With a third of the NBA season in the books, the time is right to check in on how the LeBron led Lakers are progressing thus far.
With a 18-12 record, the Lakers are currently sitting in the fourth spot in the Western Conference, two and a half games behind the leading Denver Nuggets. This puts the Lakers on pace to win close to 50 games on the season, which is slightly above where most experts had the Lake Show finishing on the year.
The reason the Lakers have been successful thus far isn’t complicated: LeBron has been LeBron. While it looked like LeBron may have been cruising in the first couple weeks of the season, feeling out his teammates and getting others involved, he has begun kick it into an extra gear. In his first stint in purple and gold, The King has performed as advertised and has shown no signs of slowing down (save for taking a few more possessions off on the defensive end). Despite the incredible amount of mileage he has put on his body and his advanced age, his numbers remains the same: 28 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists per game.
Perhaps the most freakish thing about Lebron is not his size, strength, leaping ability, vision or even the way it looks like he is a one man freight train dribbling downhill on a fast break, no, the most freakish thing about LeBron is how ridiculously consistent he is. No matter how rough a start he gets off to, the one thing that has become abundantly clear is that in the end, he’s going to get his.
The Lakers don’t have much of a shot at the title this year according to Mytopsportsbooks, even though their odds have improved to +1600 thanks to a 14-6 run in the last month-plus. While LeBron is starting to mesh with his new teammates, those odds — which have an implied probability of 6% — are overly optimistic. The team is unlikely to finish higher than 3rd in the West, meaning that, if chalk holds, they’ll have to win two best-of-sevens without home-court advantage just to reach the finals. With one of those series being against the Warriors.
Still, with the young players improving (especially Kyle Kuzma) and the team starting to gel, the Lakers are heading in the right direction. For a spoiled Laker fan based obsessed with nothing less than titles, all eyes are on the summer of 2019 when free agents: Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler will become available. LeBron needs an all-star level talent at his side to truly compete with the Warriors and the addition of one of those stars would give the Lakers a legitimate shot at knocking off the champions next season.
By Dany Kohan
