The Golden State Warriors are the unanimous favorite to win the 2019 NBA title. After Golden State, the situation gets a lot murkier. Some think the Houston Rockets will once again jockey with the Warriors for West supremacy. Others think one of the East's upstart teams, the Boston Celtics or Philadelphia 76ers, is ready to make a run. And still others think the Los Angeles Lakers, now that they've added LeBron James, should be favored.
Vegas currently gives the Lakers the third-best odds, after the Warriors and Celtics, to win it all. But NBA legend and Inside the NBA analyst Charles Barkley isn't buying the hype. In an interview with Sports Illustrated's The Crossover, Barkley said LeBron is "on the downside of his career" and expectations for the team should be lowered.
"I was hoping [James] would stay in Cleveland," Barkley said Friday. "I look at [the move to L.A.] strictly as a business decision. He's on the downside of his career. He wants to be a big Hollywood mogul. He's going to be driving by the beach every day instead of going through the snow. ... [The Lakers] are not even close to a top-tier team. They're a 5 or 6 seed in a best-case scenario."
Harsh, Chuck. Granted, LeBron won't have much help—the Lakers' additions this offseason have been puzzling, to say the least—but it's hard to imagine any team with LeBron James finishing as a "5 or 6 seed in a best-case scenario," even in the loaded Western Conference.
