The Los Angeles Lakers had a disastrous 2021-22 campaign in which they missed the playoffs, so expectations of the team aren’t too high for 2022-23 outside of Lakers nation. Fans of the team will, of course, always have high hopes, and when you have LeBron James, anything is possible, which is what they’d believe.
Still, after hiring a first-time NBA head coach and then failing to acquire anyone of note in free agency, they’d be a bit unsure of their team’s prospects for next season. Add in the Russell Westbrook factor, as the star guard is still on the team, and you have the ingredients for another disappointing season. Mark Jackson, however, believes in this current roster and said that provided they are healthy, their ceiling is a championship.
.@MarkJackson13 on the Lakers' ceiling:
"Healthy, they can win a championship." 👀 pic.twitter.com/oQbHfyX84j
— First Take (@FirstTake) July 25, 2022
“Healthy, they can win a championship. If they are healthy and they compete on the defensive end, night in and night out. They can’t think we’re gonna roll the ball out and because we have three future Hall of Famers, we’re gonna outscore everybody and win. It doesn’t happen that way. They have to develop the right habits that they didn’t have last year and get back to defending and then get healthy. They have to stay healthy, and once they do, they got a chance against anybody.”
While the Lakers did win it all in 2020 when they were healthy, it’s just not the same team anymore. Anthony Davis has regressed over the last two seasons, and we can’t be sure that he’ll ever get back to being the dominant force that he was when they won it all. LeBron James is going to do what he always does, but as we saw last season, he alone can only do so much now.
They have done a good job of getting some younger players in who should compete harder on the defensive end, but they need more than that to turn things around from last season. The Lakers stars know that too, which is why they are pushing the team to trade for Kyrie Irving instead of staying put with what they have right now.
