4. Los Angeles Lakers 2010s all-decade starting lineup
- D’Angelo Russell
- Kobe Bryant
- LeBron James
- Pau Gasol
- Dwight Howard
There are a lot of obvious flaws with this Los Angeles Lakers team.
D’Angelo Russell was never anything close to a finished product in Southern California. The frontcourt of Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard never meshed in its one-year relationship, and that was before spacing infected every strategy of the game.
Howard, in particular, had a rough inaugural season as a Laker that ended up driving him out of town.
But if you think that any team with both Kobe Bryant and LeBron James isn’t in the top-5 of any ranking, there’s a certain level of basketball knowledge that isn’t being met.
Most of Bryant’s career this decade was sullied due to the constant accumulation of injuries that led to his retirement in 2016, but the Mamba started the 2010s as well as anyone could.
He was a champion and a Finals MVP, still near the top of his pantheon-level game with a bag of scoring tricks even the most elite of defenders could hope to contain.
James isn’t the spry 20-something-year-old who could do everything for 40 minutes a night. Even in his mid-30s with all that mileage, though, he’s still got plenty left in the tank and is proving very difficult to relinquish the mantle of the best player in the world.
The perimeter defense is an issue as is the lack of perimeter shooting, but the frontcourt should be able to impose its will in the restricted area.
Kobe and LeBron are elite but in their own unique ways, the former a deadly all-around scorer and the latter an oversized floor general with the strength to attack the rim whenever he wants.
Superstars are known to cover up the mistakes of their teammates. Few better pairings are up to the task than two of the 10 greatest players the NBA has ever seen, making them uniquely qualified to dominate this playing field.