3. Russell Westbrook
I nearly placed Russell Westbrook at No. 2 but didn’t want to rile up LeBron fans. Still, I don’t think it’s rocket science. Westbrook is clearly important to this team and won’t win a championship this season if he doesn’t have one of his best and most efficient offensive seasons in recent history.
Westbrook will be so important to what the Lakers want to do this season and will play a huge factor when LeBron and AD inevitably take a few games off during the regular season. Westbrook has the ability to be a one-man offense when needed and, quite frankly, the Lakers didn’t have that last season from anyone not named LeBron or Davis.
That won’t be the case this season and Westbrook will need to be the best version of himself in certain spots for Los Angeles. The big question is, can he do it?