Can Lakers Win West Title Without Bynum?

When Andrew Bynum fell to the floor in agony Sunday night, the Laker world felt a big blow to the stomach. But fear not Laker fans, because as you saw in Madison Square Garden the other night, No. 24 will not let the Lakers slip.

And besides, the Lakers are just too solid and too deep to really drop from the top spot in the West this year without Bynum in the line-up for a few months. The main concern with Bynum going down is home court advantage in the Finals, which proved to be more than critical last year against Boston.

The difference in losses between Boston, L.A., Cleveland, and Orlando is just too small to drop a lot more games between now and the end of the season so the Lakers do have some concerns in that aspect. But Orlando just lost Jameer Nelson for what looks like to be the whole season, which will most definitely hurt Orlando’s chances a lot, considering how well he has been playing this season.

But back to Bryant, Kobe is way too hungry and focused to let this team slip mentally or physically. He will push the team as he did last year at the end of the season. Plus, the Lakers have another all-star on the team named Pau Gasol who will have to bring up his play as he in the last few games.

But the X-factor for the Lakers is definitely Lamar Odom.

Lamar has been up and down in his play all year. He needs to step up and be the consistent scorer that he seems to be from time to time. If he can put up solid numbers such as 14 points and eight to nine rebounds a game, then the Lakers will be able to continue their offensive dominance. And defensively he needs to continue what he has been doing by helping out on smaller guards when needed.

The team the Lakers need to fear most in the Western Conference is San Antonio.

They have been very solid of late and their Big Three have been playing amazingly. Parker is scoring more than he ever has during the regular season and Ginobli and Duncan are doing the great things they’ve always done in the past. Plus, Roger Mason has proven to be a great addition and clutch scorer in his first season.

Saying that, the Spurs are going to have a hard time catching up to the Lakers in the standing, especially if Popovich is going to leave out starters for big games just to give them rest. The Lakers have too much depth in their line-up that can play big minutes if need be. While the Spurs really only have a couple guys that can really do any damage.

But in the playoffs, if Bynum is not back the Lakers really need to play well to defeat the spurs in a seven game series. Bynum gave San Antonio loads of trouble with his size.

On offense no one was big enough to stop him and on defense he really made it tough on Duncan to do anything. So San Antonio is really the only legitimate threat come playoff time. New Orleans relies on Chris Paul too much and the Lakers can out run Denver any day.

And in terms of the Lakers and whether they are championship material or not without Bynum, they will most certainly be tested this week on the road against East contenders, Boston and Cleveland.