The Los Angeles Lakers enter this season with a championship-or-bust mindset. LeBron James is entering his 21st season and it is unclear how much longer can maintain his level of play. The Lakers need him to be great if they want to win.
The Lakers made so many great moves this offseason that they have put themselves in a great position to win it all. They brought back a lot of their key pieces from last year on long-term deals and added some solid new contributors.
In order to win a championship a lot of things have to go right. You have to have a good regular season, stay healthy, run into the right opponents to win one. Here are three keys the Lakers need to have a successful season.
Lakers keys to success: 3. Defense
One of the biggest cliches in sports is "Defense wins championships.'' For the most part, this is true in a lot of sports because as long as someone's opponent scores less than them, they win the game. Most championship teams in the NBA have great defenses.
For the majority of last season the Lakers had struggled defensively. Anthony Davis was in and out of the lineup and no one else on that team could really play defense. Then the trade deadline happened, they got some great defenders and the Lakers would go on to have a top three defense to close out the season.
When the Lakers matched up against the Nuggets, they couldn't stop Jamal Murray out on the permieter and struggled with guarding Nikola Jokic in the post. Jokic is a tough guard because he can do so many thnigs on offense.
The Lakers answered this problem by getting Gabe Vincent, Tauren Prince, Cam Reddish, and re-signing Jared Vanderbilt. They are all great perimeter defenders which is a huge plus for the Lakers. D'Angelo Russell had struggled defensively in the Western Conference Final and took that to heart and worked on his defense.
To pair with all of the great defensive role players the Lakers have, they have a Defensive Player of the Year candidate in Davis. The defensive tenacity starts and ends with him. When he sets a defensive presence on the court, everyone else will follow.
The Lakers have the potential to be the best defensive team in basketball. This is extremely scary because their offense is clicking really well together and their defensive potential can make them dominant.
2. Austin Reaves as a solid third option
A lot of the championship contenders in the NBA all have a good to great third option. The Suns have Bradley Beal, the Nuggets have Michael Porter Jr., the Celtics have Jrue Holiday, the Bucks have Khris Middleton and the Lakers have Austin Reaves.
Austin Reaves, at the moment, is not viewed in the same light as the guys listed above but the Lakers organization expects him to take the next step. When he was put into the starting lineup, he rose, showed he belonged and continued that play into the playoffs.
Reaves can do just about everything. He can defend, move off the ball, pass, score and he is a great shooter. His craftiness and ability to draw fouls allow him to get easy buckets at the rim. His ability to play off the ball with LeBron James and Davis allows him to get wide-open 3s.
He is someone that LeBron James trusts. There may be nothing more important than that because he can be relied on to make the right play, hit a big shot, make clutch free throws, or make a defensive stop.
The Lakers need him to become that third option so they can be dangerous threats to win it all. No one should expect him to be an All-Star next season but if he is able to maintain that level of play from the western conference finals, the Lakers are looking even more dangerous.
1. The Lakers have to stay healthy
The single most important thing for the Lakers is that they stay healthy. There is definitely a big cloud that surrounds the Lakers because of their two superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis being injury prone.
Both James and Davis are top 10 players in the NBA and Davis is arguably the best two-way player in the league. When both of them are out on the court, the Lakers always have a shot to win. The only problem is that neither of them has played 70 percent of the team's games since the 2019-20 season.
If LeBron James and Anthony Davis can't stay healthy, the Lakers will have a very shaky season. Injuries were one of the big reasons they were the seventh seed and won 43 games last year. LeBron dealing with a foot injury had plagued him in the playoffs.
The best ability is availability. Teams have the best shot at winning every game when their best players are out on the court. The Lakers do have enough depth to get by if James or Davis gets hurt but that would not be ideal.
The best shot that the Lakers have at winning it all is making sure that their star players are healthy come the postseason. Getting to the playoffs is a journey within itself but one where a lot of players have underlying injuries. If they stay healthy they have a great shot at winning it all.