If you have been paying attention for the last two years, you will notice that I have not written a single column about the NBA. It’s not because there haven’t been potential topics to write about, it’s because the league generally bores me more than any other professional sport.

I love playing basketball, and I am a die-hard Maryland Terrapins college basketball fan, but there is something about the NBA that makes me change the channel.

When I was younger, I used to love the Sixers, and lived and died with every blown lottery pick. I didn’t care that Philly kept choosing worthless stiffs like Sharone Wright or Shawn Bradley, I liked watching professional basketball.But then came the 1999 playoffs.

With the knowledge that Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were not going to win the NBA title, I was more excited than ever for the 1998-99 season. However, that season was a display of some of the worst basketball I had ever seen in my life.

Somehow, Jordan retired and everyone forgot how to score!

In the finals that year, the San Antonio Spurs beat the New York Knicks in five games, neither team managed to top 100 points in the series. In fact, the losing team didn’t even break 80 points in three of the five games, and neither team reached 80 points in the deciding game of the series!

I was so disgusted with the league that I really just stopped watching. I wasn’t even that interested when Allen Iverson was leading the Sixers on an improbable run to the NBA finals in 2001.

Maybe it is because the Flyers bowed out early from the NHL playoffs, or the fact that the Phillies are defending—instead of chasing—the World Series trophy, but for the first time in a decade, I am actually watching the NBA playoffs. And I could not have picked a better time to come back into the fold.

While watching TV, I randomly flipped to game two of the first round series between Boston and Chicago, and I haven’t been able to look away since. Boston was playing without superstar Kevin Garnett, and the Bulls were playing with a bunch of future superstars, including Ben Gordon and rookie point guard Derrick Rose.

With Ray Allen and Ben Gordon exchanging clutch shots back and forth, and Rajon Rondo and Derrick Rose showing that they are destined to become the best point guards in the league, I was hooked for the rest of that spectacular series, which included seven overtime periods.

Now, in the conference finals, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony and Kobe Bryant are slugging it out for the right to play for the NBA title. These are four of the best players in the game, and they are coming up as clutch as possible when it matters most.

Between the Magic battling back from a 15-point halftime deficit to win game one, and James’ game-winning buzzer-beating fadeaway three-pointer in game two, the Eastern Conference Finals has drama and intrigue written all over it. Over in the Western Conference, Bryant and Anthony are exchanging 30-point nights as Denver and L.A. are playing one of the roughest, yet highest scoring playoffs series in recent memory.

Don’t get me wrong, I still wish that traveling was called every so often, and that referees actually watched the play unfold before assuming that a foul occurred, and that NBA Commissioner David Stern wasn’t the cockiest and most oblivious person on the planet, but I’m not ashamed to admit that the last six weeks of basketball has turned me back into a fan.

Of course, now that the NBA has finally gotten my attention, the finals are bound to be a boring sweep.

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