For the entire NBA season, many UCSD students who are NBA fans waited for the inevitable: a rematch of last season’s epic Lakers vs. Kings Western Conference Final. Last week, both NorCal and SoCal students’ hopes were crushed when both the Lakers and Kings were knocked out of the playoffs.

Lakers’ fans had always put the “”barring injury to one of our key guys”” disclaimer into their assertions that they’d bring home a fourth championship in a row. For them, the playoffs came down to two foot injuries at the same position, a big man who hasn’t been this ineffective since (well, as long as I can remember), a three-pointer that wouldn’t go down, and an MVP and Coach of the Year who proved they deserved their respective awards this season.

Irony threw a wrench into Kings’ fans’ hopes who have always questioned the Lakers’ depth or what would happen if Shaq or Kobe were to get hurt. Their MVP candidate, Chris Webber, went down in the middle of their series and with him, went much of the fight and hope of winning.

The Kings were more prepared to deal with the loss of Webber then the Lakers would be to deal with the loss of Shaq or Kobe, but the hot shooting of one former Laker guard coupled with the ineffectiveness of another without his low-post mate, proved the undoing of the Kings.

As one Kings fan put it, “”My only consolation is that if the Kings didn’t win it, the Lakers didn’t either.””

So the Lakers-Kings “”rivalry,”” is apparently strong. But, as the teams from Texas proved, some of the rest of the league has now caught up. When the Lakers won the championship in 2000, they were head and shoulders above the rest of the league. They proved it once again in 2001, sweeping their way into the finals and losing only one postseason game.

But a funny thing happens when you’re successful in professional sports these days: Teams catch up with you. The first team to catch up to the Lakers was the Kings last season. This season, both Dallas and San Antonio proved that they have learned from the beatings they’ve taken over the past three seasons, and now one of them will almost undoubtedly take home the title.

The Lakers will retool. Talks of Scottie Pippen and Karl Malone abound while they also need more youth and athleticism on their roster.

For the Kings, they’ll go back to Sacramento with basically the same players and chalk this season up as bad luck. But there must be a prevailing thought that, if it didn’t creep into their collective heads before, it must now. Will this Kings team ever win the Championship? Or will they simply turn into the Utah Jazz of the ’90s: always in contention and always a factor, but for whatever reason never able to get over the hump.

There are two other teams in California. But while the regular and postseason are the most exciting times for Lakers and Kings fans, Warriors and Clippers fans have one or two exciting days a year. The NBA Draft Lottery is May 22 and the draft itself is June 26.