Sorry Lakers, you won’t be winning an NBA championship with Carmelo Anthony and Russell Westbrook as core contributors down the stretch. Their well-documented flaws and habits that both have exhibited throughout their career precludes you from deep playoff success.

We know that all the odds in Vegas from sportsbooks to this online betting guide: Canadian-sports-betting.com all have Lakers as one of the top contenders for the championship. That’s because they’ve won an NBA championship with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and they’ve added two more Hall of Famers to their roster. Even so, it’s highly likely for that this version of the roster is unlikely to come out on top and here’s two huge reasons why.

Defense

The deeper you get into the playoffs, the more each possession becomes exponentially important. You have to be intently focused on defense from the start of he game to the last possession. One of the knocks on both Westbrook and Anthony throughout their career is that they can’t seem to keep their minds consistently on defense whether the offense swings the ball more than three times or there’s multiple picks to fight through. Here’s one recent example where both Westbrook makes a boneheaded risk and Carmelo doesn’t make the simple switch in coverage.

You might be able to get away with periodic lacksadaisical defense against some teams, but those mistakes will be exposed by the elit teams in the playoffs.

Turnovers

Westbrook started out the season uncharacteristically passive and he was called out for not being his aggressive self as he figured out how to play with with LeBron and AD in his hometown.

“Him more than anybody, it’s going to be an adjustment period,” Lakers Head Coach Vogel said. “He’s coming into our culture, our system. He’s the new guy, and he’s got to find his way. It’s difficult, when you’re used to being the guy who has the ball most nights, to be able to play off of others like Bron and AD. So it’s just a little bit different for him. He’s going to be great for us, but it’s going to be an adjustment period.”

Since then, Westbrook has reverted back to his more-aggresssive self; playing his attack game we’re used to seeing him play over the last several seasons. The problem? For as many great things that Westbrook is capable of doing with the ball primarily in his hands, it comes with an unusually high turnover rate.

In fact, Westbrook is leading the league with 5.2 turnovers per game. This ain’t no weird aberration either. Westbrook has the highest turnover average in NBA history.

And this isn’t going to change anytime soon. If there’s one thing we know about Westbrook, he’s going to play how we plays. That’s not an opinion, the man has literally said “I’m going to play my game regardless of what happens” In the same sentence he went on to say, “I’m not making no adjustments. Regardless of what anybody says or regardless of what you guys say about how I play, it doesn’t matter.”

Yes, he said this many years ago, but from what we know of how Westbrook plays, can we say that things have changed that dramatically? I mean, his signature shoe is called “Why Not?” – many of us know the answer to that question, but Westbrook historically has shown that he doesn’t.

Listen we know the season is still early and anything can still happen, but it’s not not early in Russell Westbrook’s and Carmelo Anthony’s careers. We’re all very well aware of their accomplishments, but we’re also very aware of the purported reasons why they haven’t been successful on other teams. Laker fans shouldn’t expect them to change now.