not want to leave and L.A. and really wants to see some changes for the better. I can't imagine Kobe in any other uniform - he should always be a Laker. Now it will be interesting to see what the Lakers will do following Kobe's public presentations - there will be lots of pressure on Lakers management this summer in order to make some changes and we just have to wait and see what they will do, hopefully lots. This had nothing to do with web hosting or web sites, rather I just wanted to talk a little about Kobe, the Lakers, and basketball.