Los Angeles Lakers: Criteria for a good 2019-20 season

Make no mistake: The 2019-20 season is a “championship or bust” venture for the Los Angeles Lakers. Welcome to the new beginning of the LeBron James era.

For the average NBA team, a six-year postseason drought would create some fairly low expectations, but the Los Angeles Lakers are not the average NBA team.

It would be a perfectly reasonable request for the 2019-20 Lakers to simply make it back to the playoffs. However, this franchise has a storied history of winning, two of the NBA’s best active players on the roster, and honestly, a spoiled fan base.

Laker Nation expects championships and demands success greater than a happy-to-be-here playoff berth or a first-round victory.

Even though the Lakers haven’t been in the postseason since 2013, superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis will have their professional legacies questioned if they don’t lead the team to a championship in 2020.

Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe Bryant won five rings apiece for the purple and gold. Shaquille O’Neal and James Worthy each won three. LeBron and A.D. need to get at least one or two if they ever hope to win over these fans and get their jerseys hung in the rafters at Staples Center.

After winning 37 games last season, the Lakers will probably need to improve by at least 10 wins to get into the playoffs in a strong Western Conference. To be considered a legit title contender, at least 50 wins would be ideal.

Reaching 50 wins won’t be easy, however, considering that a handful of West contenders made significant moves to get better in the offseason.

The Houston Rockets traded for Russell Westbrook. The LA Clippers signed Kawhi Leonard and traded for Paul George. The Portland Trail Blazers traded for Hassan Whiteside. The Utah Jazz traded for Mike Conley Jr. And although the Golden State Warriors lost Kevin Durant, they added All-Star guard D’Angelo Russell and promising young center Willie Cauley-Stein.

The Lakers, meanwhile, may have improved more than any other team.

The Clippers made the biggest splash by acquiring the reigning Finals MVP and a league MVP finalist, but they were already a good team before adding Leonard and George. The Rockets added a recent league MVP in Westbrook, but they were also already among the better teams in the conference.

The Lakers were flat-out bad two years ago. Last season, after signing LeBron in free agency, they were talented yet largely inexperienced and ultimately plagued by injuries. Now, after trading for Davis this summer, they have the look of a very good, potentially great team.

Davis, a three-time All-NBA power forward and three-time All-Defensive Team selection, wasn’t L.A.’s only offseason addition. They also signed newly-crowned NBA champion Danny Green at shooting guard, two-time All-Defensive pick Avery Bradley for backcourt depth, and future Hall of Fame center (albeit past his prime) Dwight Howard, among others.

LeBron has recovered from the groin injury that sidelined him for a chunk of last season. Kyle Kuzma spent the summer training with the U.S. National Team and is expected to be better in his third pro season.

The Lakers also remade their coaching staff and front office. Frank Vogel was hired as head coach with a staff of assistants that includes Jason Kidd. The front-office personnel keys were handed over to general manager Rob Pelinka after Magic Johnson resigned from his team president post.

Making the playoffs shouldn’t be taken for granted, even for a historically great franchise with a star-studded roster. Just talk to fans of the New York Knicks (six-year drought) and Sacramento Kings (13 years) about that.

However, more is expected of the Lakers than a mere above-.500 record and a spot among the Western Conference’s top eight seeds.

LeBron and A.D. are arguably the league’s best 1-2 punch.

Last season was considered a down year for LeBron, and yet he still managed 27.4 points, 8.5 rebounds, 8.3 assists and 1.3 steals per game, shooting 51.0 percent from the field. He was voted All-NBA Third Team and a starter in the All-Star Game.

Defense was LeBron’s glaring weakness — even more glaring than his career-worst 66.5 percent free-throw shooting — but Davis’ presence as another high-volume scorer could indirectly create motivation for LeBron to give more effort defensively if he doesn’t feel responsible for carrying most of the team’s offense.

Davis put up All-NBA caliber numbers last season — averaging 25.9 points, 12.0 rebounds, 2.4 blocks and 1.6 steals per game — but was left off the All-NBA and All-Defensive teams due in part to missing games with injuries, the New Orleans Pelicans‘ poor record and being regularly benched following his midseason trade request.

Defense is a strength of Davis’ game. He says he’s setting a goal to win the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award this season. With Davis, Howard and JaVale McGee, L.A. has a trio of rim-protecting big men to back up a group of perimeter defenders that received an offseason upgrade via Bradly and Green.

The third man in L.A.’s planned Big Three was supposed to be Leonard, but when that didn’t work out, two-time All-NBA center DeMarcus Cousins was signed to fill that role.

Although Cousins was coming off a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in 2018, this upcoming season he was expected to be healthy and ready to get back to his prime form. But then Cousins suffered a torn ACL while training over the summer, another devastating injury that will likely sideline him for the season and perhaps end his Lakers’ career before it begins.

Losing Cousins caused expectations around the Lakers to drop slightly, but they are still higher than they’ve been for this franchise since the 2012-13 season.

That was back when L.A. brought in former league MVP Steve Nash and Dwight Howard (in his prime) to play alongside Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace.

That super tea” was widely projected to win the West and meet the defending champion Miami Heat — led by LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — to finally deliver the Kobe-vs.-LeBron NBA Finals matchup the world wanted to see.

Injuries plagued that L.A. team. However, the final blow coming when Kobe ruptured his Achilles at the tail-end of the regular season. Without their leader and go-to guy, the Lakers were swept out of the first round. They haven’t been to the playoffs since.

While this is officially Year 2 of LeBron’s tenure with the Lakers, it feels like the real beginning of a new era for the franchise.

Last season was like a practice run, a preview for Laker Nation to simply get used to having LeBron on the team after he’d been viewed as a rival for so many years. Now, the real LeBron James experience is upon the Lakers.

Championship-or-bust expectations. A roster talented enough to compete with anyone. Seemingly constant turnover on the roster, on the bench and in the front office. A constant pressure-packed atmosphere.

LeBron has thrived in that atmosphere for the majority of his legendary career. Whether the Lakers live up to their 2019-20 expectations depends on how well LeBron’s teammates and everyone else in the organization adapt to the new normal.