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Metta World Peace is completely delusional about the Lakers

Richard Mackson, USA TODAY Sports

Richard Mackson, USA TODAY Sports

Ever since Dwight Howard signed with the Houston Rockets on Friday, reactions have poured in from around Los Angeles. Kobe Bryant took a passive-aggressive approach on Instagram. Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal questioned his toughness. Many Lakers fans burned his jersey.

But Metta World Peace was more upbeat and optimistic, both about Howard’s decision to leave the Lakers and the shape of that team going forward. The veteran forward posted his analysis of the signing on his Twitter account:

World Peace’s positivity is nice, but there’s so much wrong here, it’s difficult to know where to start.

1. Omer Asik is a great, underappreciated player. His offensive weaknesses are more than made up for by his outstanding defensive and rebounding abilities. But a top-five center in the NBA? Howard, Marc Gasol, Tyson Chandler, Roy Hibbert, Tim Duncan and Brook Lopez would like a word about that.

2. Saying James Harden will “probably be MVP” is a huge reach as well. If Howard is back to full strength, Harden isn’t even the most likely player on his own team to win the award, let alone beating out LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Chris Paul.

3. Bryant, World Peace and Pau Gasol do have eight rings between them, it’s true. But they have had eight rings between them for each of the past three seasons, when they haven’t made it past the second round of the playoffs. And signing their former Lakers teammate Derek Fisher, who has five rings, didn’t work out great for the Oklahoma City Thunder. All the leadership in the world can’t make up for a lack of talent or depth.

4. Finally, predicting the Lakers will make it to the Western Conference Finals is insane. Even predicting they’ll make the playoffs is a little optimistic. There are six teams in the conference — Howard’s Rockets, the Thunder, the defending conference champion San Antonio Spurs, the Lakers’ arena-mates the Clippers, the Golden State Warriors and the Memphis Grizzlies — who have a real chance of winning at least 50 games. So that’s six of the eight playoff spots accounted for. Beyond that, the Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans and Portland Trail Blazers have all made major moves this summer and should be the main contenders for the final two seeds.

The Lakers, meanwhile, are over the salary cap with four players alone (Bryant, Gasol, World Peace and Steve Nash), the youngest of whom is 33. Bryant is coming off an Achilles tear, and although he hopes to be back for the start of the 2013-14 season, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to return to his former self at age 35. Nash and Gasol have been plagued by injuries as well. They have no other depth to speak of, and no money to sign anybody who could put them over.

So it’s safe to file World Peace’s comments under “delusional.”

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