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Mitch Kupchak: Lakers expect to win championship this year

Jul 29, 2014; El Segundo, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak at press conference to announce Byron Scott (not pictured) as coach at press conference at Toyota Sports Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 29, 2014; El Segundo, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak at press conference to announce Byron Scott (not pictured) as coach at press conference at Toyota Sports Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Many would agree that the Los Angeles Lakers are in a rebuilding stage. The Lakers won just 27 games this past season and completely whiffed on adding premium talents this past offseason.

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While a healthy Kobe Bryant will make this team better, there’s little reason to believe Los Angeles can be a playoff team, let alone anything more than that.

However, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak has different ideas. Kupchak said during Friday’s media day that he expects Los Angeles to compete for a championship.

I’ll say it now: the Lakers have absolutely no shot to win the 2015 NBA championship.

However, I’m not going to crush Kupchak for these comments. This was probably more of a message to his players that losing is not acceptable or expected than anything. It wouldn’t serve Kupchak much benefit if he admitted in September that the team he put together has zero chance to win a title, especially when Bryant is a member of the team.

But, yeah, Kupchak’s expectations won’t come close to being met.

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