Are People Underestimating the Lakers After Free Agency?

On Thursday's program, we talked about ESPN's (very, very early) Power Rankings, which had the Lakers at 10, which translates to 7th in the conference. Not exactly outrageous, but are there reasons to believe that broadly the Lakers are being underestimated? 

Keep in mind, the Lakers made a massive improvement at center (Deandre Ayton), gained some defensive capability in the backcourt (Marcus Smart), replaced at least some of the shooting that they lost with Dorian Finney-Smith going to Houston (Jake LaRavia) and added a little athleticism to the development program (Adou Thiero) without sacrificing any of their trade assets and only one rotation player (DFS). 

But mostly, are people just kinda forgetting how good Luka is when he's at his best? Last season was his first missing out on the All-NBA First Team. And if you get high-end Luka combined with the LeBron James that finished 6th in MVP voting, does that put LA's star power at a level other teams can't quite compete with? How much does that sort of star power matter in this NBA? 

Meanwhile, James posted another provocative Insta pic on Thursday... is this one real trolling or NBD? 

 

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

SEGMENT 1: Are the Lakers being undersold? 

 

SEGMENT 2: Are people forgetting how good Luka is?

 

SEGMENT 3: Another Instagram Pic from LeBron!

 

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