Kyle Kuzma’s season may be over, but he believes that his former team will still be playing for a while longer.
The Washington Wizards forward Kuzma went viral on Tuesday for his bold prediction about the Los Angeles Lakers. He tweeted that he thinks the Lakers can make the NBA Finals.
“My hot take.. (but not really),” Kuzma wrote. “I think the lakeshow can get to the finals..”
My hot take.. (but not really) I think the lakeshow can get to the finals..
— kuz (@kylekuzma) April 11, 2023
Kuzma played for the Lakers from 2017-21 and won a championship with them in 2020. But LeBron James and Anthony Davis are the only players left on the roster that Kuzma played with, and they have a new head coach in Darvin Ham as well. That means Kuzma is essentially spitballing here from an outsider’s perspective.
There are a lot of boxes that the Lakers need to check off first before even thinking about a Finals appearance this year. They are currently in the play-in tournament and have to defeat the Minnesota Timberwolves in Tuesday’s 7-8 game. If the Lakers do that, they will face a young and athletic Memphis Grizzlies team (albeit one missing bigs Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke due to injury) in the first round. Should they advance past the Grizzlies, the Lakers would get one of the defending champion Golden State Warriors and the upstart Sacramento Kings in Round 2. From there, a date with either the Denver Nuggets, the Phoenix Suns, or the LA Clippers would likely await in the conference finals.
Needless to say, that is not a very easy path out of the Western Conference. But the Lakers are healthy right now, they won six of their last seven games to end the regular season, and rounded into form as a defensive juggernaut following the trade deadline. Kuzma is also far from the only opponent who thinks the purple and gold could be a handful to deal with in the postseason.
