Lake Show Start bracing yourself for a Los Angeles Lakers championship. Unless injuries to key players hamper the team’s progress, the Lakers will be tough to beat all year long.The season is less than a month old, and things could change before June, (Christ the NBA season is long) but here are a few troubling signs this is the Lakers’ year:° The Lakers are a league best 11-1° Reigning Most Valuable Player Kobe Bryant is averaging less than 34 minutes a game. That means he’ll be fresh for the postseason.° Pau Gasol has transitioned from center to the power-forward position effortlessly.° The Lakers’ depth got even stronger with star forward Lamar Odom coming off the bench ° The team is committed to defense. They force turnovers and keep offenses on their toes the whole game.° They can win even when they’re not playing their best. Yesterday, the Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings even though they committed 17 turnovers.° The rest of the Western Conference looks worse than last year. After the Lakers at 11-1, the Nuggets, Rockets, Jazz and Suns are tied at a less than stellar 9-5.The only team that looks capable of stopping the Lakers is the same team that dropped them in the Finals last year: The Boston Celtics. At 13-2, the Celts are picking up right where they left off last year. Still, the Lakers look better than they did last season, and the teams’ chemistry is only going to improve.
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