The Lakers could fall off next year. Kobe will be 34, Gasol will be 32, Artest will be 33, and Bynum has serious injury concerns. Every time I watch a Lakers game and the guy jumps I picture him coming down with a screwed up knee.
I don't know if Kobe will fall off, but what I do know is that Kobe has played 41,833 NBA regular season minutes, 8,163 playoff minutes, and has played in 24 games with the USA national team, can't find the minutes played, but I assume at least 20 per, which would mean 480 minutes played.
For those of you keeping score Kobe's total minutes played is 50,476. That is a lot of wear and tear, plus at 34 you would expect him to fall off a little. Not to mention the countless injuries he acquired throughout the years.
Now onto Pau, this is the worst scoring season of Pau's entire career, and he is doing it on one of the worst % from the feild he has ever put up. Pau is declining, and that much is obvious. Things don't get better with age, and he isn't getting any younger. Maybe next year Pau drops even further, or maybe he gets injured because a deep Lakers playoff run (say WCF), and then the summer Olympics. That's a lot of burn, with very little break for him.
As for Bynum, in his last 4 NBA seasons before this current one the least amount of games he has missed was 17. This season his MPG is at an all time high, and next season pressumably it will remain the same. So who is to say he doesn't get hurt? In fact if there was odds on Bynum getting hurt vs. not getting hurt I think you would have to pay not getting hurt at least 2/1 because the odds seem small.
Finally Sessions is gone from LAL unless they pony up the cash to keep him. I just don't see the Lakers paying him the 7-8 million that he will command. May seem steep for Sessions, but someone will give it to him, especially if he does propell the Lakers into the WCF.
