L.A., Boston, Atlanta--Who Will Be Crowned This Year's Hoop Champion?

It seems the National Basketball Association season runs longer than a presidential election. Twenty-five teams, with the recent addition of Miami and Charlotte, will fight for 16 playoff spots over the course of six months.

Playoffs are held in May. The champion is crowned in June. By then, people are already talking about the All-Star game. Baseball's All-Star game, that is.

The length of the basketball season makes it difficult to predict a champion. Over the course of half-a-year, injuries are bound to occur. An injury to a star player--say Michael Jordan of Chicago--quickly can make a contender an also-ran.

The playoffs, too, can be unpredictable. Any team can win three games in a five-game series or four in a seven-game series. Last year, the Washington Bullets took the Detroit Pistons to a fifth and final game in the first-round of the playoffs. The Pistons eventually advanced to the NBA finals.

This year's playoff picture looks as confused as last year's. Will the Lakers be able to capture a thirdstraight NBA crown? Will Boston rebound from a horrendous performance against the Pistons in the Eastern Division finals? Will Detroit parley its playoff experience into the crown it should have won last year?

Can Moses Malone lead the Atlanta Hawks to the NBA promised land? Are the Cleveland Cavaliers mature enough to be a factor? Will Dallas become supreme in the West?

And will Miami and Charlotte win any games besides those they play against each other?

The season begins November 2. Here is The Crimson's guide to the NBA.

1. Los Angeles Lakers:Last year's Lakers were held together by the mousse in Coach Pat Riley's hair. Magic Johnson was injured late in the season and never regained his brilliance in the post-season. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar looked like a living embodiement of Stepen Foster's "Old Folks at Home." Somehow, the Lakers repeated as NBA champion. Riley, after all, had guaranteed a second crown. But he made no such prediction this year.

Why? Magic is 29 years old. Before too long, people will have to call him Earvin again. Kareem is 120 and his skyhook is even older.

And Kurt Rambis is gone.

The Lakers still have an excellent team. Magic (a 19.6 points-per game average last year) is the best floor-leader in the NBA. Byron Scott (21.7 p.p.g., 62 three-pointers in 81 games) is a great outside threat. James Worthy, the MVP of the NBA finals, is one of the best forwards in the league.

2. Atlanta:Coach Mike Fratello will keep 5-ft., 7-in. guard Spud Webb on the team because Webb is the only guy the diminutive Fratello can borrow clothes from.

If the Hawks are going to win the NBA championship, this is the year. The Hawks are a terrific team with Moses Malone in the paint. Malone will complement Dominique Wilkins (30.7 p.p.g.). The Hawks took the Celtics to seven games in the Eastern semifinals last year.

3. Detroit: Last year, Coach Chuck Daley decided his team lost to the Lakers in the finals because Los Angeles was "on a mission."

This year, Daley's club should be on the same mission, simply because it deserved to win last year. If it hadn't been for an injury to point guard Isiah Thomas in Game 6, the Pistons would have downed the Lakers.

The same cast returns. Adrian Dantley (20.0 p.p.g.) would have been the finals MVP had Detroit won. Thomas is the Magic Johnson of the East. Big Bill Laimbeer is despised, but he is the epitome of the Pistons' aggressive--some call it mean--style.

4. Portland:Not since Bill Walton last wore a Blazers uniform has there been so much excitement in Oregon. If Los Angeles imitates the sun--or the Phoenix Suns--and falls in the West, this club seems the best equipped to grab the glory.

If Kevin Duckworth (15.8 p.p.g.), winner of the NBA's "Most Improved Player" award, and Clyde Drexler (27.0 p.p.g.) come through, perhaps people will forget that the Blazers made Sam Bowie the number one pick of the 1984 draft. The Chicago Bulls had the next pick. They chose Michael Jordan.

5. Boston: Coach K.C. Jones knew the train was running out of fuel so he turned over his whistle to Jimmy Rodgers. The former Boston assistant coach faces a difficult task. Only one member of his starting five--Danny Ainge--is under 30 years old. Larry Bird (29.9 p.p.g.) was human last year in the playoffs against Detroit. He made just 35 percent of his shots.

Despite their age, the Celitics are still a great team and will probably finish with the best record in the East. But the Celts will be stopped in the semifinals by a younger, deeper squad.

6. Dallas:The Mavericks gave the Lakers seven good games last year in the Western finals. Mark Aguirre (25.1 p.p.g.) shelved his hostile attitude toward the team's owner, his teammates and Dallas fans and played a great series.

But James Donaldson (7.0 p.p.g.) is not the center around whom a championship team is built.

7. Cleveland: Surprise. Brad Daugherty, whom many pro scouts pegged as "soft" coming out of the University of North Carolina three years ago, is turning into one of the best centers in the league. He averaged a team-leading 18.6 point-pergame last year.

And any team with Hot Rod Williams (15.4 p.p.g.) on it has to be tough.

8. Chicago: No man is an island, but for three years one man was a basketball team. Michael Jordan may be the best player in basketball. He is certainly the most exciting.

During his first three years, Jordan (35.0 p.p.g.) had to take on the basketball world. Last year, he got help from Charles Oakley (second in the league in rebounding). Now, Oakley is gone-to New York. In exchange for Oakley, the Bulls got center Bill Cartwright (11.1 p.p.g.), whom Chicago hopes will take some of the scoring burden off Jordan.

9. Utah: Coach Frank Layden may not be the most successful coach in the NBA, but he is one of the funniest. Last year, he suggested Utah and Los Angeles exchange nicknames. Where is the jazz in Utah, Layden wondered. And where are the lakes in L.A.?

If only Layden could exchange his personnel for Los Angeles'.

10. Seattle: The Big Bad Attitude, Tom Chambers, landed in Phoenix during the off-season. Chambers liked to shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot some more (what's a pass--something you make at a woman?). With Chambers gone, Bernie Bickerstaff will be able to make use of his other talent.