The Los Angeles Lakers caught some of the absolute worst breaks at the worst time. Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves are both out indefinitely. Even worse, this happened just as they appeared to have figured themselves out.
All indications are that the Houston Rockets will be their first-round opponent, and because of what LA is working against, there evidently won’t be much optimism going in.
Why One Executive Believes the Rockets Have an Edge Over the Lakers
While speaking with ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and Brian Windhorst, a Western Conference executive said he believes the Rockets’ defense will stop the Lakers.
“Houston’s defense,” the executive told them, “will just swallow them up.”
The Rockets have also caught some bad breaks this season, as losing Fred VanVleet before opening night and Steven Adams midseason have hurt their functionality as a group. But even then, that’s not much compared to who the Lakers have more than likely lost for the first round of the playoffs.
After James, the Lakers’ best offensive players are Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart, and Luke Kennard. Houston has Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., Kevin Durant, and Tari Eason to throw at them.
It would have been easier to have VanVleet and Adams by their side, but the Lakers, sadly, may be an easy enough challenge with how undermanned they are that it won’t matter.
The biggest shame of this potential series is that, at full strength, it would be awesome. Besides having two of the NBA’s very best players of all time going up against one another in the twilight of their careers with James vs. Durant, both the Lakers and Rockets had pretty loaded rosters at full strength.
Because both of these teams are missing key ingredients, the Lakers more than the Rockets, this could be one of the more boring series in the playoffs.
However, this is also a rare opportunity for James to prove how much he has left in the tank. This is probably the weakest roster he’s had to go to battle with since the 2018 Cleveland Cavaliers.
Of course, that was eight years ago when James had more of his prime left, but it’s fair to suggest that he may thrive in a situation like this due to familiarity. The Rockets may never know what James and the Lakers will have up their sleeves.
On the flip side, this would be a full-circle moment if the Rockets beat the Lakers, as they were among the teams the Lakers beat in the bubble to get their lone title in the James era. It would be poetic to see them be the team that effectively ended the James era in LA.
