With the lockout over, the National Basketball Association is back and better than ever. Life without the NBA would have been possibly as bad as getting your head dunked into a toilet by a high school bully. But luckily the NBA season is scheduled to start on Christmas, which means you can take your head out of the toilet and keep it facing the television screen so you don’t miss a dunk from the top basketball players in the world.

I got to say I missed the NBA but during this extended offseason we got some behind the scene looks at some of the best players like Kevin Durant and Lebron James’s workout session.

Now you can see how hard these guys work. I mean they pretty much never stop. Videos like this made the extended offseason exciting and overall the players made a great effort to keep the fans close especially Kevin Durant who played in many local tournaments. I attended the Nike Pro City tournament to go see a friend of mine play and Kevin Durant showed up and defiantly brought his A game by scoring 41 points and hit a three pointer to bring the game to overtime. Durant did not only play basketball this summer but actually tweeted about wanting to play flag football and ended up going to play for Sigma Nu at OSU.

Aren’t you excited for this season?

If not yet then just look at the free agency pool and the trades that are happening right now. With the NBA starting in about a week a lot of teams have been making an effort to get the best players that they can in this free agency race. One of the biggest names that is in trade rumors was the former Hornet’s point guard Chris Paul. Paul was being looked at by teams like the growing New York Knicks and the west coast’s Los Angeles Lakers. A lot of the buzz surrounded Paul when his trade to the Lakers was rejected by the NBA after owners of other teams lobbied against the trade. ESPN covers the trade rejection and how Kobe Bryant feels about it. After the rejection, Paul ended up on the other side of LA with the young but talented Clippers.

Even though I would of loved to see Chris Paul in either a Knicks jersey or Lakers jersey, I am excited to see non-stop alley oops to Blake Griffin who had 214 dunks last season.

Not only should we be excited about players moving to different teams but also about the young exciting rookies that are starting their NBA careers this year. Some of the big names are NYC’s own Kemba Walker, Duke’s Kyrie Irving and Spanish National team’s point guard Ricky Rubio. These guys were the best of the best in college or in Ricky Rubio’s case in his nation and now they are going to have to compete with the best of the best out there. By the looks of their pre season efforts, these guys are already on their way to being the best in the league like Rubio dropping 7 dimes for a Timberwolves win over the Bucks.

With off-season hard work, players moving around to other teams and exciting rookies, this season is highly anticipated. It is bring back the love for the sport of Basketball. It might sound stupid to most but I think the NBA was smart for having a lockout until now because it created a buzz around basketball again and for fans of the sport, you don’t miss it till its gone so thank God its back.

Armend