There’s no question that the Los Angeles Lakers were the big winners of the offseason. Landing LeBron James in free agency is a franchise-altering coup for an organization that is already among the most storied in league history. But plenty of questions still remain.
Team president Magic Johnson was unable to surround LeBron with the other superstar sidekicks he’d targeted this summer in Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, leaving a roster that is likely too young and inexperienced on the one hand, and past its prime on the other, to make much noise in the ultra-competitive West.
Undoubtedly, the Lakers should be markedly improved, and the conservative predictions are that they’ll at least be in the playoff hunt next season, but fans should probably temper their expectations a bit if they’re still harboring any delusions about them posing a legitimate threat to the Warriors.
The Warriors, for their part, and the always-outspoken Draymond Green, in particular, certainly aren’t losing any sleep over it, as he told Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated.
On whether the Warriors are worried about the Lakers: “Teams worry about us. We don’t worry about nobody. We are the champs. Why do we have to worry about anybody? They have to worry about us. They say we are ruining the league. I love it!”
Green has every reason to feel confident after helping lead the Warriors to their second straight title. But Green is conveniently ignoring the fact that Golden State trailed the Houston Rockets 3-2 in the Western Conference Finals until Chris Paul went down with a hamstring injury.
Granted, the Rockets have gone through some changes of their own this summer, but they proved that the Warriors aren’t invincible, even if Green is correct that that threat isn’t coming directly from Los Angeles next season.
