Evaluating Lakers Championship Chance & Potential Playoff Route
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:03 There are odds to win the championship.
00:05 It's kind of funny here.
00:07 They're really prohibitive.
00:09 I mean, they're 50 to 1.
00:10 Regular season wins 43 and a half.
00:13 For me, it's like I don't see the Lakers winning the championship, but
00:16 you look at a lot of the other teams that are in the range and
00:19 it leads you down the road to think, yeah, look, I mean, they have
00:22 squeaked their way into these play-in games and the West and
00:26 they're simply gonna try to do that again and then make a run at the playoffs.
00:31 You see those lines there, Gilbert.
00:33 Is there anything that catches, I mean, let's use the 27 to 1,
00:36 because I think taking them to win the championship's a little optimistic.
00:39 Is that a pick of any kind that you would make, 27 to 1 to win the West?
00:44 >> Last year taught us that anything could happen with this Lakers team.
00:50 Specifically, they made a run from the play-in tournament to the Western
00:54 Conference Finals where they were quite frankly outmatched.
00:57 I do think the West has gotten much stronger this year with the emergence of
01:01 the Clippers and obviously the emergence of the young teams like the Oklahoma City
01:04 Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
01:06 That said, I think this Lakers team is banking on their playoff experience,
01:10 banking on the fact that they've made a championship run with LeBron James,
01:14 Anthony Davis.
01:15 Those guys are four years older than they were when they won the championship in
01:18 2020, but still, they're still playing at an all-star level, top 10,
01:22 top 15 player in the league, depending on who you ask.
01:25 And I don't think they're afraid of some of these less established teams.
01:29 I think the Clippers and Nuggets don't count in that group, but
01:32 if you can get the way, especially the way the teams at the top of the Western
01:35 Conference are sorted out, they could end up eliminating one another,
01:39 creating a better path for the Lakers to maybe have some good matchups.
01:43 I don't think the Lakers are capable of going that far, but at the same time,
01:47 if things shake their way and these small moves in the margins can help them out,
01:50 it's not completely out of the realm of possibility.
01:53 [MUSIC]