National Basketball Association

Los Angeles Lakers loaded with talent, skill and a whole lot of experience

Updated Oct. 19, 2021 6:21 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Carmelo Anthony laughs every time he sees a new reminder — and there are plenty of them — that the Los Angeles Lakers, by typical NBA standards, are really, really old.

LeBron James didn’t always find it funny, the jokes and the memes and the mocked-up photos of gray beards and walking sticks, but he does now. He’s giggling, too, or so he says.

As the 2021-22 NBA season tips off and one of the primary talking points is that the Lakers are stacked with guys who are, ahem, no longer in youth’s first flush, the squad’s blueprint is coming into focus.

They’re going to hear all the humor, listen to all the reasons a squad with an average age above 31 is both rare and remarkable, and laugh off all the suggestions that having five of the league’s 12 oldest players, nine guys over 30 and 28-year-old Anthony Davis as the roster’s second-youngest healthy member is going to torpedo their chances.

"I kind of laugh at it," James told reporters. "I actually do really laugh. I’m not just saying that."

Chris Broussard: 'LeBron's Lakers are legitimately old' I FIRST THINGS FIRST

LeBron James says he "kind of laughs" at the narrative about the Los Angeles Lakers collective age, but Chris Broussard says it's not a narrative. It's fact.

The reason the Lakers seem like they have an old roster is because they do. James is 37, and so is Anthony. Trevor Ariza and Dwight Howard are 36, Rajon Rondo is 35, and comparatively spritely 33-year-olds Russell Westbrook and DeAndre Jordan wouldn’t even crack the starting lineup if it were arranged purely by seniority.

The methodology for completely rebuilding the roster — after Los Angeles left itself with only James, Davis and Talen Horton-Tucker from last season’s crew — has been simple. Adding Westbrook cost a fortune, so the remainder of the group had to be padded out with players who would accept a lower salary in exchange for a shot at a title and the L.A. lifestyle.

One by one, they rolled in, each seemingly older than the last, to the point that it is entirely feasible that this version of the Lakers could end up being the oldest team in NBA history, depending on how you measure such things.

According to The Ringer, only eight NBA teams in the past 70 years have had an average age of 31 or older. With minutes played taken into account, the oldest ever was the 1997-98 Houston Rockets, at 32.0, with the trio of Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley and Clyde Drexler forming the backbone of the group.

If Ariza sees meaningful minutes when he returns from injury and contributors such as Howard, Rondo and Wayne Ellington can prove to be productive, the "oldest team" record could be in jeopardy this season.

Anthony, however, doesn’t see it as a negative, figuring that in NBA circles, it’s not rude to ask about someone’s age.

"I like when people talk about the age," he said. "I think it gives a better story. You got to have that experience. I think that’s what we bring at this point in time: our talent, our skill, but also our experience."

The Lakers begin their campaign Tuesday against the Golden State Warriors and are in the mix as title contenders. FOX Bet lists the Lakers at +400 odds, the second-best odds to win it all, behind the Brooklyn Nets but ahead of the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks.

The Western Conference threatens to be a minefield, with the Warriors back to something approaching full strength, the Phoenix Suns remaining young and hungry, the Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets hoping to make a splash, and the LA Clippers aiming to finally live up to their potential.

In the East, the biggest storyline has been someone who is not going to play, at least for now, with Kyrie Irving sidelined in Brooklyn over his refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

As always, the Lakers are going to be the most talked about team in the league and James the most talked-about player because that’s just how things are. This time around, operating with a batch of players thrown together and no one any wiser as to whether Westbrook’s signing was a masterstroke or a recipe for disaster, the Lakers are a telenovela that shouldn’t be missed.

"They're the greatest chemistry experiment we’ve seen in recent NBA history," FS1’s Chris Broussard said on "First Things First." "I know I said similar things about the Nets last year, but the Nets look like a simple tic-tac-toe design compared to what the Lakers are going to be."

The Lakers were horrible in the preseason, going 0-6, but that doesn’t mean much of anything. Last season’s finalists, the Bucks and Suns, both came up empty in warm-up games. More relevant is that James & Co. have 12 of their first 15 games at home. How they fare in the initial running will be closely scrutinized.

The Lakers' core has been around long enough to know that the critics will be circling if things fall awry, and the easiest dagger of all will be the question, in times of struggle, if they’re just too darn old.

The answer to that remains to be seen, but for now, the Lakers have a plan to combat it: Chuckle along, do their thing — and get the last laugh.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.