The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

A 66-game lockout shortened season, Jeremy Lin, Rondo and Kevin Love making the leap, the Dwight Howard saga, the irrelevance of the Bobcats, this NBA season gave us our fill of storylines on and off the court. What it also did was set the stage for the main course, the most important part of the year (excluding the draft of course) and the two-month period where TNT's marketing team pushes us to the brink of insanity with their promotions: Its the playoffs...and here's what we've learned so far:

• We could be witnessing the end of the big three model in basketball. Denver, Memphis, Utah, San Antonio, Indiana, Philadelphia, all teams with deep rosters. Miami, Boston, the Lakers and to some extent the Thunder are the only teams powered by a star trio. "Teams" are good again, who knew? Entire teams where everyone on the team is good at what they do and fit a role to a tee. What decade are we in and how did this happen. In the second round of the eight teams that advanced seven are true teams that can at the very least go 8-9 deep. The last time this happened Reagan was in the White House.

• The 2011-12 champion will always have an asterisk filed under the what if Derrick Rose wasn't sidelined with an injury column.

• The NBA is the most fashion conscious league in professional sports. Rondo's Jacket and Russell Westbrook's shirts have kicked up post game press conferences up a notch. It's the game-behind-the-game, the fashion wars have begun again and its riveting to watch. The Heat dominated in 2010-2011, but this year the young guys came to play and they all have TJ Maxx credit cards.

• The Lakers should have won the championship this year but Kobe's hubris, Mike Brown's offense, Bynum's haircut and Metta World Peace's horrible decision-making pretty much got them eliminated.

• This current edition of the Atlanta Hawks has run their course.

• Playoff beards don't work in the NBA. There's no statistical evidence to back this up but I'm pretty sure this is accurate. The Clippers tried to break the beard glass ceiling but ended up getting swept in the second round from a team with a guy with male pattern baldness, a guy with braids in 2012, the most boring man in the world and two Frenchman.

• As good as the Western Conference playoffs continue to be, JR Smith and Wilson Chandler ruined it for us all by not going to the Clippers.

• Kevin Garnett is really "healthy and focused" this year and I think he shared this "health and focus" with Tim Duncan…I have no idea why they left T-Mac out of the equation but the Adidas marketing team from the late 1990s would like to have a word with them. Kobe also found this same "health and focus" in Germany during the offseason, and at 33, he finished second in scoring to Kevin Durant.

• Reciting Kobe Bryant's résumé is the No.1 automatic defense mechanism for Bahamian Laker fans immediately after a loss. Telling you how many rings LeBron doesn't have - finishes a close second.

• Baksetball is better when players are locked in, and don’t like each other. You need that underlying factor of genuine dislike to make a series watchable. Tell me you weren't intrigued by how hard the Thunder played because you know they hate Ron Artest, or just waiting for Danny Granger and his chip on his shoulder to go off.

• For the next 10, maybe 20 years...David Stern is going to regret not being able to fully capitalize on the Linsanity sect of the economy during this postseason.

• Dwayne Wade doesn't get back on defense. Apparently no one knew this was true until game 3 versus the Pacers. Wade hasn't run back on defense since the 2006 NBA Finals and it took him going 7-43 for people to figure that out. He bounced back the next game and now no one cares again. Good job by him.

• Men at Work will be the sitcom that changes all of our lives forever.