What Lakers must do to be title contenders

1. Can they stay healthy?
   James arrived in Los Angeles in 2018 by reaching the Finals in each of the previous eight seasons. That incredible streak was snapped during his first season as a Laker in part due to a Christmas Day groin injury that cost him more than a month of the season. After James and the Lakers won a title on the Bubble in 2020, the injury bug returned when Solomon Hill collided with James’ ankle, undermining last season’s title defense.

King James was once the iron man of professional basketball, but that’s no longer the case. An ankle injury has already sidelined him for several games this season. Meanwhile, this is only the fifth time in his career that Davis has played in each of his team’s first eight games. While James has been relatively healthy throughout his career, Davis has a long history of injuries, including a groin strain that hampered him during the Lakers’ first-round playoff loss to the Phoenix Suns in June.

The numbers are clear: If James and Davis are healthy, this team can be a problem for the rest of the league. If not, the Lakers are headed for mediocrity.

Since 2019-20, the Lakers have an 85-32 record in games when both Davis and James play. That’s a 73% winning percentage; by comparison, the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA’s best regular-season team in that span, have won 69% of their games. However, in games in which James has played without Davis, that drops to 59%. In games in which Davis has played without James, it drops to 43%.

The Lakers look like contenders when they have James and Davis available, and are less scary when they don’t. The best skill in the NBA is availability, which is especially true for James and Davis this season.

2. Can they play great defense?
   Frank Vogel has done a great job of turning the league’s brightest franchise into one of the league’s best defenses. The Lakers have ranked in the defensive top 10 in each of the last two seasons, which is important because 19 of the last 20 NBA champion teams have ranked in the top 10 in defensive rating during those title seasons, with the lone exception, the 2017. -18 Golden State Warriors, ranked 11th. When the Lakers won it all in 2019-20, they ranked third in the league in defense and eight in points per game allowed in the paint.

But after shipping out Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma in the deal to acquire Westbrook and adding Anthony to the bench, this team faces fair questions about whether it can get stops like the starting lineup did. The early results are not good. Through their first eight games, the Lakers rank 16th in the NBA in defensive efficiency, and are allowing more points in the paint per game than any other team in the league at 53.8 per game.

Vogel has already made some adjustments. Rajon Rondo has moved out of the rotation; the team’s defensive rating when he and Westbrook shared the court was 130.6. DeAndre Jordan has moved to the bench, with Davis at center the last two games, and Dwight Howard hasn’t played either of the last two games. Given that they went against a Houston team that is 1-6, it’s too early to declare the moves a success, but the Lakers did post a 97.1 defensive rating in back-to-back wins.

There is still plenty of time for the Lakers to improve on the defensive end, but their overall defense – and particularly their paint defense – are key markers to watch for improvement in both categories, but these are key markers to watch for this group. If they can coalesce into another top-10 defense and protect the rim, they’ll be contenders. If they can’t, they won’t.

3. Will they have enough shooting?
   The Lakers are loaded with offensive talent, but the one thing James, Westbrook and Davis have in common is that, as scorers, they’ve all traditionally been at their best attacking the rim. For years, these three superstars have feasted in the paint, but haven’t really scared opponents outside of it.

That’s changing for James, who has developed a reliable jump shot and is leaning on it more than ever in Year 19. Through eight games, James is taking 40.2% of his shots from beyond the three-point arc. That rate is up more than five points from last season, and more than double what it was just six years ago, when less than 20% of his shots were three-pointers.

It’s been a remarkable inside-out metamorphosis that is helping a player who ferociously dominated the paint for more than a decade extend his career into his 30s. But James’ new perimeter game will also help the Lakers’ rotation in particular, which has few outside shooters.

Since the 2018-19 season, 69 NBA players have attempted at least 1,000 jump shots. Among that large group, Westbrook and Davis have been the two least efficient shooters, according to Second Spectrum. As the season progresses, defenses will pack the paint and challenge this team to beat them with jump shots, because aside from Kent Bazemore and the red-hot Anthony, who has made more than half of his threes so far, the Lakers’ rotation doesn’t include consistent shooting threats.

To his credit, Anthony has thrived early this season and provided the team with much-needed spacing. But without Anthony on the court, the Lakers have not scored well at all. In the 171 minutes he has been on the bench this year, the team has a woeful offensive rating of just 98.9, largely due to inefficient shooting. The Lakers have hit just 32% of their jump shots in those minutes.

Anthony’s emergence as the key spacing agent on this team is a great story early in the season. Last season, Anthony shot 41% on three-pointers, the highest rate of his career. This season, that percentage is 52.9%, which ranks first in the league among 32 players who have attempted at least 50 three-pointers this season.

Anthony is behind only Stephen Curry in catch-and-shoot threes per game this season, but can that continue? I’m skeptical, at least at these current rates. In a world where Anthony comes back to earth, gets hurt or blows up on defense, the biggest question for this offense will be whether they can make enough outside shots to open up the paint for James, Davis and Westbrook to attack the rim.

4. Will other contenders emerge from the West?

The Lakers are not playing in a vacuum and ultimately the outcome of their season also depends on the fate of other teams, especially those in the West. The balance of power in the NBA has migrated to the East. Not only are the Bucks now the defending champions, but teams like Brooklyn and Miami are also legitimate contenders to win it all. Seven Eastern Conference teams have already won at least five games, compared to just three (including the Lakers) in the West. That’s partly because the West field has been decimated by injuries, as stars like Kawhi Leonard, Jamal Murray and Klay Thompson have yet to play.

It’s too early to tell, but the Lakers remain the betting favorites in the West for good reason. They’re loaded with talent and staying relatively healthy, and the road to the Finals could be right up their alley.

Oh, and they still have LeBron James.