Why lakers will win 2018

They are projected to win only Outlook : Don't be fooled, folks. Their SportsLine projects his presence to bring in a win improvement from last year's team. Outlook : The Mavericks had a fairly quiet offseason in large part because of an atrocious regular-season record of But drafting Luka Doncic , a frontrunner for Rookie of the Year, and signing DeAndre Jordan in free agency are big reasons why the Mavs could bounce back into the playoff picture a year removed from its worst season since the season.

Outlook : Memphis ' tank job last season was exacerbated by a short-handed roster that was without Mike Conley , its all-everything point guard who is the heart and soul of the Grizzlies. They won just 22 games last season in his absence.

So as we look ahead to next season, his return is the biggest factor in the projected uptick. Adams: I feel like a broken record, but there are two ways to look at this once again.

It's not an issue because of everything you just said. The other is Michael Jordan. You can go on down the list of comparing his statistical dominance to other greats and he stacks up very nicely. It's an issue because AD's experience falls short of LeBron's other championship sidekicks. Dwyane Wade was already a champion. When the Cavs won it all in , Kyrie Irving had already gone through one deep run and played in the Finals. And even in the case of Wade, it took a failed attempt before they ultimately got the job done.

There's going to be a moment - whether it's against the Clippers or Rockets or Bucks or somebody - in which Davis is going to be called upon and there's really just no way of knowing how he'll respond in that moment until we see it. Rafferty: That's fair. I guess I'm not worried about Davis in the playoffs for the first 43 minutes of every game.

It's those final five minutes where he's going to have something to prove. Because like you said, there is going to be a time where he's going to have to step up big for the Lakers in the clutch in order to win a championship. We haven't really seen him in a high stakes situation yet.

Adams: And that's where the stylistic differences between Davis, Irving and Wade come into play. In the past, James has had another All-Star calibre player along for the ride in the final five minutes that he could give the ball to and get help in creating off the bounce. For as incredible as Davis is, he's not that guy. As you said that's just not his game.

Only time will tell if that rears its head. For what it's worth Well, he went 6-for on those same shots in during the regular season. Who was it that hit the biggest shot in the Finals en route to winning the title? Kyrie Irving, who by the way outscored James in the clutch during that postseason.

So the clutch-time struggles which we already went into and the stylistic differences in second bananas do intersect and there could come a time when LeBron needs Davis to come through if the Lakers plan on hanging banner No.

Adams: So we've touched on the clutch-time struggles and the lack of experience for Davis. Are there any other major red flags that jump out as reasons the Lakers won't win it all in Orlando?

Rafferty: Ultimately, how LeBron and AD play will go a long way in determining how successful the Lakers are in the playoffs. I guess the only concern I have is that the Lakers don't have quite enough shooting around them for them to be at their best. They've obviously been incredibly successful this season despite not being a 3-point shooting team, but I'm guessing that's something the best teams will look to exploit in the playoffs.

Adams: It's why the addition of Danny Green was so important. Looking up and down the roster, there's really not anyone else I'd trust to knock down timely shots when teams inevitably load up on LeBron and AD, which you know they're going to do.

Rafferty: And the problem with that is Green really wasn't very good in the playoffs last season. He went from shooting If that happens again, that would be much more troublesome to the Lakers than it was to the Raptors because they aren't exactly loaded with shooters. Adams: And that's a big problem when comparing this Lakers team to that Raptors team.

That Raptors team had scorers all over the place. The net ratings of the Lakers and the Houston Rockets are in the same neighborhood as these current Lakers, so those teams might serve as interesting comparison points for LeBron and company today.

Although they had a bottom-five regular-season net rating among modern champions, the defending champion Lakers won 56 games and finished second in the West. The Rockets hold the lowest regular-season net rating among all champions since the NBA expanded to 16 playoff teams in Like the Lakers, that championship squad played a number of games without one of its stars.

But while injury was the cause for L. Also like the current Lakers, who barely went over. The Lakers played an even larger proportion of minutes with at least one star last year. But that conversation comes into play only if the Lakers miss the playoffs. Plus, Chris and Seerat start their NBA affirmations by discussing the new rule changes and how they are affecting refereeing around the league. Paak and Bootsy Collins. What would it look like if a player was as tall as Joel Embiid while weighing a few pounds more than Steph Curry?

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