LeBron James Reveals ‘Crazy' NBA Playoffs Prediction for Lakers
LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are in the postseason with the fourth seed in an extremely competitive Western Conference bracket.
The good news is that means they won’t have to win a play-in game to make the NBA Playoffs. The bad news is that it brings a first-round matchup against Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets, a team many believe will eliminate King James and company in the first round.
While the Lakers won two of three against Houston this past season, they also lost Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves to injuries just ahead of the playoffs. With both of their return timelines unclear, LeBron has to work with what he has in the lineup once again.
That’s something he did in his earlier days as a young player, when he helped a Cleveland Cavaliers squad lacking any other big-name stars reach the NBA Finals. Still, a much better San Antonio Spurs team promptly swept them.
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While LeBron is capable of exerting his impact on games even at 41, his latest supporting cast will really need to step up to help him advance deep into this postseason. With under a week until the Lakers play their first playoff game, a new “Mind the Game” podcast with former NBA great Steven Nash provided an intriguing prediction.
During one part of their discussion, LeBron suggested moving past the first-round matchup to face the San Antonio Spurs in the second round, then said it would be the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals. While those teams make sense, what’s surprising is LeBron’s prediction that his team would advance to the NBA Finals.
“With a Lakers-Boston Finals. That would be crazy!” LeBron told Nash, adding, “I had a lot of Celtics series when I was in the East. They don’t quite like me there.”
LeBron’s time with the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers was problematic for Boston, as they were continually knocking on the door of another championship. Still, King James-led squads kept interfering with their path.
They ended a 22-year drought without adding any banners to the rafters of their arena in 2008.
That team featured a trio of stars in Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen, who finally needed seven games to get past LeBron’s Cavs in the conference semifinals. After defeating the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, they toppled Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, 4-2, to win the championship.
Since then, the newer Celtics team featuring a trio of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Derrick White has emerged as a legitimate threat in the Eastern Conference. With LeBron on the West Coast, he can no longer interfere with their championship plans, unless he reaches the NBA Finals.
The Celtics are currently the odds-on-favorite to win the Eastern Conference, while Oklahoma City is a major favorite to win the West.
And that may be why LeBron called this Lakers prediction “crazy.” He likely realizes in the back of his mind that it would be rather shocking to see this version of the Lakers, without Luka or Reaves, advance through multiple playoff rounds like that. It would potentially include defeating an OKC team that humiliated them this past season, allowing them to face the Celtics in the Finals.
However, he is LeBron James and has defied expectations and time more than once in his career, but it would be mind-blowing to see him deliver those sorts of results against such a stacked Western Conference playoff field.
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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 2:53 PM.