I let out a hearty, billowing laugh whenever a so-called basketball analyst says that the Los Angeles Lakers are now the team to beat in the NBA. Such claims are utterly ridiculous. Firstly, if they end up playing the Miami Heat in the finals, they would win two games at best. Secondly, they are not going to make it to the finals. The Oklahoma City Thunder are better, and so are the San Antonio Spurs. Just like last year. Granted, the Lakers are much improved over last year. Steve Nash and Dwight Howard are two of the best players in the game. There is no questioning that. But in the fantasy sports era that we currently live in, people tend to think any group of talented guys can win you a title. Not the case. Miami did it, and the Celtics did it before. But their teams actually fit together well. Miami has the two best slashers in the game in LeBron James and D-Wade (no disrespect to Derrick Rose of Russel Westbrook), and the second best jumpshooting big man in the game behind Dirk Nowitzki. With the offense constructed as such, there are basically 3 guys who can kill you both on the inside and the outside. LeBron is an unbelievable defender. Mario Chalmers, Shane Battier, and Mike Miller are great bench players. And the addition of Ray Allen certainly will not hurt. When looking at the 07-08 Boston Celtics, they added Kevin Garnett, the hungriest player in all professional sports. Couple that with the fact that Paul Pierce and Ray Allen were extremely hungry as well. And let us not forget, Rajon Rondo was under their nose the whole time, and he is now a top 5 point guard in the game. The stars aligned for that team that year. There is a reason they have not won a title since.
So now, back to the Lakers. Before I assess their nucleus, let me first examine their bench. It is not very good. I personally like Jodie Meeks and Jordan Hill. Steve Blake, however, is marginal at best. Chris Duhon is past his prime, and his prime was never that good in the first place. Antawn Jamison had the worst field goal percentage of his career by far last year (.403), so anything positive he adds to this team will be counteracted by poor shot selection. Quite frankly, I've just named all of the bench players on this team worth mentioning. Now to the starting 5. It's great, but not championship great. Kobe Bryant will not get along with Steve Nash or Dwight Howard. Kobe will not get the ball in his hands enough with Nash at point guard. Kobe embracing Nash is like Carmelo Anthony embracing Jeremy Lin when he came off his injury last year. It sounds nice, but it is not true. One of these guys will have to sacrifice an element of his game to appease the other, and it is likely that both will. Dwight Howard is an improvement over Andrew Bynum, but not a gigantic one as people seem to think. He is undoubtedly going to be far more consistent than Bynum, but he is not as good of a scorer. I seriously question how Dwight Howard's happy-go-lucky personality will mesh with the all-business approach of Kobe Bryant. Will Kobe like this if the team finds themselves on a losing streak? It may work, but I just don't think the personalities fit. And let us keep it real, Paula Gasol is s.o.f. capital T soft (in the words of Eddie Murphy from the movie Life). He has talent, but he gets punked constantly from a physicality standpoint. I'm guessing the team wishes they still had his brother Marc instead of him right now. Ron Artest is a bruiser (ask James Harden), but he's no star than can carry a team. Kobe Bryant is still one of the best players in the game, but I think that when you factor in that he will get the ball less, that he will have to babysit Dwight, and his dislike for Coach Brown, Kobe will lose his mind by time the season is over. Kobe is no longer capable of singlehandedly putting a team on his back and carrying them to the promised land. I would give them a way better shot if Phil Jackson was still the coach, but he's not walking into the Staples Center anytime soon.
Also, this team is old. Old and slow. It is a young man's game now, as the found out last year against OKC. That issue has not been addressed. The Spurs are not young either, but they have the NBA's best coach and a nice stable of young role players. Talent gets you to the playoffs, but it does not win championships. If teams received rings for having the best offseason, they would be champs. But unfortunately, that is not how the NBA works. We will see how it looks on the court. And by the way, losing Ramon Sessions to the Charlotte Bobcats isn't good either.
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