I’ve been thinking about this since Orlando clinched.

Lakers or Magic? Magic or Lakers? Back and forth, I’ve gone. Back and forth. And now we’re just hours from tipoff.

My first notion is … Magic.

Dwight Howard is a huge advantage for Orlando over Andrew Bynum. ‘Drew will have three fouls in a matter of minutes in every game they play. He will smirk as if something unfair has happened when he remains so raw that he has no chance at all … zero chance … of checking Howard without fouling him.

There’s that.

Then there’s the point guard situation. Rafer Alston is nothing special, but Derek Fisher’s career ended — with him still in uniform — about three months ago. And how can you win a championship with a zero at the point? Fish still gets the first 10 and last 10 minutes, and how does that work? Only God and Phil Jackson know.

Lamar Odom will come and go. That’s what he does. He will have one Invisible Man game for every Iron Man game he puts up. Again, not a winning formula. If the Lakers could count on a 16-and-11 from him, they win the series. But too much candy, or not enough, or whatever it is that makes Lamar the most perplexing/inscrutable/erratic player in Lakers history (NBA history?) … will happen. Always has.

Pau Gasol will be OK, he will score, but he will have trouble at the defensive end. He can’t guard Howard because of his strength, and if he matches up with anyone else he will be drawn away from the basket so far that it will remove him from the rebounding equation. He just doesn’t match up well with the Magic, same as the Celtics and Cavaliers and almost anyone else.

Mikael Pietrus is going to give Kobe Bryant issues. Courtney Lee will get into the lane. Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis are matchup nightmares; Trevor Ariza can’t cover both of them and Luke Walton can’t cover either one. Orlando’s three-point shooting will mean the Magic is never out of a game, and probably will win at least one in a blowout on a night when it hits 40 percent of its treys.

But …

But … I just have this gut feeling that Kobe Isn’t Going to Go Out Like This.

I’m not at all sure the Lakers win another NBA title in Kobe’s career here. Maybe if Bynum gets serious and stays healthy and becomes the focal point, an elite center … and Kobe becomes the wise older figure … Maybe.

But Kobe can’t know that will happen. No one does. I actually doubt it will; Bynum probably will be one of those guys who always gets hurt and eventually comes back as a diminished and frightened and frail role player. Hence, Kobe has to approach this — and I believe he does — as his last best shot.

I believe Kobe is not going to go into history with just the three “Shaq as No. 1 Option” titles on his resume. He will not go down as having never won a title in which he wasn’t the sidekick. The complementary player to the Diesel.

Kobe is meant to win one as The Man. He will insist on it. He must have it. It is his destiny. And this is the year.

His whole career has been building to this moment. A decent supporting cast, a good but not great (at least, I don’t think it’s great) opponent. He may be a bit past his physical prime, but he is smarter than ever. He can break down a defense by looking at it. He is a coach on the floor. He can work the referees, and they will be influenced by his complaining because he’s Kobe Effin’ Bryant, and he has paid his dues and put up an 80-point game, and by God he deserves this. He has earned it. And he will again.

Kobe is going to win this NBA title or almost kill himself in the attempt. He will play 45 minutes a night. He will drive his teammates forward with his iron will (and some of them will whine, and his critics will call him a bad teammate, again), and make them as good as they can be because if they aren’t, they don’t want to face the white hot fury of his wrath. They don’t want to be remembered as the guys who didn’t care as much as Kobe did.

I do believe, too, that there are Story Arcs in sports. Some things are just supposed to happen, and Kobe winning one more title is one of them. I believe it is the backs of the minds of referees. I believe it is in the back of the minds of the Magic players.

This has nothing to do with sports. It has little to do with common sense and nothing to do with logic.

This is just a gut feeling. A hunch. It is going to happen. Kobe will do it. He is meant to. LeBron James has many more chances. Kobe does not. He knows it. Everyone watching the series knows it. And everyone knows that’s how this story is supposed to turn out, and I believe — and that’s all it is; belief, faith — that Kobe is destined to win the NBA championship in June of 2009.