Los Angeles Lakers: 3 bold predictions for the second half of the season
By Jason Reed
The first half of the 2020-21 season has been interesting for the Los Angeles Lakers. Coming off of a championship last October, with the shortest offseason in American sports history behind them, it was easy to expect the Lakers to have a championship hangover and start the season off sluggish.
For the most part, that was not the case. The Los Angeles Lakers came out of the gate playing good basketball and while LeBron James and Anthony Davis had smaller usage rates, the Lakers were winning games and were dominating the advanced metrics — such as net rating and simple rating system.
However, Anthony Davis then hurt his calf/Achilles and the Lakers have not played great basketball since. The purple and gold will come out of the All-Star Break as the third team in the Western Conference with a not-so-great record against their potential playoff foes. The Lakers are 0-3 against the three teams that are ahead of them in the Western Conference standings.
The Los Angeles Lakers really needed this break to rest up and replenish the depleted roster. Anthony Davis is still going to be out when the Lakers return, but he will come back and the second half should be different than the first.
At some point, we are going to see LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers kick it into gear and ramp up into playoff mode. It is definitely going to be an interesting 35 games.