Best 10-game starts in Lakers history

Being one of the most successful franchises in all of sports is a double-edged sword. As a fan, you can always fall back on all of the championships, Hall-of-Famers, and good times. The law of diminishing returns applies though, and after a while you just can't get the same high from greatness as you used to.

The Los Angeles Lakers have this problem, as no matter what they do, it's impossible to ever live up to the ghosts of the past. Consider that LeBron James, one of the two greatest basketball players to ever live, has been with the Lakers for six years and has delivered the franchise its 17th NBA championship, and yet if he retired tomorrow he wouldn't even sniff the all-time franchise Mt. Rushmore.

The number of great players to don the purple and gold, plus the number of transcendent Lakers teams, are enough to make any organization not named the (already green) Boston Celtics green with envy. The Lakers are not only one of the winningest organizations in NBA history, they're also without a doubt the coolest.

From Showtime to Shaq and Kobe, the Lakers have won with style over the course of decades. That's the hard-to-reach goal that every new Lakers team is chasing, but in today's talent-rich NBA, it's more difficult than ever to measure up.

These Lakers are trying, and after the team began the season 3-0 with wins over the Timberwolves, Suns and Kings, it appeared that new head coach JJ Redick might be on track to have a Pat Riley-like impact. Two straight road losses, the most recent of which was a blowout at the hands of LeBron's former team, the Cavs, has dampened that enthusiasm, but there's still reason to be excited about what lies ahead this season.

When the Lakers raced out to a 3-0 record, we began thinking of how they might compare to the best teams in franchise history. What we should have known is that for a team as historically successful as the Lakers, making history is not an easy thing to do.

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The best 10-game starts in Lakers history

The Lakers are 3-2, and their next five games are at the Raptors, at the Pistons, at the Grizzlies, then home against the 76ers and home against the Raptors. Even though they don't yet have a road win, Lakers fans should expect them to win at least three of those games, and possibly more. Even if they somehow go a perfect 5-0 though, an 8-2 start to the season wouldn't even put them in the conversation for best Lakers start of all-time.

The 1997-98 Lakers hold the distinction for best start in franchise history, as they're the only Lakers team to go undefeated in its first 10 games. That team, which was coached by Del Harris and featured Shaq and Kobe, actually won its first 11, but despite posting a 61-21 record, lost in the Western Conference Finals to the Utah Jazz.

That team's hot start was a sign of what was in store for that group, and two years later, after replacing Harris with Phil Jackson, they won their first of three straight titles. Even those teams didn't start the year a perfect 10-0, though the 2001-02 team did go 9-1 to begin the year on its way to a three-peat.

Five other Lakers teams have gone 9-1 in the first 10 games. Let's take a look at who they are.

As we can see, a strong start often correlates to an NBA title for the Lakers, but going worse than 9-1 is far from a death sentence, as the franchise has won 13 championships when beginning the year 8-2 or worse.

The Lakers have also had at least two teams win a title that started the season just 6-4: the 1953-54 Minneapolis Lakers, which went on to win its fourth championship in five years with George Mikan leading the way, and the 2000-01 L.A. Lakers, which went on to win its second of three straight titles despite the relatively slow start.

No matter what happens in these next five games, this Lakers team won't be able to stack up to some of the great Lakers teams of the past. As the two aforementioned teams prove though, it doesn't take an amazing start to win a championship, and with Anthony Davis doing things he's never done before, LeBron James continuing to push beyond the age when nearly all NBA players fall off, and JJ Redick changing the team's culture and identity for the better, Lakers fans should remain optimistic that this team could make some history of its own before the season is a wrap.