How good are Lakers without Davis?

[celticsclay]

I think we have had so many significant injuries here in Celtics land the last 5 years (Irving, Hayward obviously being the huge ones) we can forget how much a difference it makes for other teams to lose their star. Since Davis has been/injured out Lakers have looked like a completely different team. They are currently struggling to beat Wizards at home and I think have lost 3 of 4 since he went down. Where would this team be without Davis long term?

They have some pretty nice secondary and role players in Harrel, Kuzma, Gasol, KCP and Schroeder (he has missed two games now with Covid protocals). Are they still a contender if Davis has a lingering injury?

[mr. dee]

See the 2018-19 Lakers

[Ogaju]

Pretty bad. As in bad bad, not the good bad.

[SparzWizard]

Like I said- Lakers without Anthony Davis but with LeBron James are like the Lakers of 2018-2019.

Lakers with Anthony Davis + LeBron James = Lakers of 2019-2020.

Though I do hope Davis sits out longer and have a nagging injury the rest of the season, preventing them from winning banner 18.

[celticsclay]

I think they should still be better than Lebron’s first year there because he is playing similar level and is healthy. They have also replaced the very young players with established vets for the most part.

[gift]

Like I said- Lakers without Anthony Davis but with LeBron James are like the Lakers of 2018-2019.

Lakers with Anthony Davis + LeBron James = Lakers of 2019-2020.

Though I do hope Davis sits out longer and have a nagging injury the rest of the season, preventing them from winning banner 18.

Or Davis comes back but Lebron isn't the same given the load he's had to carry (+ age).

[Moranis]

They are a clear playoff team without Davis, but won't be competing for the title as they don't have enough other real talent on that team.  While they have some solid depth and nice players i.e. Schroder, Harrell, Gasol, Kuzma, KCP, Caruso, Matthews, etc. there just isn't enough talent there to be anything more than a good team.  Just not enough talent outside of Lebron without Davis.  Schroder as your 2nd best player = blah, Schroder as your 3rd best player with arguably 2 top 5 players = plenty good enough to win.  They'd be even worse with Davis and without James though.  Lebron is still the key guy, but he can't carry that team to anything more than probably the 2nd round (perhaps WCF with the right match-ups or maybe even a 1st round loss if they get the wrong match-up). 

It will be interesting to see how the seeding shakes out.  I mean if you look at current seeding, you would almost rather be 4 than 3 (and 2 would be awful as you meet Denver in round 1 assuming denver would win the play-in game).  Lots of time left, but the West could have some interesting seeding and teams jockeying for position could definitely be weird. 

[GreenWarrior]

They're horrible... But still better than us.

Keep in mind no matter how bad the lakers are they can turn it around in a sec. As the entire league is a lakers farm league.

[Donoghus]

Early playoff exit.