This is an interesting subplot to the Lakers-Celtics series. At least from the journalism perspective.

Throughout the history of professional sports … the primary source of information and intelligent analysis has been newspapers and their employees. Their beat writers, their columnists, their feature writers. In the past quarter-century, TV’s talking heads have stepped up — but many of them are former print people.

This may be a series, however, in which bloggers step to the forefront as the leading purveyors of information and primary framers of fan discussion and discourse.

Even when some of those bloggers, including the most prominent in the land, at this moment — Bill Simmons of espn.com — are unabashed, unapologetic fans.

Fans with, far as I know, zero formal journalism training and not even a pretense of impartiality. Guys who buy their way into the arenas, sit next to people wearing face paint and chanting “Beat L.A.!” and have no professional game-day interaction with players or coaches.

Check out this Simmons’ piece from ESPN the Magazine.

It’s as obnoxious as having to sit next to the most rabid Celtics fan imaginable and not be able to say, “Dude, shut up! You’re an idiot homer!”

This series could be a good test of the state of journalism, when it comes to this sort of thing. With espn.com giving Simmons huge exposure, even as he prepares what probably will be another book as obnoxious as his “all about me” recounting of the 2004 Boston Red Sox push to the World Series. “Now I Can Die in Peace” (and some of us wish you would, when you go all Boston on us for about one year straight).

Does Simmons and his Celtics rants drive the discussion? Does he fade into the background of the chatter along with, say, radio guys and other bloggers whose real jobs have never had anything to do with journalism?

The web is great because it opens up areas of discussion. It allows informed (and semi-informed) people a chance to have a forum, and interact with others.

But will bloggers — and Simmons is a glorified blogger, really — actually come to dominate sports coverage and analysis?

It could happen. Maybe it already has. Perhaps this series will give us a snapshot at where we are, right now.