WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – LeBron James and the Miami Heat may be the centerpiece of the NBA’s three-ring publicity circus, but it is the Los Angeles Lakers who experts feel are poised to win another championship.
Until they are knocked off their pedestal, many pundits believe 32-year-old Kobe Bryant and the two-time defending champion Lakers remain the team to beat.
“The Lakers clearly have the best team. If they stay healthy I don’t see any reason why they can’t win again,” Hall of Famer Jerry West told Reuters.
Former NBA coach Jack Ramsay, who led the Portland Trail Blazers to the 1976-1977 NBA title and is now an analyst for ESPN, echoed West’s sentiments.
“The Lakers are a team that is deep, experienced, and has a leader in Kobe Bryant,” Ramsay said. “They’re the defending champion. Assuming that Andrew Bynum is going to recover fully (from a knee injury), this is a very, very good team.
“I think they’ll win it.”
The Lakers will open their season against the Houston Rockets on Tuesday and the bulk of the lineup that led the team to a championship last season will be on the court.
Even Lakers head coach Phil Jackson, who has a record 11 NBA titles, shelved plans to retire at the end of last season because he feels that Lakers can win another title.
The hype surrounding the Heat is unprecedented after free agents James and Chris Bosh decided to join fellow All-Star Dwyane Wade in Miami to create a potential NBA juggernaut.
The team even moved their pre-season home to an Air Force base in northwestern Florida, no doubt to better control the crush of media attention.
But while many experts fell the Heat will waltz their way to the championship, there is no shortage of pundits who say they will not even win the Eastern Conference.
Ramsay likes the Heat but said they are unproven and has reservations about crowning them champions before they even play their first regular-season game together.
“They’re a lot of teams that have had three very good players, though maybe not at the level of these three. But there are two other positions to be played,” Ramsay, enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1992, told Reuters.
“And Boston and Orlando are not going to sit there twiddling their thumbs and allow the Heat to walk through there. They’re going to battle.”
Crowded backcourt
Ramsay said the Heat may run into trouble because James and Wade, while unselfish, play basically the same position.
“Who is going to run the offense?” said Ramsay. “How does it play out between Wade and James? What kind of gameplan do you have and how are the shots apportioned?”
The Celtics should be back in the mix to repeat as Eastern Conference champions, having acquired free agents Shaquille O’Neal and Jermaine O’Neal during the offseason.
Orlando, champions of the East two years ago, also should be a force having added point guard Chris Duhon to a club that went 59-23 last season.
