By Brian A. Lester

Right now, somewhere in this great country, a crazed New Jersey Nets fan is as giddy as a child sitting in a classroom waiting for the bell that will ring in summer vacation.

He's counting down the hours, the minutes, the seconds.

He's overwhelmed with joy and can't help but grow more and more excited as Wednesday night inches closer.

That's when the real excitement begins because his Nets, after years of being the cruel punchline to numerous jokes, will find themselves playing in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history.

He doesn't care that New Jersey's opponent is Los Angeles, the two-time defending NBA champions. It doesn't bother him that the Lakers have arguably the two best players in the league in Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. And it doesn't concern him that the Lakers are starting to look as dangerous as ever, almost as if a seven-game war with the Kings was the best thing that could have ever happened to champs.

The only thing the crazed Nets fan cares about is that his team is playing for a championship. His team is in the spotlight this time, not Chicago, Detroit or Boston. His team represents the best of the Eastern Conference, and all he really wants to do is savor every last drop of this intoxicating experience as if it were a glass of chilled lemonade on a scorching summer afternoon.

No one can really blame him. After all, he has earned the right to enjoy this moment of glory for the Nets.

He's earned it because for years he stuck by the Nets even though winning was rare and championship contention seemed to be centuries away from ever becoming a reality.

He suffered through the avalanche of losing seasons, with the Nets enjoying only seven winning seasons before this year. He was tortured by the fact that the Nets won only one playoff series before this season. And to top it all off, he had his heart ripped out when rising star Drazen Petrovic had his life cut tragically short in a 1993 auto accident.

Fate has been decidedly unkind to the Nets franchise in its less-than-stellar 26 years of history, and the bad times have clearly outnumbered the moments when a New Jersey fan could find something worth smiling about.

But none of the bad memories matter now to the crazed New Jersey fan. One year after serving as a doormat and winning just 26 games, his team, not someone else's, is in the NBA Finals.

That is why starting this week, he will sit down on his favorite chair in the living room and believe that his team is destined to win the championship. He will not fear the Lakers in any way, shape or form and he will not stop cheering for the Nets until the final shot has been taken and the final seconds evaporate off of the clock.

Most of the world will think he is crazy for believing in the Nets. They will try to convince him that New Jersey is no match for the mighty Lakers.

But the crazed Nets fan won't listen. His team is playing for the championship and right now, that is really all that matters.

Brian Lester is a sports writer in Ohio and can be reached via email at BAL4@hotmail.com.