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In Boston, the cameras span the stadium seats mid-game for Celtic watch. They point out the old greats like Havlicek, Russell, and Cousy. In L.A., the national TV cameras do a periodic “celebrity watch.” Please.

Sycophant announcers fawn over Laker coach Phil Jackson. Apparently, he is an accomplished ‘meditator’. So is my dog.

NBA basketball is in itself infuriating. So called 20-second timeouts last 2 minutes. It is borderline impossible to watch a continuous minute of play without a referee blowing the whistle. And teams get, on average, a month off between big games.

The worst acting is on the court. There is nothing more embarrassing than watching a seven-foot player ‘flop’ their way to a foul. It is pathetic. Worse, they are so battered when they return to the bench, they cannot even muster the strength to place a towel around their neck, or reach for water to sip. It is done for them. Sorry, I am sure it is cool to tell your friends you work courtside within ten feet of NBA stars, but if your job entails gently placing a towel proportionally around a player’s neck and holding the straw to his mouth, probably best to go back for that MBA.

To be fair, I need an oxygen tank after walking to get the mail in the afternoon.

From a physical perspective, hockey puts basketball to shame. I read about an NHL player who took a puck to the mouth in the 1^st period of a playoff game this year. He spit out a few teeth, had the nerve endings ‘trimmed’ in the locker room, and returned for the 2^nd period.

I saw a lot of fans sporting Lakers hats and Yankees shirts during this series. Really? If your two favorite teams are the Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Yankees, I’ve got a risky stock for you to look into: Microsoft.

Lakers owner Jerry Buss accepted the championship trophy after Game 7 and thanked the ‘best crowd in basketball’. An addendum, perhaps: ‘I would like to thank the best crowd in basketball … the ones able to peel themselves away from their 4^th wife for the evening, snatch their kid from the nanny, and catch a Gulfstream charter into Burbank Airport for the game.’

Lakers fans will dismiss my diatribe – call me bitter. They’d be right. But nobody really likes you guys anyway.

This piece originally ran in the Greenfield Recorder (Mass.). The writer can be reached at benclarkeopinion@gmail.com