{"id":622089,"date":"2026-02-24T15:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/622089\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T15:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:15:15","slug":"lakers-legend-gets-brutally-honest-about-teams-title-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/622089\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Legend Gets Brutally Honest About Team’s Title Chances"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers have a lot of star power during the 2025-26 season, with LeBron James and Luka Doncic leading the way, and Austin Reaves starting to make a name for himself in the NBA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even though the Lakers don\u2019t lack stars, with this trio being among some of the best in the league, Los Angeles has many flaws<\/a>, which could be the team\u2019s undoing once the NBA playoffs roll around on April 18.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that this talented trio in Los Angeles can light up the scoreboard on a nightly basis, but they are not leading a good team defensively, and that continues to be a major issue in the final stretch of the regular season.<\/p>\n

Byron Scott: Lakers Have \u2018No\u2019 Chance to Win a Title This Year<\/p>\n

One Lakers legend who has a lot of experience in this area, Byron Scott, who won three championships with the storied franchise, doesn\u2019t think his former team has any chance of winning it all this year, as he said on his Fast Break podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey ain\u2019t winning no championship this year,\u201d Scott said of the Lakers\u2019 title chances. \u201cListen, we all bleed purple and gold, but again, you got to be 100. They ain\u2019t winning no championship this year. They don\u2019t have enough. They don\u2019t have enough. They got obviously three great players, right? But you need 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cOKC won the championship last year \u2019cause they were 10 deep. If you watch an OKC game right now and they win the game, if you watch them doing an interview with Shai, guess what? Almost the whole team is around him. That is us in the \u201980s, where everybody wants everybody to do well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although it may seem harsh how adamantly Scott shoots down any notion of the Lakers being a legitimate title contender this season, it\u2019s hard to argue he isn\u2019t right on the money with his assessment, especially when comparing the team to the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who are firing on all cylinders once again this season.<\/p>\n

The fact of the matter is that the Lakers simply aren\u2019t a good defensive team, and that will be a glaring weakness come playoff time in the same way it was last year when they were eliminated in the first round by Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games.<\/p>\n

Until the Lakers make some drastic defensive changes, which will likely come this summer in NBA free agency and through trades, the team will have to settle for being a tier below the elite teams in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers have a lot of star power during the 2025-26 season, with LeBron James and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":["post-622089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-lakers","tag-basketball","tag-la","tag-la-lakers","tag-lakers","tag-lalakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleslakers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116126267880217737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}