No matter how much Los Angeles Lakers fans speculate that LeBron James will ask to be traded or even wish he would leave, the reality is that, in all likelihood, he will probably be a member of the team once training camp starts in a few months.
The Lakers may not have a truly championship-caliber roster, but they aren’t that far off. They apparently found a solution to their massive hole at the center position by signing Deandre Ayton, and forward Jake LaRavia could be at least a partial replacement for departed 3-and-D forward Dorian Finney-Smith.
The Lakers seemed to have a puncher’s chance at winning the NBA championship this past season after trading for Luka Doncic on Feb. 1. But they were forced to build chemistry on the fly, and it was one reason they lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Former Lakers guard Derek Fisher, who won five world titles alongside the late great Kobe Bryant, said that while Doncic’s arrival gave the Purple and Gold a higher level of belief, the team needs continuity and experience together to win it all.
“To be a championship-level team, you need to have some sort of valuable experience together as a group that kind of bonds you together in ways that just playing 40 games doesn’t do.
“… In terms of the Lakers specifically, the ability will be there any time you have LeBron James and Luka Doncic on the same team, you can beat anybody in the league. There’s no question about that. But to win a seven-game series when it matters the most, I gotta know how you’re going to react when that fire gets hot. If you’re more of a guy that’s going to let your whole arm burn off and I’m the type of guy that when it’s starts getting hot I’m trying to get away from the fire, if we don’t know that about each other yet, it’s hard to get that key stop you’ve got to get in the fourth quarter of a big game.”
Fisher added that he feels L.A.’s roster will be talented enough, but that it needs to develop that togetherness in order to win those big, contentious playoff games that make the difference between bringing home the big hardware and going home disappointed.
He was once in a situation that was similar to the one the Lakers found themselves in this past season. When the 2007-08 season began, it was unknown if Bryant wanted to stick around after he had demanded a trade over the summer. After losing in the first round of the playoffs with a weak roster the previous two seasons, the Lakers started 26-11 and then acquired Hall of Fame big man Pau Gasol via trade.
They reached the NBA Finals, but the Boston Celtics, their opponents there, had more roster continuity, and they ended up losing to Boston in six games. The Lakers, of course, won the next two world championships, including one over those same Celtics in 2010.