Since the Los Angeles Lakers won James, the team has dominated the league in recent years. Although the Lakers experienced injury setbacks in the 2020-21 season, which led to their failure, the Lakers with James and Davis are still the league's playoff teams.
So in the summer of 2021, the Lakers made a series of major choices, starting with the fact that they gave up all of their players except for James, Davis and Tucker, and also traded westbrook. They signed a bunch of seasoned veterans. Lakers veterans like Howard, Rondo, Bazemore, Ellington, Ariza and Bradley are all back on the Lakers. They also signed veterans like Jordan Jr. and Cameron Anthony.
For the Lakers' losses in the preseason and opener of the new season, former NBA players Stephen Jackson and Paul Pierce talked about some issues about the Lakers, and they also expressed their views. Stephen Jackson praised the addition of Westbrook and Anthony, noting that the two would bring more benefits to the team. But if their addition doesn't bring a championship, then "Los Angeles is going to be bad."
However, Pierce compared the 2021-22 Lakers to the 2003-04 Lakers, and Pierce believes that the Lakers' signing of experienced superstars like Kal Malone and Gary Payton should help them win the championship. So he questioned the health of LeBron James and Westbrook, and mentioned the ball possession problems of the two players.
Stephen Jackson said: "It's great to see Anthony have a chance to win a championship, and it's also great to see Davis, LeBron and Westbrook get together, as a basketball fan and also as a former NBA player, it's exciting to see these three players in the same uniform, and if they can't win the championship, L.A. will be terrible." ”
Pierce said: "This team really gave me the feeling that when the Lakers and Kobe Were together, Carl Malone, Gary Payton at the Lakers. If they're healthy, they should be in the Finals, but that's their problem, they're old, how Willy-Young will fit into LeBron... Westbrook has always been dominated by possession. But sorry, LeBron will have the ball in his hands and James is still a 26+7+7 player for one night, can Westbrook make such a adjustment? That's what we have to know. ”
Lakers veterans, except for James Davis, not all players are the Lakers' most needed players this season, the team is likely to make personnel adjustments in the middle of the regular season, although the team has young Nunn and Munch and others, but their offensive and defensive is not stable, the Lakers have to go farther in the playoffs, relying on them is far from good enough. The Lakers' preseason and opener start to the new season are not good, and Westbrook has not yet found his own rhythm, although James told Westbrook to forget these bad performances and concentrate on the new game.
But don't forget james, Westbrook, Anthony, Howard, Rondo, Jordan Jr., these are all-Stars of the past, they are no longer the all-stars who have an absolute advantage in the game, although they can still bring great contributions to the team, but injuries are already their biggest enemies, which makes them unable to give their full strength on both ends of the offensive and defensive ends, allowing them to win the final victory. Still, many see the Los Angeles Lakers as one of the favourites to win the NBA championship this season.
To know that comparing the current Lakers with the Lakers in the 2003-2004 season is undoubtedly telling us that injuries and age will ruin the Lakers' hopes of winning the championship. Even if the Lakers had veterans like Carl Malone and Gary Payton, Kobe Bryant also made the team struggle because of the ball rights problem. The current Lakers are similar to the Lakers of that year, and the focus is on whether the current Lakers can solve this problem.