LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers rolled into Sacramento on Wednesday night as winners of two straight games vs elite competition and looking for a win that would springboard them up the Western Conference playoff standings. Instead, the Lakers were run off the floor vs the Kings for the fourth time this season, and James looked every bit of his 39 years of age in what was one of his worst performances of the campaign.

Still, the Lakers are not without their optimists around the league. During Thursday evening’s NBC Sports Chicago broadcast of the game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Chicago Bulls, Chicago commentator and former NBA champion Stacey King made a prediction that this year’s Western Conference Finals will be a repeat of what fans were treated to last year.

“I would not be surprised if you see Denver [Nuggets] and the Lakers in the Western Conference [Finals],” said King, per ClutchPoints on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter

Of course, it was ten months ago that Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets swept LeBron James and the Lakers out of the playoffs, although it should be noted in fairness to Los Angeles that it was one of the most competitive sweeps you will ever see, as each game went down to the closing minutes.

In any case, the Lakers have their work cut out for them if they hope to make another deep playoff run this spring, as they currently sit in the Play-In portion of the standings.