From damp to champ? Los Angeles Lakers make the Conference Finals

Despite starting the 2022-2023 NBA season with a 2-10 record, LeBron James and the L.A. Lakers somehow found themselves in the Western Conference Finals. Led by Anthony Davis who averaged 25.9 points 13.5 rebounds and an ecstatic 3.3 blocks per game to beat the Golden State Warriors, the defending champs, in six games.

Although, halfway through the season, fans were questioning if the Lakers would even make the play-ins, let alone the playoffs. During the all-star break, the Lakers had a record of 27-32, trading away half of their roster for an almost entirely new team.

The most notable trade was Russell Westbrook for D’Angelo Russel, Jared Vanderbilt, and Mike Beasly. A lot of Laker fans had veteran guard, Russell Westbrook, to blame for their lackluster season. Others blamed management for putting such an incompatible team together in the first place. But the critics, casters, and the analyst had LeBron and Davis to blame, claiming them to be “washed” and “fragile” with both barely playing over 40 games in an 82 games season.

However, to close out the season, the Lakers went on a 15-7 run to keep their season alive, clawing their way to the 7th seed and into the play-ins just two games behind Stephen Curry and the Warriors, and since they made it into the final bracket, they haven’t looked back. Mowing their way through the Memphis Grizzlies in five games and the Golden State Warriors in six, they are now preparing to face the top-seeded Denver Nuggets.

Even in his 20th season, at the ripe age of 38, LeBron James has found a way to further cement his legacy as one of the greatest players to ever play the game of basketball.