The Los Angeles Lakers are the reigning champions, having already proven to the league that this core is capable of the feat. They not only entered the season as the title favorites but in most places they still are the favorites, despite having slid down the standings in recent weeks to sit at fifth in the Western Conference.
That slide has largely coincided with injuries to Anthony Davis and LeBron James. While those players are expected back, the level of uncertainty regarding their injuries is just one of a number of potential issues for this Lakers’ squad. While this roster is absolutely capable of winning the title, considering them to be the favorites ignores a number of real issues this team has to deal with.
3 reasons the Los Angeles Lakers will not win the title and repeat as NBA champions
LeBron James is a top-2 player all-time, and may still be the league’s best player even at 36. Even so, history has shown us you cannot will a flawed roster to the title even if you have the league’s best player: LeBron James is 4-6 in his ten NBA Finals appearances after all. Carrying a team to the Finals isn’t even a given in the Western Conference, where elite players and stacked rosters abound.
The Lakers are a team of role players surrounding two stars. With those two stars out, the Lakers have needed incredible amounts of luck (opponents missing their good players, for example) just to hang on at 6-8 over their last 14 games. What are the glaring flaws with their title hopes this season, and why will they ultimately result in another team hoisting the trophy at the season’s end?
3. Anthony Davis and LeBron James are dealing with major injuries for the Los Angeles Lakers
Anthony Davis has missed the last 26 games with an Achilles injury, one that was bothering him even before he was shut down. This sort of injury is incredibly scary for a basketball player, as history suggests it both lingers and severely saps a player’s lift and lateral agility.
For Davis, those are two of the things that make him truly special. His ability to contest shots at the rim and on the perimeter is tied to his incredible leaping ability, and his lateral movement on the perimeter can devastate opposing guards and wings that think they’ve won by getting the big to switch onto them.
There is no guarantee that Davis is back in a week or two as has been reported. He could easily need more time or start to ramp up and be shut down again. More terrifying is the possibility he returns and then tears the Achilles entirely, a story all-too-familiar for fans of Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors. Durant took nearly 18 months off to rehab his torn Achilles and still has dealt with compensation injuries since. A torn Achilles could doom the Lakers’ title chances for this year and next.
Davis is not the only Lakers star nursing a significant injury. LeBron James is currently out with a high ankle sprain, an injury rare in basketball but more common in the NFL. There we have seen players try to come back too soon and be a shell of themselves. Whenever James comes back, there is a very high probability he will be less than 100 percent.
James is one of the most durable superstars in NBA history, and he could certainly prove to be a fast healer in this instance as well. Yet he is 36 years old, and as the body ages, it becomes slower in reverting back to its optimal state. The playoffs are coming up quickly, and the Lakers could reach them with their two stars still out, hobbled, or at risk for reinjury.
2. The Los Angeles Lakers backcourt will struggle to guard dynamic backcourts
The Los Angeles Lakers went through a makeover at the guard positions this offseason. The key addition was Dennis Schroder, acquired from the Oklahoma City Thunder in return for defensive wing Danny Green. The team also said goodbye to Rajon Rondo and Avery Bradley.
Schroder is a more dynamic offensive player and helps with the team’s offensive creation duties. He is also a significantly worse defender than the players he replaced and leaves the Lakers with a lack of options defensively. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope can take one smaller guard or wing, but the Lakers now have a soft spot in their starting and closing 5.
How do the Lakers respond against teams with two great guards? When this team plays the Phoenix Suns, how will they allocate the defensive assignments to take on Chris Paul and Devin Booker? Or when facing Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell with the Utah Jazz? James Harden and Kyrie Irving on the Brooklyn Nets? Who is chasing Joe Harris around, for that matter?
Investing resources in Schroder gives them less versatility than a season ago. They won the title without Bradley, but even as Danny Green was in a shooting slump he could pair with Caldwell-Pope in the right matchups. Now that option has been removed entirely. Wesley Matthews makes sense in theory, but he looks like the odd man out with the team signing Ben McLemore to help their shooting.
The Lakers’ plus defenders are weighted towards the large end of the roster. That’s not unusual, but it means that if the Lakers want to slide Anthony Davis (if healthy) to the 5 and LeBron James to the 4, they will need to bring in a larger forward rather than another dynamic outside scoring threat who can provide guard defense.
This may not be a major problem; Schroder is not inept on the defensive end. But on a team with defense as its calling card, and limited creators otherwise, they will likely need him to play major minutes in the postseason. That represents a weak link in their stout defense, one the right teams will be able to exploit.
1. The Los Angeles Lakers will have to win from the bottom of the bracket
Last season the Los Angeles Lakers sat atop the Western Conference standings at the end of the season, and while the NBA Bubble meant they didn’t exactly have “home court advantage” it gave them a successive series of more palatable matchups. They did not play a single team that won more than 46 wins in the regular season (with full understanding that no team played a full season).
This season the Lakers may not even get one opponent at the level of all of their opponents last year. With all the reasonable caveats about how well the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat were playing at the end of last season, the reality is that the Lakers did not play another “elite” on-paper team last season.
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The best winning percentage they faced was the Nuggets at .630 (won 63 percent of their games). Right now, if seed lines hold, the lowest they would face is…the Denver Nuggets at .630. Then their second-round opponent will likely be the Utah Jazz (.745), followed by either the Phoenix Suns (.722) or LA Clippers (.684) and finally perhaps the Brooklyn Nets in the NBA Finals (.673).
This is all a guessing game at this point, as we don’t know who will advance; in fact, the Miami Heat upsetting multiple teams en route to the Finals is part of why the Lakers’ road was so easy. Yet the reality remains that the Lakers’ path this year will by necessity be more difficult, and probably extremely so, than last season. That stems in large part from where they will be starting.
The Lakers’ roster without Anthony Davis and LeBron James has worked hard and caught some breaks to stay afloat in the absence of their stars, but that has still meant a slip down to sixth-place. If Davis and James return soon they could right the ship and climb back up, but barring the miraculous the highest they could reach is fourth. That means the toughest first-round opponent, then likely the top seed, all to reach the Conference Finals.
There is risk things could get worse, not better. The Lakers’ next two weeks feature five games against strong teams, including two games with the league-leading Jazz and two with the Dallas Mavericks, who are behind the Lakers in the standings and hoping to move up. It’s very possible the Lakers lose another spot over the following weeks, and a slim possibility they drop to seventh.
The 2019-20 Lakers were a deserving champion, but they caught breaks along the way and had relatively good health throughout their run to the title. That has not been the case this year, as the Western Conference is stronger and the East has a true super team developing to challenge LeBron and company. IF Davis and James come back healthy and IF Schroder can hold up defensively and IF things break right, the Lakers could still win the title.
But more than likely it is not happening. The weight of challenges stacking up is going to prove too great. In the end, the Los Angeles Lakers will be sent home, and another team will win the 2020-21 NBA championship.