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There has been little reason to take the Los Angeles Lakers seriously as a contending team this season. The Lakers sit 13th in the Western Conference, meaning they have to leapfrog at least three teams to get into the play-in tournament.
But when LeBron James was asked whether his Lakers can be dangerous if they reach the postseason, he didn’t hesitate.
“I’ve always been confident in any club that I’ve been on once we got into the playoffs that we can compete with anyone, and I feel no different now,” James said during All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City. “With the roster, the way we’re shaped up right now, if we can finish off this regular season on the right foot, then we can compete versus anyone in the Western Conference, if not the whole league.”
It would be fair to dismiss James’ comments as the typical confidence of any athlete in his position. But as the second-half schedule kicks off Thursday with nine games, the NBA is as wide open as it has been in at least a generation.
It sets up a stretch drive that could play out in myriad ways.
Across the past 27 seasons — the period during which NBA.com has advanced stats available for teams — at least three teams have finished the regular season with a net rating of at least 5.0 in each of the previous 26.
This season? There are just two: the Boston Celtics (6.2) and Cleveland Cavaliers (5.8). There are none in the Western Conference; there hasn’t been a single season with fewer than two over the past 26 seasons.
Couple that with the possibility that the defending champion Golden State Warriors (29-29) and the James- and Anthony Davis-led Lakers (27-32) could emerge from the play-in tournament to face the top two seeds in the first round, and the West has never felt more unpredictable.
“If [the Warriors] get into a playoff series, we know what Steph [Curry] and Klay [Thompson] and Draymond [Green] and Andrew Wiggins are capable of doing. [And] right around the trade…
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