Los Angeles Lakers: 6 Reasons They Won't Win a Title for the Time Being

Ancient Greece fell. Ancient Rome fell. 

All great things fall eventually. The Lakers dynasty of the early 2000s collapsed, and now we are nearing the collapse of the late 2000s dynasty.

It's inevitable.

It was eventually going to happen, and all signs point toward it happening already right before our eyes.

There are several reasons why the glory days will end at Staples Center for at least a few years. These reasons are highlighted in the next six slides.

Kobe Is 33 and Getting Older

It's not that Kobe Bryant still can't be the best player in the game at 33. He most definitely can. He will still take over games and help the Lakers win numerous games.

It's that he has a lot of mileage on his body. He gets hurt too often in too many places. Last season he had about four body parts injured, and he was still playing with all of those wounds.

It's actually interesting when one really thinks about how long Kobe has been playing with that tape wrapped around his finger. It seems like it's been forever.

The older Bryant gets, the more injury-prone he will become. That's how life is. Brittleness comes with age, and Kobe Bryant is no different.

He may be only 33, but he's logged many minutes of basketball. He's been playing professionally since he was 18, and he is past his prime now.

This isn't to say that Kobe still can't be one of the best in the game. He has too much talent to let injuries completely take his game away. It will, however, make it exceedingly difficult for the Lakers to win a title without him.

They will need to win titles the way they won Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals. They will have to do it as a team—which brings us to our next point.

The Lakers Are Too Old as a Team

Everyone always calls the San Antonio Spurs old, but has anyone actually looked at some of the ages on the Lakers roster?

Ron Artest, Lamar Odom, Steve Blake, Matt Barnes, Pau Gasol and Luke Walton are all 31. Kobe is 33. Derek Fisher will be receiving Social Security benefits soon.

The only young Laker regular is Andrew Bynum, but he's so vulnerable to injury that it really doesn't matter that he's only 23.

Teams can't win titles when literally the whole team is over 30. These guys are all approaching the end of their primes. Other teams are younger, faster and more athletic. It's just very difficult to see the Lakers winning with a team like this unless they make changes.

Making changes, however, will be extremely difficult, as explained in our next slide.

Potential Hard Salary Cap

The Lakers currently pay their entire roster over $90 million.

It's highly likely that a hard salary cap will be set after the lockout is over, and the cap is speculated to be anywhere between $50 million to $70 million.

If this is the case, the Lakers will have to shed plenty of high-salary contracts so they can be under the cap. This means unless there is some sort of contract reconstruction amongst the players, the Lakers will have to sign some really marginal players at low salaries to fill up their roster.

Kobe Bryant will be getting paid close to $30 million in the next few seasons. If the salary cap is at $60 million, one player will be taking up almost half of the pie. Getting Dwight Howard or Chris Paul will become increasingly difficult.

There will need to be some sort of salary reconstruction in order for the Lakers to construct a competitive team. Merely dumping Luke Walton's contract is not going to fix anything.

LeBron James

Whether you hate him or love him, you can't not say that he won't get his title eventually.

The LeBron era is just getting started, folks. The Miami Heat weren't even supposed to make the NBA Finals this year. Most people thought it would take a few years for them to develop and become a powerhouse team.

Well, they've already made it, and after a painful defeat, LeBron and the Heat are hungrier than ever to win a title.

Best of all for the Heat, LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all took pay cuts to play in Miami, so the hard salary cap won't split them up. The Big Three are all in their primes, and they're going to be NBA Finals favorites every year until LeBron slows down.

Other Young, Athletic Teams

It's not just Miami that is getting stronger.

Oklahoma City, Memphis, Chicago and New York are all teams that are younger and more athletic than the Lakers.

The Thunder are slowly emerging as the best team in the Western Conference. Memphis showed great signs of improvement last season, and it's only getting better with its young core. Derrick Rose has turned Chicago competitive for the first time since the Michael Jordan era. The Knicks are one Chris Paul away from being a major threat.

The Lakers just don't match up to these teams at all. All of these teams are hungrier, younger and more exuberant. The brittle Lakers are in for a somber five years.

No More Zen

This is nothing against Mike Brown. The Mike Brown hiring was actually very good considering he knows LeBron James the best, and if the Lakers advance to the NBA Finals, they will probably be playing against Miami. His defensive mindset will also make it easier for the Lakers to contain some of the younger stars in the league.

However, Mike Brown is not Phil Jackson. Whoever the Lakers hired as head coach was going to be a major step backwards.

Jackson handled pressure unbelievably. He was a playoff coach. When the media and fans were critical of the Lakers, he would make his teams elevate their game to the next level and beyond.

Jackson was a playoff coach. He's irreplaceable. It'll be interesting to see how Brown handles the pressure in basketball-crazy Los Angeles. However he does it, it won't be the same way Phil did it.