Polling GSoM: Which team and former Golden State Warriors are you rooting for in the 2009 NBA Finals? + The Disney Finals

I'm calling this one the The Disney Finals. It's Disney World (Orlando) vs. Disney Land (LA Disney of Anaheim). I'm sure the league and ABC/ Disney are pretty happy about this [NBA.com]:

It's only a coincidence that ABC/ESPN, owned by Disney, will broadcast a series featuring one team based near Disney Land and the other, whose very nickname -- the Magic -- comes from the Magic Kingdom at Disney World.

For you Stern conspiracy theorists out there- you know all this time we were thinking the league wanted a Kobe - LeBron finals. It's becoming clearer they wanted The Disney Finals to help out their broadcaster and boost travel to the slumping Disney theme parks the whole time. Makes perfect sense to me. We were all fooled.

Jump for a mini-retrospective on all 6 former GSW's who have made it to The Disney Finals.

2009 Eastern Conference Champion Orlando Magic

Best of luck to our friends reppin' the magical kingdom!

Mickael Pietus: How can anyone ever forget LL Cool P's tenure with the Dubs? Whether he was knocking down corner three's, looking like he had no idea what play the team was running, playing some inspired defense, or stepping out of bounds, he always had that goofy smile and demeanor. 

It's always a great time out with Mickael!

All I know is that I will never forget this MP2 to J-Rich connection:

Adonal Foyle: If you don't know about the human victory cigar whose nickname is "We Want Foyle!" then you've just admitted you're a big time bandwagoner. 

Jim Barnett on "the shot":

Well it looks worse than it actually was because he was trying to bank it.

Gotta love Barnett man.

Bob Fitzgerald on the "the dunk":

And Foyle spiked it, off back iron, off the top of the backboard, and out of bounds.

Barnett:

We've seen that a couple times from Adonal this year!

Foyled... again.

On a side note, if the Warriors didn't cut Foyle in a cheap and silly move (expiring contracts are valuable) this offseason, thanks to Chris Mullin the team would have a team option to pick up Adonal for next season for $10.5 million. That might single-handedly be the clearest indicator that Mullin was completely in over his head when he first took the front office reigns via the Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell publicity stunt.

Rafer Alston: Skip to My Lou never actually played a game for the Warriors, but they did sign him in 2002 to a partially guaranteed, minimum salary contract (9/4/02). Less than 2 months later the Warriors waived him (10/23/02) [RealGM]. I think part of what made Rafer what is he today is the journey he went through (although I could be wrong since that's coming from a distance), so I doubt if the Warriors held onto him he'd be a decent PG option right now. It's nice to see him blow up like he has.

The Magic should also get some major bonus points for having Patrick Ewing aka Patrick Chewing on their sidelines to help tutor Dwight Howard.

Whassup Ryan?

2009 Western Conference Champion LA Lakers

My Message: The Fake Show stops here!

Derek Fisher: I searched for "derek fisher golden state warriors" on Google and it returned "Did you mean: low hoops IQ". I then broadened my query to just "derek fisher" and it gave me "Did you mean: flopper".

Need I say more?

Good times.

Josh Powell: Powell was part of the blockbuster trade which was essentially the first chapter of the short, but unforgettable book of WE BELIEVE.

• Trade: Dun, Murphy, Diogu, McLeod for Harrington, S. Jackson, Jasikevicius
• The Warriors & Pacers Blockbuster Trade: Throwing Up W's and L's
• Basketball Obituaries -- Mike Dunleavy Jr. 2002-2007
• Dad's got my back!
• Warriors Head Coach Don Nelson Talks about the Blockbuster Trade
• Warriors-Pacers Blockbuster Trade Linkfest
• A Little Pacer Perspective on the Blockbuster Trade
• New Warrior Al Harrington Talks about the Trade
• Everyone's Talking About the Trade!
• GSoM Q&A with Matt Steinmetz - 01/18/07 (Part 1 of 2)
• A Reality Check on the Blockbuster Trade between the Warriors and Pacers
• GSoM Q&A with Marcus Thompson II - 01/30/07 (Part 1 of 2)
• Jon Barry on the Warriors and Pacers Trade
• Simulation Analysis of the Warriors-Pacers Blockbuster Trade

I can't thank him enough for helping make the salaries work out in that trade.

Powell will also go down in Dubs folklore for playing on the court in the finals seconds of the SHOCK THE WORLD series.

DJ Mbenga: This was pretty much the highlight of Mbenga's short stint with the Dubs...

• Warriors Waive Lasme and Say Hey Mr. DJ
  
• YouTube Tuesday: Enter the DJ
  
• Hey Mr. DJ. Goodbye Mr. DJ
  

PICK: I'm picking the Magic in 6 with the MVP honors going to Dwight Howard. Drop your picks for the finals winner and MVP in the comments.

Don't let this pic fool you. 

Dwight and the Magic aren't here to goof around.

With the 2-3-2 NBA Finals format expect the Magic to protect the Kingdom in Games 3, 4, and 5.

Don't forget to keep it locked on our SBN brothers Orlando Magic blog Third Quarter Collapse and LA Lakers blog Silver Screen and Roll for the 2k9 NBA Finals!