Perspective can be hard to acquire and seemingly impossible to retain, especially in the world of sports. By nature, we all want the best for our teams and want it as much as possible. What’s more, continued success can eventually lead to unfair expectations and disappointment.

This lack of perspective and unrealistic expectations has led to some serious hand-wringing for the Lakers media and a portion of their fan base. Let’s be clear at the outset- the Lakers are not right at the present. Largely healthy teams with their talent level just should not lose games like the one they played on Sunday against Memphis.

Phil Jackson discussed this after the loss and mentioned that his Lakers teams have consistently kept their losses close, making Memphis’ 22-point beatdown all the more jarring. He also talked about ways that he could possibly change the dynamic of the team and Kobe’s response to Phil has already been well-discussed (and was fascinating to see in person, in all honesty).

The rest of the locker room seemed to handle the loss in their own ways, most notably Pau Gasol’s befuddlement at what was plaguing his new team. Some have looked at this lack of message synergy as a problem and they have a point in the short term.

It follows that an easily identifiable problem can be easier to fix, though we all know that is not necessarily the case. Issues such as a lack of urgency, old age, and a lack of athleticism have all been espoused by various members of the media as seemingly everyone scrambles to forge their own explanation.

However, all of that hand-wringing will likely be for naught, just like usually happens in the world of sports. Unlike other teams who have issues, this Lakers team has a track record of success. In fact, this exact team won a championship the last two seasons. The only major change from last year’s title team to this year’s squad (beyond everyone being a year older) has been the Steve Blake for Jordan Farmar swap and the addition of Matt Barnes. Other than the aging issue, the talent is better than 2009-10.

As far as the playoffs are concerned, there are two major factors to consider when evaluating which teams will have success. The first was best articulated in a Reggie Bush commercial for Adidas a few years ago: “My better is better than your better.”

A team’s ceiling carries great weight both on its own and when put in the context of the quality, strengths, and weaknesses of their prospective opponents. On this point, the Lakers are clear-cut favorites in the West, as the talent shifting around the league in the last six months has largely been among the Eastern elite.

Dallas brining Tyson Chandler into the fold and San Antonio utilizing Gary Neal and a rejuvenated Richard Jefferson have not swung this dynamic even close to either of their favor. While both carry better records than the defending champs right now, each has possessed substantially better luck thus far this season, especially the Spurs. Over the last few days, Dallas has gotten a rash of unfortunate events, the kind that just about every NBA team faces during the season.

However, injuries, road trips, and general wackiness turn out over the aggregate course of a season, the optimal talent and performance of a team holds the largest value in terms of projecting success. In this, the Lakers stand tall among their conference foes.

The second factor is how likely a team is to be at or near their ceiling when their number is called. Unfortunately, this can be a much, much stickier point than the previous one.

Pretty much everyone had the Celtics dead to rights going into the playoffs last season due to their poor record after the start of the season and look what happened. The Lakers parallel that Celtics team in a few pivotal ways, as both squads have been to the promised land in the very recent past, have an established chemistry with each other, and have substantial talent that complements each other well.

On top of those, the Lakers also have one of the best (if not the single best) coach at bringing talented teams together at the right time. Part of what makes Phil Jackson special is just how rarely his elite teams failed to meet their lofty expectations. After Michael finally got past the Bad Boys, the only top notch Jackson-coached teams that failed to reach the mountain top were the final Shaq/Kobe team and the squad that lost to Boston in the Finals a few years back. That’s it. I’ll take that kind of track record any day of the week. Of course, Gregg Popovich is no slouch in this department either, but any semantic argument there should be overruled by the talent disparity that still exists between the two teams.

The Lakers unquestionably have a long way to go in order to reach their ceiling. However, just about every team elite or otherwise goes though struggles of similar depth over the course of the season. Unless Los Angeles somehow caught an aging spell that the other Western Conference teams have avoided, an optimized Lakers are still best in the West and the favorites to make the Finals with or without home court against the likes of the Spurs and Mavericks. Discussing how they would fare against Eastern Conference opponents necessitates an assumption that the Lakers have made the league finals, and I would posit that any team that makes it that far has had a successful post-season and that a LA team good enough to make the Finals would have a puncher’s chance at worst against whoever they are facing.

Fans and pundits are free to proselytize about the demise of the two-time defending champs, yet perspective of both where we are in the season and the talent level on the team shows that to be a fools errand. There may well be a time for concern, but that time would come at a much later juncture in what is always a long and complex season.