NO, THEY CAN'T.(Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers chances against Los Angeles Lakers in 2001 NBA Championship)(Brief Article)

If the 76ers don't slow down the Lakers, where does Los Angeles' season stack up against the best ever?

If the Lakers cruise through The Finals, their fans will have something new to argue about during this season's post-championship riot.

Stand back, because "Is Kobe the next M.J.?" is threatening to be replaced by "Are the Lakers the greatest team of all time?" as the unanswerable question of our generation.

A Finals sweep would make the Lakers the only team in NBA history to rumble through the postseason undefeated. One loss would put Los Angeles on par with the 1982-83 76ers, Moses Malone's "Fo'-fo'-fo'" bunch that actually went Fo'-fi'-fo' to finish the playoffs with a 12-1 record and a best-ever .923 playoff winning percentage.

These days, it takes 15 victories to win a title, and even a 15-1 record would leave Lakers with a .938 winning percentage. The point is, barring something unforeseen, there's little debating these Lakers are the best playoff team of all time. But are they the best team ever?

The season-long Kobe-Shaq feud might cost them that billing. The Lakers' 56-26 regular-season record is worse than all of the teams with the top 10 postseason records in NBA history, meaning Los Angeles is likely to be remembered as a team that got hot at the right time, not one that dominated a season from start to finish--the best ever in May and June, but surely not the best ever.

That just means Phil Jackson will have something to motivate Bryant and O'Neal with as they make title runs for the next 10 seasons or so. When the Lakers do finally get it together in the regular season, they'll be measured against these teams--our top five seasons of all time.