Kobe Bryant vs. LeBron James, Round Two: The Way Things Ought To Be

Tonight, they go at it again. The Los Angeles Lakers begin an eight-game road trip in Cleveland with a rematch against the Cavaliers.

Don’t believe anyone who says it’s just another game. It isn’t, and hasn’t been since Shaquille O’Neal vacated L.A. and left the Lakers in the hands of the game’s brightest star at the time, Kobe Bryant.

Since then it’s been the Kobe and LeBron show, and the rivalry renews itself tonight with much on the line.

The Lakers have nothing to prove—and everything to prove.

They won the title last year, and have the best record in the league this year. They’ve done nothing to indicate they’re about to surrender their crown.

At the same time, they were handed a generous early season schedule, with 17 of their first 21 games at home. They made the most of it, winning 18 of them.

After a glitch at the beginning of January that saw them lose three of four—all three losses, perhaps significantly, coming on the road—the Lakers rebounded with three consecutive victories to reclaim the league’s best record.

In all, they played 26 of their first-half games at home, meaning they now embark on a second-half schedule in which they play 26 of 41 on the road.

A 12-day journey that will test their mettle and reveal much about the champs’ ability to defend their title begins tonight.

The Cavaliers, too, have much to prove.

Was their Christmas Day thrashing of the Lakers the real thing, or a fluke? When you’re the perennial contender, but never the wearer of the crown, there are always doubters, and with good reason.

The Cavaliers raced through the regular season last year on their way to a league-best 66 wins. They showed no signs of stopping as they swept both Detroit and Atlanta on their way to a presumed berth in the NBA Finals.

But the Orlando Magic upset the apple cart, and the once-proud Cavaliers were relegated to the sidelines and forced to watch the Magic succumb to L.A. in the championship series.

This was the matchup Cleveland wanted last June, and now they have another chance to prove—to themselves and everyone else—that they’re pretenders no more, but contenders instead.

Just as the December result didn’t make a season, neither will tonight’s. The winner will have much to resolve as the season winds down. The loser will not have lost all.

But the Cavaliers have many questions still looming. Was the addition of O’Neal truly the piece they had been missing? Does LeBron James have enough complimentary players around him to return to the finals—and win?

As fascinating as the Lakers vs. Cavs showdown is, the Kobe vs. LeBron matchup is equally compelling.

Without question, Bryant has been the NBA’s premier player this decade. Shaq was its marquee player as the millennium dawned, but Kobe raised his game to new heights and put an exclamation point on his career with last year’s championship run.

While Bryant has been the better player overall, James has been the league’s brightest star. He burst onto the NBA scene in 2003 with unprecedented hype and has lived up to it ever since.

He progressed from Rookie of the Year at age 19 to MVP at age 25. In between, his star power and superior talent carried a modestly talented Cavaliers team into the 2007 NBA Finals—a place they had no business being, as the results showed. That James got them there was one of the more remarkable, if unheralded, accomplishments of the decade.

His dizzying numbers continue to pile up, yet one suspects we still haven’t seen him at his best. (Bill Simmons of ESPN.com certainly thinks that’s the case; you can read about it here.)

To top it all off, the Nike marketing machine continues to churn out the Kobe and LeBron puppet commercials, cementing their place in the sports stratosphere and leaving no doubt as to who the biggest names in the game truly are.

The NBA needs this matchup. We all do. Thirty years ago, the league was on life support when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird arrived on the scene. Their brilliance and their rivalry pumped life into the league and made it relevant.

Kobe and LeBron are doing it again.

They are friends. They are rivals. Most important, they are stars, the best and the brightest the league has to offer.

They get it on again tonight, and the basketball world will be watching. That’s the way it ought to be.