NBA Finals preview in links

Game 1 of the NBA Finals is tonight, so I thought I’d spit out some Finals-related links to get you ready:

• Chris Ballard’s profile of Kobe from the June 2 SI. The bottom line- dude’s a killer, but can’t shut it off. My take is that he’ll never be MJ because he lacks some amount of smoothness. Put another way, Kobe can’t develop a proper gambling problem because he never leaves the court.
• I was having trouble figuring out why I just didn’t care about all this Lakers-Celtics 80s nostalgia, and then The Onion nailed it.
• This is why people don’t like Boston fans (or at least a certain segment of Boston fans)- they’re always trying to convince you why should root for their team. Just root for your damn team, and leave your insecurities out of it. I’ll make up my own mind, thanks.
• Finals non sequitur: a blog chats with Chuck Klosterman about the finals (I think) (via Deadspin).
• Nerd alert: Euros in Finals + Research on racially biased refs = Slate piece.