The NBA season is over. The championship has returned to Boston after 22 years, the draft has come and gone, and the summer league games full of green rookies and NBA prospects that will never see the floor during a regular season game have begun.

Already basketball fans are excited about next season. It seems that even though the level of play has been improving after this first batch of high school stars have finally matured into serviceable players throughout the league. Of course, it took a Lakers-Celtics series for anyone who ignored the game after Jordan left the Bulls to realize hoops are still entertaining. The sale of basketball tickets are probably going to increase dramatically around the league as a result.
Lakers tickets and Celtics tickets will probably pick off where they left off. The Lakers have a powerful dynasty in the making with Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, and Pau Gasol. They have the next five years to establish themselves (which in the NBA is an eternity).
The Celtics have a couple of years before the terrific trio begins to fade enough for anybody to really challenge them. The Detroit Pistons were supposed to be that team in the playoffs, but they disappeared. It will be worth checking out the Pistons schedule for a rematch to see if the team still has the fire of a contender.

Next season the clubs that were supposed to be competing will get a chance to redeem themselves. The Chicago Bulls picked up point guard Derrick Rose and are secretly hoping that whole point guard learning curve thing is done by mid-season. The fans should be patient though. Let Rose develop a little bit and let Kirk Hinrich cover for him for a couple of years.
The Orlando Magic will be interesting to watch as Dwight Howard continues to become an unstoppable force in the post. His emergence and James decision to ultimately stay in the East gives the Leastern Conference a chance to be competitive in the next few years.

The NBA suffered under years of domination by the San Antonio Spurs. While they played well and could adapt to any style of basketball, it became a sad reality that the average fan only cares if the well-known names are on top.
The league would be ecstatic if the Knicks could break out of their funk and actually compete for anything other than last place. That is a few years off, so until then let the sports world marvel in the Lakers-Celtics series and come back to the game that dominated the ‘80s. Then basketball tickets sold like concert tickets, something anybody and everyone loved.