Lakers ESPN’s Favorite to Win It All

The Lakers recently secured 19 of 53 votes in an ESPN.com expert’s poll asking who would win the NBA title in 2009-10, edging out the Cleveland Cavaliers for the highest total by a single vote.  Only three other teams received votes in the poll, the San Antonio Spurs (eight votes), the Boston Celtics (five votes) and the Orlando Magic (three).  “The Lakers won’t win the title if they play as they did last season, because the bar has been raised in the East,” the article says.  ”But the Lakers are more than capable of lifting it themselves, as they hardly got anything from Andrew Bynum or Jordan Farmar while winning the title and beefed up their defense against big wings with the pickup of Ron Artest.”

I think it’s pretty obvious that with “big wings” they’re referring to Cleveland Cavaliers small forward LeBron James, whose Cleveland Cavaliers are the Lakers’ most likely Finals foe.  Artest’s presence should certainly help if the Lakers were to matchup with LeBron and Co. in the Finals, though it may be more of the old Jordan adage of, “you can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.”  It’s a bit surprising that the Lakers aren’t more of a favorite to repeat, but each of the other four teams to receive votes did improve markedly this offseason.

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Posted in General on September 10, 2009

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