I will smirk.

Seriously, is it supposed to be this easy?

Determining who would be the most deserving winner of the 2008 NBA Finals is tricky. Maybe "least undeserving" is a better measurement, considering how so many of the key figures in this series recently joined their teams or wanted to be traded from them, in the case of the Lakers' Kobe Bryant. Even the executives being celebrated for assembling the rosters could more accurately be said to have had some of the key figures fall out of the sky right to them.

If the traditional question is who's worthy of having us cheer for them in the Finals, this is more a case of whom to root against - less so than the others. What's fair about practically any of these guys' being where they are now, compared to where they were at this time last year?

Bryant wanted out of Los Angeles, and now he's in the Finals? Nobody in pro sports history has rehabilitated his image this fast, after facing possible sexual assault charges five years ago and then roundly criticizing the team's management last spring. Suddenly, he's marketable again, having become the No. 1 reason the Lakers should win another title.

Derek Fisher was a Jazzman, and now he's in the Finals? Fisher deserved to have the Jazz release him from his contract in the interest of making cancer treatment more accessible to his infant daughter, but facilitating another championship was doing him entirely too much of a favor. The Clippers are still playing in Los Angeles, right?

Pau Gasol could never even win a playoff game with Memphis, and now he's in the Finals? It happens regularly in baseball, when a veteran player is traded just before the in-season deadline and finds himself in the World Series, but has it ever happened in basketball? Four months later, he's playing for a title.

Vladimir Radmanovic separated his shoulder while snowboarding in Park City last year and then lied about it, and now he's in the Finals? Maybe that $500,000 fine from the Lakers was punishment enough, but I'd say this guy should have to suffer just a little bit more.

Then there's coach Phil Jackson, who may have earned this chance for a 10th championship, but does he really need it?

Yet if all of this is tipping heavily toward an anti-Lakers stance, there are sufficient reasons to believe some of the Celtics should have done more to justify their position. Sure, their team is in the Finals for the first time in 21 years, but Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett did not have to go through any kind of growth stages in Boston to get where they are today.

It's true that they struggled in Milwaukee and Seattle (Allen) and Minnesota (Garnett) for more than a decade with little compensation other than tens of millions of dollars, but is it fair for them to show up in Boston and win a championship this soon?

In fairness, they were traded to Boston, as opposed to doing the Karl Malone thing and joining the Lakers as a free agent, but an instant title is too rich of a reward.

Paul Pierce would have to be considered fairly deserving, after 10 mostly difficult seasons in Boston, but he has not exactly been a model player.

As for the 1-2 finishers in this season's voting for NBA executive of the year, a case could be made that Boston's Danny Ainge or the Lakers' Mitch Kupchak will have merited his title after absorbing all kinds of criticism from inside and outside in recent years. Yet Ainge was handed Garnett by former teammate Kevin McHale in Minnesota and Memphis donated Gasol to Kupchak, so how much credit can they get?

So that pretty much leaves Celtics coach Doc Rivers, who has endured enough tough times in Boston to have earned his title shot. He's the reason the Celtics deserve to win this series, except it won't happen.

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* KURT KRAGTHORPE can be reached at kkragthorpe@sltrib.com. To write a letter about this or any sports topic, send an e-mail to sportseditor@sltrib.com.