Los Angeles Lakers A Long Way From Repeating
Despite Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade’s utterance that the Los Angeles Lakers are the favorites to repeat as NBA champions, Kobe Bryant’s team shouldn’t just be handed the trophy now. The road as a defending champion is always longer and more arduous than the previous one.
There are more expectations and thus more pressure. The mentality of fans is “If the Lakers won the title last year and kept every significant piece on their roster, why can’t they do it again?”
The answer is twofold. For one thing, a bull's eye is inevitably placed on the back of each defending champion. It’s now squarely affixed between the numbers of the purple and gold jerseys. Especially on the back of Kobe Bryant’s No. 24.
Secondly, the rest of the league is only getting better. Major threats to the Lakers supremacy exist throughout the league.
In the Western Conference, the young Oklahoma City Thunder have their eyes set on knocking the Lakers from their perch atop the conference.
Oklahome City general manager Sam Presti has done a marvelous job drafting and developing young players. He now has an All-Star nucleus in Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. When Wade and LeBron James teamed up in Miami, Durant may very well have become the preseason favorite for the MVP.
In the wake of the Lakers triumph, it’s tough to remember this Thunder team almost eliminated the Lakers from the playoffs. After going 50-32 in the regular season and more than doubling its win total from the 2008-09 season, Durant’s team almost took the Lakers to a seventh game. Instead, the Thunder failed to secure a victory in the sixth and lost the series 4-2.
What really should worry Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant, and the rest of the Lakers is the fact that the Thunder have only gotten better.
Durant has an additional year of experience and is already the league’s youngest scoring champion ever. This season he will not be stopped easily.
Jeff Green and Russell Westbrook could both prove to be All-Stars by the end of this season. Thabo Sefolosha is a great fit for the team as well.
The Thunder were missing experience, and the playoff series against the Lakers was invaluable for that. They were also missing a great big man, which is exactly what Presti addressed in the 2010 NBA Draft.
The Thunder drafted the 6’11” center Cole Aldrich from Kansas. Aldrich was known for his physical play and using his massive body during his collegiate career. His toughness was no more evident than when he had teeth knocked out of his mouth and chose to play with the gaps clearly visible.
Aldrich is not a scorer, but the team doesn’t really need that. The shot-blocking ability of the behemoth will be invaluable to the young team in their quest to defeat the Lakers.
Now, even if the Lakers do manage to sneak by the Thunder and the Western Conference, the balance of power in the league has shifted to the Eastern Conference.
The East has the Heat’s trifecta of Wade, James, and Chris Bosh. Jeff Van Gundy thinks this team is good enough to aim for the Bulls’ all time record 72 regular season wins. Now that they’ve added Mike Miller and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, among others, while retaining Udonis Haslem and Mario Chalmers, there is no reason to believe otherwise.
Celtic green still reigns supreme in the East for the time being as they are the defending champions of the conference.
Will that last? Probably not, but with three sure-fire Hall of Famers in Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce on the squad, you can never count them out. It doesn’t hurt to have Rajon Rondo, arguably the best point guard in the league, on the roster either.
The East also has the ever-improving Orland Magic and the rising Chicago Bulls in the conference.
Even if the Lakers make it to the NBA Finals, which will be enough of a challenge in itself, the final best-of-seven series will most likely be against one of the aforementioned four teams in the East, any of whom have the potential to defeat the defending champions.
Finally, what about the Lakers themselves?
Bryant, Derek Fisher, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom have all gotten a year older and endured the physical toll inherent in the NBA aging process. We saw Kobe play all year with a taped finger, so there’s no telling what malady may plague him next.
Ron Artest could implode at any time. Derrick Caracter may earn playing time and initiate resentment amongst the team for receiving minutes at such a young age. Anything can happen. That’s the territory that comes with being the defending champion.
Will the Lakers accept this burden? Absolutely. They get to hang up yet another banner from the rafters of the Staples Center.
The Lakers are an incredibly talented team. Bryant is arguably the best player in the league and a select few think he’s the greatest basketball player of all time. Gasol is the most talented offensive center in the league. Artest is a shutdown defender and the rest of the pieces on their team are quite solid.
They could absolutely win the NBA Championship for the third year in a row.
But the road to another championship is a long one indeed.
