RealGM

the battle of the underperforning and injured but wildly talented 7 seeds!

which one do you think was better at full power, which one would win a series vs each other ?

Do the Nets have Ben Simmons?

Without Simmons Nets are not more than 6 SRS team. LA probably were bit better since they beat 6 SRS team when AD healthy. Voted Nets accidently.

I think the Lakers make the NBA Finals with a healthy LeBron and AD.

Does full strength include Joe Harris?

I think I would go with the Lakers because of how oddly constructed the Nets roster is. Their best five is probably Kyrie, Curry, Harris, KD, and Simmons but that lineup is too exploitable defensively. Their best defensive lineup probably involves Simmons and a traditional center which is a recipe for disaster offensively. They just don't have much balance, too many guards and centers and not enough forwards.

Are people assuming Davis's full strength is 2018-20?

Anthony Davis's play in 2021 was a lot closer to 2022 than 2018-2020. And the rest of the roster was relatively weak compared to the Nets.

The Lakers who were a legit contender at full strength starting 21-6, and giving the Suns a 6 game series despite non 100% Lebron and Davis wasn't a bad showing. A 48 W pace season (42-30) with Lebron playing 45 games and Davis 36 is also a quality enough regular season.

Dr Positivity wrote:The Lakers who were a legit contender at full strength starting 21-6, and giving the Suns a 6 game series despite non 100% Lebron and Davis wasn't a bad showing. A 48 W pace season (42-30) with Lebron playing 45 games and Davis 36 is also a quality enough regular season.

Also despite Chris Paul having one arm

People still overrate "healthy" 2021 Lakers to death.

Jury is still out on this Nets team IMO, too hard to rate them even if we ignore Simmons entirely. So this becomes pretty subjective I think.

Have the Nets even had a long enough healthy stretch, null Simmons, to get any good data from? Lakers did play at like a 6.5-6.8 SRS for the first 25-28 ish games. I don't know if the Nets have had any such stretch yet this season.