3 Lakers Bold Predictions Coming Out of the All-Star Break

The Los Angeles Lakers are having an underwhelming season following their Conference Finals appearance last season. The expectation around the league was for the Lakers to have a dominant regular season team this season but despite the surprisingly healthy season LeBron James and Anthony Davis are having, that hasn't been the case. Now, sitting at 30-26 and in ninth place in the Western Conference, Los Angeles has a ton of work to do post-All-Star break to make a deep postseason run.

What should Lakers fans expect from their team in the final stretch of the season? Here are three bold predictions for the upcoming months for the Lakers.

Austin Reaves Will Play Like the Third Star

Coming into the season, the expectations were sky-high for Austin Reaves. Bursting onto the scene in the second half of last season and in the playoffs, Reaves was supposed to take over the playmaking and scoring burden from LeBron. For a variety of reasons, that hasn't come to fruition so far.

However, Reaves has been playing much better lately. In seven games in the month of February, he is averaging 20.3 points and 6.9 assists on 51.1/47.6/84.8 shooting splits. He has been steadily increasing his minutes since moving into the starting lineup.

Coach Darvin Ham moving Reaves to the bench after early-season struggles was premature and proved to be a mistake. Reaves is this team's third-best player and needs to be treated as such.

After gaining his confidence back with his usual role and playing time, I expect Reaves to have a strong finish to the season. Don't be surprised if he averages over 20 points the rest of the way.