Over the last few weeks, an increasing number of people have started believing the Los Angeles Lakers could be a threat to win this year’s NBA championship.
They had the league’s second-best record after the All-Star break and finished the regular season by winning 10 of their last 12 games. They seemed to reinforce their newfound status as a legitimate threat by taking Game 1 of their first-round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies, 128-112, on Sunday.
Lamar Odom, a forward who played for the Lakers from 2005-2011 and won two world championship rings with them in 2009 and 2010, said that if LeBron James remains healthy, they will win it all this year.
Via TMZ.com:
“God James. His name is God James. The god of basketball,” Odom said. “As long as we healthy, we’re gonna win a championship.”
Perhaps Odom is thinking L.A. will make a run similar to the one it made with him in 2008 when a midseason trade for Pau Gasol transformed it from a decent squad when healthy to a juggernaut. It ended up reaching the NBA Finals where it lost in six games to the Boston Celtics.
This year, trades for Rui Hachimura, D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley and Mo Bamba salvaged the Lakers’ season and made them look reborn.
