Kenny "The Jet" Smith says the Los Angeles Lakers' title hopes still run through LeBron James, no matter how busy the front office has been this offseason.
Speaking to TMZ Sports at LAX this week, the NBA champion and Inside the NBA analyst said the revamped roster should be good enough to reach the playoffs. His problem is what happens after that, which is generally the inconvenient part of trying to win a championship.
Why Smith is not sold on the new Lakers
The Lakers have added Walker Kessler, Collin Sexton, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Quentin Grimes, while also re-signing Austin Reaves. That gives Luka Dončić a deeper group around him and a more flexible rotation on paper.
Smith did not dismiss the roster entirely. He called it competitive. He just drew a hard line between competitive and championship-level.
"This is a competitive team, but not a championship team yet," Smith said. "LeBron James makes them a championship team."
That is the operating logic here: Dončić and the new pieces can keep the Lakers relevant, but Smith believes James is still the difference between a playoff team and a serious threat to win the NBA Finals.
LeBron's exit remains the defining issue
James and the Lakers said their goodbyes last week, leaving Los Angeles to move forward with a new-look roster built around Dončić and a batch of offseason additions.
TMZ Sports asked Smith about the possibility of James somehow returning to the team despite that split. Smith's view was simple: with LeBron back in the group, the Lakers would immediately look like legitimate contenders.
Without him, Smith sees a ceiling. A respectable ceiling, sure, but still a ceiling.
The roster has names, but the standard is higher
The Lakers' summer work has not been minor. Kessler gives them size, Sexton adds scoring punch, Mamukelashvili provides frontcourt depth, Grimes brings perimeter defense and shooting, and Reaves staying in Los Angeles preserves continuity.
That is a real reset. It is just not enough for Smith to put them in the title tier.
He also addressed the online "Snowtime Lakers" nickname that has been circulating around the team, though his larger point stayed fixed on the basketball math: the Lakers can be good, but in his view, they are not built to win it all unless James is part of the equation.
