[...] Many league watchers contend the Spurs-Lakers matchup is the series to watch, and that its winner will go on to claim the rings in the NBA Finals. "This is the best of the NBA," said Roland Lazenby, a communications instructor at Virginia Tech and author of several NBA-related books. "This series is the NBA Finals." It doesn't hurt that the teams have claimed the league's past five championships. "It's the two best big men of the game," Gil Pagovich, a sports marketing agent from New York City, said of Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal. "It's a rivalry of the ages." [...] Last Sunday, the New York Times ran a prominent story identifying the Spurs as the anti-Lakers and quoted Bruce Bowen describing the flavor of the Spurs as vanilla and that of the Lakers as Chunky Monkey. "There are several things that lead to the Lakers' appeal and lack of appeal," said Lazenby, who has written several books about the team. "The Lakers have been Hollywood's team for so long." At the NBA Store on New York City's ritzy Fifth Avenue, the Lakers still are No. 1, based on merchandise sales, but Spurs goods are getting hotter. Last season, the team didn't rank in the Top 10, and now it weighs in at No. 8. NBA spokesman Matt Bourne wouldn't say that the Spurs-Lakers series was garnering more attention than the others, but he did mention the league has paid attention to the growing popularity of the Spurs. "Anytime a team wins the championship, it raises their recognition to a new level," he said. http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketb...5.9548af07.html
