Bold Prediction

While watching the Lakers game yesterday against the Rockets one thing kept coming to mind. With or without Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol, the Lakers still cannot play defense. Therefore, going forward, I will make a very bold prediction.

The Lakers and Kobe Bryant will see number 6 this year. It just may not be the number 6 that Lakers fans what to see. No Kobe will not win his 6th ring. This will be the 6th season in Lakers history that they do not make the post season.

Dating back to the 1940's when the Lakers franchise represented Minneapolis, they have only missed the playoffs a total of 5 times. And to think Mr. Buss built this monster team to sweep through the west coast and bring Kobe to the mountaintop (that is bring him up to where his idol, Jordan is). This is looking to be the a very expensive experiment that has failed. Going into last night's game the injured players on LA's roster made up 51 million dollars of the payroll (equivalent to the Rockets payroll, period).

The 2012-2013 Lakers team currently stands four games below .500 having played 34 games so far. Now that may not be a big deal to some but it is to me when looking at the big picture. Standing in 11th place in a western conference that has 6 teams guaranteed to make the playoffs, another 4 teams that are young and athletic with deeper rosters than the Lakers. All of these teams are above .500,  so it's safe to say Lakerland should be in panic mode.

To close out the week Kobe's squad has to face the never aging but old Spurs and the top seeded Thunder. It's plausible to see the almighty Los Angeles Lakers a whopping 6 games below .500 mid way through January. Granted, after this week the schedule does lighten up for them, but knowing this season's purple and gold, no game is an easy win.

After letting Mike Brown go because the Lakers weren't winning, the Buss family employed Mike D'Antoni. Unfortunately, the reason why there were no wins was because there was no defense. Now it's new coach same results. D'Antoni's lack of defense is so bad that Amare Stoudemire (a big time player who's career was almost entirely played under D'Antoni) was recently quoted as saying he need had a coach that taught him defense. Even though the Nash-D'Antoni reunion sounded promising it probably will not work because depending on a point guard that is almost 40 to carry you to the promised land may be too much even for Nash. (Sidenote: Congratulations to Nash who surpassed 10000 assists, being only the 5th person to do that).

Kobe seems to be the only constant for LA as he currently leads the league in scoring but obviously that isn't enough. Dwight Howard has been the definition of a disappointment this season. The idea of having two 7 footers who can provide offense and defense is a falsehood in Hollywood. Howard is much more of a liability than an asset and his trade value is declining. To save their season and to prove my prediction to be inaccurate, they need to trade him ASAP. Only problem with that is he probably won't do a sign and trade deal and no team in the league will probably rent a hobbled Howard for a season especially with what the Lakers will ask for in return.

As a fan who despises the Lakers but somehow finds a way to surround myself with Laker fans, it delights me to make this prediction.

The Los Angeles Lakers of 2012-2013 will NOT make the playoffs.