The Lakers' title quest is getting harder two months before it actually begins.The loss of Boogie Cousins and the front office's reported interest in retreads like Dwight Howard amplify questions about the Lakers' ability to survive the regular-season slog.
尽管距离新赛季的常规赛开始还有两个月之久，但湖人的夺冠之路已经显得更加的扑朔迷离。考辛斯的折损，以及球队管理层对德怀特·霍华德这样的湖人旧将表现出的浓厚兴趣，让人愈发怀疑湖人是否能在艰苦的常规赛征程中生存下来。
Last week, Lakers center DeMarcus Cousins tore his ACL after reportedly banging knees with another player during a workout in Las Vegas, making we wondering what the heck was going on.
上周，据报道，湖人中锋考辛斯在拉斯维加斯的一次训练中与另一名球员发生膝盖碰撞，导致前交叉韧带撕裂，让我们不禁发问“这到底是怎么一回事”。
Cousins--One of the most talented big men of any generation, has suddenly found himself caught in the consistent nightmare of surgery and rehab, during, under more ordinary circumstances, what ought to be the thick of his prime years. Instead, we're pondering the end.
考辛斯，这位无论放在哪个年代都是最具天赋的大个子球员之一，如今却置身于反反复复的伤病和康复的噩梦当中。在正常情况下，这些年本该是他职业生涯最辉煌的时段，然而，人们正普遍认为他的职业生涯已经走到了尽头。
And now, with an undermanned Lakers squad left to grind dust with the free agency millstone, it's fair to wonder what the team might look like now that their full-fledged fantasy has hit a roadblock.
现在，缺兵少将的湖人只能依靠自由球员来填补阵容上的空缺。既然他们打造豪华阵容的美梦已经破碎，我们完全有理由去猜想他们接下来打造的球队阵容是什么样的。
The Lakers are reportedly mulling alternatives, though there are few options; they are capped out and have depleted their collection of assets after acquiring Anthony Davis. They'll be searching for this season's version of Tyson Chandler. Bygone defensive mavens like Dwight Howard and Joakim Noah have both been mentioned as possibilities.
据报道，湖人队正考虑其他选择，尽管选择少之又少。在得到安东尼·戴维斯之后，他们的工资帽已经触顶，并耗尽了自己的年轻资产。他们将在本赛季寻找类似泰森·钱德勒的球员。过去的防守悍将如德怀特·霍华德和乔金·诺阿都被认为是可能的人选。
More than anything, Cousins served as a buffer between the Lakers' 1 percent and the rest of the roster: Even in his diminishedform, he had inherentupside that just about every player on the roster not named LeBron or AD lacked.
更重要的是，考辛斯在湖人的精英球员和其他普通球员之间起到了缓冲作用：即使他的状态有所下滑，但他与生俱来的优势可以说是球队轮换阵容中除了勒布朗·詹姆斯和安东尼·戴维斯之外的所有球员所欠缺的。

Cousins has the ability to fulfill the primary tasks of three different positional archetypes (facilitate, score down low, shoot 3s); even if he could do only one of those three things consistently night to night, he'd still be immensely valuable to the Lakers. Without him, the Lakers are built, more or less, like LeBron's old Cavs.
考辛斯有能力胜任三个位置的主要任务（协防、低位得分和投射三分），尽管他每晚只能专门负责三者其一，但他对于湖人来说仍然非常有价值。没有考辛斯，湖人的阵容构建或多或少与勒布朗·詹姆斯的老东家骑士队类似。
To label oneself a center in the NBA is to engage in one of the league's most enduring oxymorons. It is both the game's most celebrated and most thankless position.
在NBA，给自己贴上中锋的标签，就意味着让自身卷入最持久的矛盾当中。中锋是篮球这项运动最出名的位置，也是最吃力不讨好的位置。
Davis has rejected the center label despite spending the bulk of his career at the position, and is probably right to continue that stance as a Laker, at least from an optics perspective. There's no need to amplify the pressure of living up to the city's standards by placing oneself in the lineage of George Mikan, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Shaquille O'Neal.
尽管戴维斯职业生涯大部分时间都担任中锋，但他拒绝给自己贴上中锋的标签。但就目前的形势来看，他将继续在湖人队担任中锋。但是他没有必要将自己置身于乔治·麦肯、威尔特·张伯伦、卡里姆·阿卜杜勒·贾巴尔和沙奎尔·奥尼尔的行列中，给自己为满足这座城的标准造成更大的压力。
Cousins's injury isn't going to ruin the Lakers' shot at a championship this season; even when the signing was reported last month, it seemed the best-case scenario for Cousins was Biggest Microwave in NBA History.
考辛斯的受伤不会毁了湖人本赛季的总冠军梦。即使上个月就已经报道了签约的消息，但对考辛斯而言，最好的情况也仅是NBA历史上“最杰出的微波炉式球员”。
The Cousins news itself did not dip the Lakers into a state of crisis; the organization has been in a state of crisis for the past seven years. Things are a bit different now: The youth movement is over, and so are James's babysitting days.
考辛斯受伤的消息本身并没有让湖人陷入危机。在过去的七年中，湖人一直处于危机状态。如今，情况有了些许改观：依靠年轻球员建队的情况已经结束了，詹姆斯的“保姆生涯”也结束了。
Now, James is voluntarily ceding his throne to one of the five best players in the world, one who, when the games matter most, will inhabit the same space down in the paint that some of the biggest Lakers luminaries have over decades—whether he likes it or not.
现在，詹姆斯自愿将王位让位于另一位世界上最佳的五位篮球运动员之一。无论他是否喜欢，他都将在比赛的最关键时刻，守护油漆区，那里可是过去数十年来几位最杰出的湖人球员守护的圣地。
That duo should be enough to rise to the contending level. But the margin for error is still thin, and it just got slimmer. The Lakers got their dream pairing two months ago; the question today and in the coming weeks and months remains the same: Just how long will they hold up, and do they have the proper reinforcements should things break wrong?
詹姆斯和戴维斯的双人组有能力将湖人提升至争冠水平。但是，允许出差错的空间非常小，而且只会越变越小。两个月以前，湖人实现了打造詹姆斯和戴维斯双人组的愿望。但是如今的问题，以及接下来几周几个月的问题都是一样，那就是他们能够坚持多久，万一情况出错，他们是否能够找到合适的增援力量？

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