NBA Finals Prediction: Lakers in 6
Very original, I know. But just because it’s the popular pick doesn’t make it the wrong pick. I think as a basketball viewing society we tend to overthink these things, so I’m not going to. Both teams will make countless adjustments and add wrinkles we probably haven’t seen before. And for all I know, those will be really impactful.
But NBA Finals games come down to who you can trust, and when these games inevitably get close and the players get tight, I’m going to trust the team that has LeBron James over the team that doesn’t.
If you read the last prediction then you know how much I respect Erik Spoelstra, there isn’t a coach in the league today that is better than he is. And although I haven’t talked much about their roster, the Heat will probably have the best four or maybe even five players in this series not named LeBron James or Anthony Davis. But at the end of the day the fact that they don’t have those two players will be really hard to overcome, especially when you consider that the Lakers boast one of the best defenses in the league. The Heat is incredibly tough, but toughness can only do so much against superior talent.
I won’t get into the legacy debates because that’s a tired conversation and a Pandora’s box that I don’t really feel like opening. But what I will say to wrap this up, even though it’s a cliche that’s been said countless times already this week, is don’t take this NBA Finals run by LeBron for granted.
Similar to Michael Jordan in 1998, this might just be the last one we ever see before we spend the next decade waiting for the basketball gods to give us the next historic player to entertain us.