Report: Lakers still feel they can contend with healthy LeBron and AD
The 2021-22 NBA season has been an unmitigated disaster for the Los Angeles Lakers, at least so far.
Due to key injuries and poor roster construction, the team currently stands in ninth place in the Western Conference with a 27-34 record.
Still, people within the organization feel that if LeBron James and Anthony Davis are healthy when it comes, the team can still make a run at the NBA Finals and possibly win the world championship.
Apparently, Lakers personnel are not the only ones who feel that way.
Via Bleacher Report:
The Lakers still hold championship aspirations this season. Los Angeles personnel maintain that if they can reach the playoffs, the healthy combination of LeBron James and Anthony Davis is still enough to threaten all comers for the Western Conference crown. Some rival teams have echoed that sentiment as well.
For much of James’ career, the feeling has been that if he has even a decent supporting cast, he will get his team to the championship series, a stage he has been to 10 times.
But he has been banged up this season, first with a sprained ankle early in the campaign, then an ab injury that forced him to miss eight games in November, and now a troublesome knee.
Davis, meanwhile, is expected to miss the next several weeks with a sprained foot. He had already been sidelined for over a month earlier in the season with a sprained MCL.
Frank Vogel on this final stretch of the season and how things could end up for the Lakers: "If [Anthony Davis] is able to come back and we catch the right matchup or catch a team at the right time and if we’re able to catch fire at the right time, we’re going to have a chance"
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) March 2, 2022
The team’s frontcourt is old and thin overall, as it is relying on Trevor Ariza, Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony, all of whom are in their mid-to-late 30s, for depth.
Still, if Davis returns soon enough, and if the Lakers get hot and win the play-in tournament, they could enter the playoffs as the proverbial “team no one wants to play in the first round.”
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