Top story No. 6: Lakers win again, alter NBA landscape

Everything went right for the Lakers as they won their 16th NBA title in June, beating the rival Celtics in an epic seven-game series. And in the same way, everything went according to plan for the NBA.
It was a prelude to the storm gathering on the horizon, for sure.
No sooner had Kobe Bryant won his fifth title, Ron Artest his first and Phil Jackson his 11th did the basketball landscape begin to shift as if torn apart by an earthquake. Within weeks, Bryant was hit with the cold reality that the younger generation -- the one futilely chasing him -- was about to gang up on the greatest player of his generation and the sport's most storied franchises.
The Celtics started this by assembling a core of Hall of Famers who went to the Finals in 2008 and dismantled Bryant's Lakers. Boston's Big Three became the standard, and the Lakers met it -- if not exceeded it. Only months before losing to Boston in '08, the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol from the small-market Grizzlies. After that initial Finals loss with the duo of Bryant and Gasol, the Lakers got up to speed and humbled the Magic and Celtics for back-to-back titles. Then the kids decided they had had enough
The Lakers and Celtics no longer would have a monopoly on All-Star duos and trios. Bryant, in his unyielding pursuit of Michael Jordan's six titles, had really done it now. He had unleashed a torrent of talent aimed squarely at himself -- and by extension, at L.A. and Boston.
So the significance of Bryant and the Lakers winning their second consecutive title in the grand scheme of 2010 sports stories was not merely in the accomplishment itself. It also was significant in the wave of superstar movement that they triggered.
The nation's yearning for Kobe vs. LeBron in the Finals, it turned out, would never happen. It would have to be Kobe vs. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. So dominant were the Lakers that they prompted free-agent backlash from coast-to-coast: Amar'e Stoudemire to New York, Carlos Boozer to Chicago, a shadow-of-himself Shaquille O'Neal to the Celtics, and on and on.
The forces were so strong that they continued triggering unrest all the way to the start of training camp, when Carmelo Anthony was so determined to join with multiple All-Stars that he left a $65 million extension unsigned in an effort to force a trade. Same in New Orleans with Chris Paul, whose wanderlust was curbed by GM Dell Demps and coach Monty Williams, but whose small-market franchise was teetering on the brink of extinction by the end of the year. The Hornets finished 2010 in such sad financial shape that they needed a bailout from the bank of David Stern to survive. Paul's future remains equally undecided.
Not to be left behind, Dwight Howard saw the winds of change and orchestrated some of his own backlash before year's end. The struggling Magic, clearly lacking enough weapons to keep up in the Eastern Conference arms race, blew up their core only days before Christmas in the hopes of keeping their superstar happy and competing for titles.

Can the gathering forces keep Bryant from collecting another Larry O'Brien? (Getty Images)

The Anthony drama promised to be resolved before the Feb. 24 trade deadline, and then the landscape that began shifting with the Lakers' title celebration in June will be set for the next phase of basketball excellence and uncertainty. The Lakers, Mavericks and Spurs are clearly in a class by themselves in the Western Conference, while the Celtics and Heat are poised to run away with the East -- with the rebuilt Magic struggling to make up ground.
An important mile-marker comes on Christmas Day, when the Heat -- created by former Lakers coach Pat Riley out of abject fear that Bryant and L.A. would continue to dominate the sport -- visit the defending champs at Staples Center. After the Lakers and Celtics, with their epic Game 7, treated the nation to the most-watched NBA game since Jordan won his last title in 1998, so too will the Lakers and Heat produce the most anticipated regular-season game since the Sunday afternoon doubleheader heyday in the '80s. The Celtics and Magic -- both built and rebuilt to contend with the Heat and Lakers -- play each other on Christmas Day, too. The Knicks and Bulls, big-market byproducts of the events that began unfolding with the Lakers' 16th championship, square off at Madison Square Garden in a holiday matinee that will evoke memories of Jordan's Bulls staring down the hardscrabble Knicks throughout the '90s.
And then it's on into the great unknown. Will LeBron and Wade meet Bryant in the Finals, creating the kind of buzz that hasn't been seen since Magic and Bird defined the NBA's golden era? Will Anthony or Paul become the 2011 version of Gasol, joining a contender just in time to spoil everyone else's plans?
Or will Bryant, who essentially created these multi-headed monsters with his unrelenting greatness, wind up at the top once again?
One way or another, just as in 2010, the road to the defining moment of 2011 will run through Bryant and the Lakers.

extracted from cbssports.com