Derek Fisher isn’t buying the idea that the Lakers are about to crater just because LeBron James is gone.
On 97.1 The Fan LA, the five-time NBA champion pointed to one major difference between this Lakers team and the LeBron exits that have left other franchises scrambling: Luka Doncic is already there.
“You think about the few organizations where LeBron has been, you tell me where their record has gotten dramatically better after he left. So it’s not going to fall off that much because Luka is there.”
Fisher said the Lakers have enough firepower to keep themselves afloat, especially with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves forming what he called “basically an all-star backcourt that you can roll out every night.” He also singled out Walker Kessler as “a young developing almost all-starish type of big in terms of his elite defense and rebounding.”
That’s why Fisher thinks the Lakers can still land in a reasonable range.
“45 to 50 wins, a lot of things are going to have to go right, but it feels fair to me.”
The historical backdrop is hard to ignore. When LeBron left Cleveland in 2010, the Cavaliers dropped from an NBA-best 61-21 to 19-63 the next season.
His exit from Miami brought another steep slide, with the Heat falling from 54-28 and second place in the East to 37-45 and out of the playoffs. Then came his second departure from Cleveland, after the Cavaliers had gone 50-32, finished fourth in the conference and reached the NBA Finals in 2017-18.
Once LeBron signed with the Lakers, Cleveland collapsed to 19-63 and 14th in the East.
Now the Lakers are the team trying to avoid that kind of nosedive.
They went 53-29 and finished fourth in the Western Conference last season before LeBron departed to join the Philadelphia 76ers. Fisher’s case is that this time the Lakers aren’t starting from scratch because they already have a legitimate centerpiece in Doncic, someone capable of carrying an elite offense.
Reaves’ rise matters here too, and the Lakers made sure to lock it in by signing him to a four-year, $185 million max extension this offseason. Kessler, meanwhile, arrived in a blockbuster trade with the Utah Jazz to shore up a frontcourt weakness and give the team a defensive backbone.
Fisher’s win projection also isn’t far off from ESPN’s view. ESPN has the Lakers around 45 wins this season, down eight from last year’s 53, but nowhere near the kind of collapse that followed some of LeBron’s other exits.
That said, the concerns are still there. ESPN labeled the Lakers the league’s most likely disappointing team, citing questions about their defense, wing depth, and how they’ll replace everything LeBron brought.
Fisher’s answer is simple: those old teams had to find a new LeBron.
The Lakers already have Luka.
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