DeAndre Jordan explains why Lakers aren't likely to meet the Nets in the NBA Finals

The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the biggest candidates in the NBA this season. They added multiple stars to their roster and look poised to make a deep run in the playoffs, potentially even reaching the NBA Finals again.

On the flip side, the Brooklyn Nets are the clear-cut favorites to go the distance out of the Eastern Conference. That’s unsurprising considering how much talent they have on their roster.

Then again, former Nets player DeAndre Jordan doesn’t seem too convinced of the Nets and Lakers’ chances, as he recently explained why you shouldn’t sleep on other teams, including the reigning champions.

DeAndre Jordan Says The Lakers And Nets Aren’t A Lock To Make The NBA Finals

(Transcript via Lakers Nation)

“I got love for a lot of those guys over there, but at the end of the day, in the West you got to go through Phoenix and in the East you got to go through Milwaukee, regardless of what everybody else wants to say,” Jordan said after Saturday’s practice.

“Obviously both teams have championship aspirations, so I’m not going to say that we don’t want to be playing late in June for a title. But it’s going to take 82 games for us to be able to get and get ready and I’m sure the same for those guys. But we can’t look at tomorrow as a Finals prediction. If it happens, it happens, but I think we’re just trying to focus on us and us being healthy and us figuring out a way to be able to be there in June.”

“At the end of the day, it’s another basketball game. You never know who’s gonna play, who’s not gonna play. So you can’t go into games like this thinking about anything but us going in there and focusing on what we’ve been practicing in the past week and trying to incorporate it into a game.”

We couldn’t have said it better. The NBA season hasn’t even started so it’s too early to say who’s going to be playing in June. Hopefully, the 2021-22 NBA season will be full of surprises again.