Let's get it started!

PARIS (The Monday International Show) - Let me humbly dedicate these NBA predictions to the 80 employees of the NBA in the USA who are going to lose their jobs because of the international financial crisis and economic downturn.

Let's hope that this unprecedented world-wide debacle due essentielly to greed and which is putting people out of their homes and jobs will signal a new age turned towards ethics, sharing and ecology with new faces and new ideas leading our countries!

Back to the more mundane activity of picking the winners and losers in the next NBA season.

After reading all the experts predictions, let me see if I can find some thoughts and themes that haven't already been beaten to death in the media.

I feel the west will take back the title and Kobe will lift another trophy in his prime after the Bejing gold medal proving that his maturation as a player and man are complete!

Bynum will help but not as much as most experts think and I like New Orleans to be in the west final vs the Lakers behind a Chris Paul as precocious and dominating as Kobe is mature!

The declining teams in the west, mostly due to age, will be San Antonio(despite a banner stat year from Parker), and Phoenix, despite a prolific Amarè!

Overrated teams will be Houston and Portland, early playoff losers, while Utah could create the biggest surprises.

Teams like Denver and Golden State will disappoint their fans again and overall the west is less overwhelming with strong teams compared to two years ago as the weak sisters are more numerous and some formerly dominating teams are in a decline phase.

In the east, I see Boston and Cleveland in the final with Lebron having improved just enough to carry his team through against Boston's Big Three, a half a step slower and of course a little less hungry after winning the title.

Mo Williams will help but a trade for a low-post scorer during the season would be even more decisive!

Or maybe James could finally develop his own post-up moves to become the all-around threat he is destined to become one day- à la Jordan in the low post of Jackson's Chicago triangle!

Experts seem to be overrating Philadelphia, Atlanta and Orlando in the east and I feel Detroit will decline similar to the Spurs and Suns for the same reasons despite having done a better job than the other two at finding new young talent the last two years.

I am totally incapable of predicting what the Bulls will produce this season, they are a complete mystery to me and I'm not very confident for them.

Individually, Lebron and Paul, the perfect precocious pair should accumulate the honors; those two are symbols of the new NBA along with Dwight Howard, where players come in younger and develop faster, being at their top level at 23 whereas before, stars reached that top level at 25 or 26.

In the end, a highly mediatized duel in the NBA finals between Kobe and Lebron should be just what the doctor ordered to help the league get through a tough year and prepare itself for an even rosier future!

George Eddy