Los Angeles Lakers: Blueprint for a championship run

4. Chemistry

The Lakers have a lot of talent on their roster but they also have a lot of egos. When you put that all in one locker room on paper, there is only one way to see if it will work and that is to do it for real.

It’s easy to say each guy has one goal in mind and that is to win a championship. But, a season is 82 games long and that’s not including the preseason and postseason, so these guys will spend a majority of their time together for a nine-month period and tensions could grow.

This team is built on veterans as the Lakers traded a majority of their future to the New Orleans Pelicans for Anthony Davis, the young ones of Kyle Kuzma and Talen Horton-Tucker will need the guidance of the veterans next year. When guys are on the same page and you have a winning culture it creates a fun environment and that will be key for the growth of this team next year with so many new pieces.

When you look at teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Spurs in the 2010s, they created a winning culture and fun environment each and every year because they had chemistry and not much roster movement. When you move around so many pieces it is hard to create continuity, but the Lakers put together a great coaching staff that is player’s guys and that should help on the court and in the locker room.

There will be tough nights, no team is perfect. The Warriors won a majority of their games but they fought with each other and had tough nights. These are professional athletes and they each have a different ego. Some want to be in the spotlight and some are fine with being out of it.

You ride the storm when it gets tough, and their first losing streak and player disagreements will show what this team is about going forward in the season.