For a heavy favorite, the Lakers don’t look overwhelming at first glance.
They didn’t have the best record in the NBA this season, and four other teams had a better point differential. They didn’t play any of the league’s top five regular-season teams in their playoff run. Only two Lakers averaged more than 11 points per game in the postseason, and one of them will be 36 years old next year.
Yet L.A. will enter next season as the presumptive favorite, and with good reason. For starters, their stuff worked in the playoffs – a dominant 16-5 romp past Portland, Houston, Denver and Miami, backed up by a dominating defense. While naysayers can point out they never squared off against any of the regular-season elite (the Bucks, Clippers, Raptors and Celtics), part of the reason was those clubs had their weaknesses exposed before they could even reach a matchup with L.A. The Lakers lost a few games and had to make a couple adjustments here and…