Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

agreed, now just imagine all those fouls not being called.

 

Cause for optimism: the West isn't as daunting as it has been. Looking at the teams, the clear winners of the off season were the Warriors and Lakers. The rich got richer with GS as they added Boogie, but we don't know how he'll look post-injury and we don't know how he'll mesh with the team either as he has had quite the anger management issues in the past. Realistically though he'll probably add to the team and make them better than they were last year. It's their championship to lose, basically.

We got a lot better over the summer with the addition of the best basketball player in the game, and some other good starting level players in Rondo and McGee. Add to that the growth of the youngsters and a solid bench and we should be able to reverse our record of last year 35 wins 47 losses, to 47 wins and 35 losses this season. We'll make the playoffs and we are poised to actually do well there I think, barring injury of course.

The rest of the West: Houston got worse with the addition of Melo and subtraction of Ariza and Mbah a Moute, Portland was never that good to begin with and didn't improve, OKC got a little better with the simple addition by subtraction of Melo, Utah looks the same, New Orleans got worse in that we got Rondo who was key for them in the playoffs (Jules for Boogie remains to be seen in terms of impact), Denver looks the same, Minny looks worse with all the Butler drama, San Antonio looks worse with the Kawhi trade, Manu retiring and the injury to Murray, Clippers look worse, Memphis will be better with Conley back but they look pretty creaky, Suns are bad, Dallas is bad, Sacto is bad.

I think we make it to at minimum the 6th spot in the West and maybe crack that top 5.

 

@lakerjones if we had a physical presence at the 4 and a really good back-up to McGee...top 4 easy. As it stands, 6th seed is realistic. Too many tweeners.

 

I'm not fooled at all and nobody really should be. We sat LeBron, Ingram, and Rondo and stuck around with Klay, Steph, and Draymond. That's wildly impressive.

In some ways, that is the team we'd like to be facing in the 2019/2020 season if/when Durant leaves. It was an interesting test. If Lonzo, Kuzma, and f***ing Svi Mykhailiuk can even stay within striking distance of that team, Durant needs to take notice. Should Durant jump ship, we're the Championship team again.

Our 2.5 stringers kept within striking distance of the 2.5 Hall of Famers (Draymond probably gets in at some point). That's wild.

 

That's my feeling and what I've been saying as well - absolutely agree realdeal. If Durant comes here we are the favorites to win the championship regardless of AD. Lebron, Durant and the kids is enough in itself.

 

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