Former Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James made his decision to join the Philadelphia 76ers this summer and that squad immediately became one of the championship favorite for next season. On paper, the 76ers have the most talented starting lineup in the NBA with James joining Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecombe.
But just because things look great on paper doesn’t mean the ultimate success is guaranteed. And former Lakers player and coach Byron Scott harkened back to the infamous 2004 Lakers team that everyone thought would bring home the Larry O’Brien Trophy and failed.
“I mean we can go all the way back to the early parts in the 2000s,” Scott said on his Fast Break podcast. “You got Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Kobe Bryant, Shaq, and you still got D Fish. You still got an unbelievable starting lineup and on paper, everybody said, ‘Oh, they gonna win a championship.’ What happened? They played Detroit Pistons, who was a team. A much better team. A much better cohesive group of guys who wanted nothing more than to win.
“And you had friction on that Laker team with Gary Payton and some of the other guys. And then you had the Peacemaker being Karl Malone and then Karl got hurt, which really killed their chances of winning the championship and Detroit went through them four games to one, right? So talent on paper don’t mean a whole lot. It means you got talent, that’s about all it means. It doesn’t mean or guarantee that you going to win the championship.”
Scott is absolutely right in that just putting talent together doesn’t guarantee anything. James himself experienced that when he joined the Miami Heat alongside Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and they were defeated in the 2011 NBA Finals by the Dallas Mavericks. The 2012 Lakers would be another example with Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard and Steve Nash flaming out in a big way as well.
Talent is necessary to win, but if that talent doesn’t come together and gel in the right way it means absolutely nothing. Whether this 76ers squad can do that and reach those championship heights will be found out very soon.
Dates for Luka Doncic Lakers’ minicamp revealed
The expectation for James’ former team aren’t as high as his new one, but superstar guard Luka Doncic wants his squad to hit the ground running. Doncic will be hosting a four-day minicamp in his native Slovenia for the entire roster and the dates of that camp are now known.
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