With the start of the regular season just over a week away, the Los Angeles Lakers believe they’re legitimate championship contenders, as do most people around the NBA. However, there are still those who feel they’re merely a good team, or even one that will end up only making the play-in tournament.
Last season, the Lakers were a play-in team, but once the players acquired in the Russell Westbrook trade debuted, they went 18-9 the rest of the regular season. This was despite the fact LeBron James missed a month of action late in the schedule and D’Angelo Russell, one of the men they got in return for Westbrook, was out for nine games.
During TNT’s broadcast of a preseason game between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs on Friday, Hall of Famer and commentator Reggie Miller gave his tiers of Western Conference teams. The Purple and Gold only fell in his second tier.
Reggie Miller thinks the Lakers are a ‘2nd Tier’ team pic.twitter.com/AJy7tdaZdg
— LakeShowYo (@LakeShowYo) October 14, 2023
A very strong argument could be made that the Lakers are better than all of the other teams in Miller’s second tier.
At the same time, one has to wonder why he put the Sacramento Kings, who won 48 games last year but are returning largely the same roster, and especially the Oklahoma City Thunder, a very young squad that lost in the play-in tournament last spring, in his top tier.
