The Lakers making the playoffs seems like a pipe dream with 7 teams standing between them and a top-6 finish and guaranteed playoff seed in the west but it’s actually a slam dunk if they can win 75% of their games.
Right now, the Lakers are in 13th place, 1.5 games out of 10th place and the Play-In Tournament and 3.5 games out of 6th place and guaranteed playoff spot but fortunately have 13 games against 8 of the 9 teams above them.
Lakers’ head coach Darvin Ham says the team does not want to participate in the Play-In Tournament and is focused on winning a top-6 seed in the Western Conference playoffs by winning 16 of 23 or 70% of the games left.
When you look at how many teams are between the #13 Lakers and the #6 seed in the playoffs, it’s easy to wonder if it’s simply just too late for Los Angeles to make a serious run at getting into the top-6 teams in the West.
Earning 7th or 8th place in the West to get two shots at winning a playoff spot in the Play-In Tournament is certainly a more realistic and achievable goal for the Lakers to have with so far to climb and just 22 games to do it.
But this season has seen a plague of parity the likes of which the Western Conference of the NBA has not seen for years and the Lakers are fortunate that this situation has given them an unexpected chance to win a ring.
Current Western Conference Standings and Records
With Denver, Memphis, and Sacramento holding the top three spots in the West standings, the battle for the remaining three guaranteed playoff spots and the four available spots in the Play-In Tournament will be ferocious.
Right now, the Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Clippers, and Dallas Mavericks have solid but small leads on the #4, #5, and #6 seeds. All three teams have winning records for the season as well as for the last 10 games they played.
If the Lakers want to avoid the Play-In Tournament, they’re going to need to climb over seven teams including one of the Suns, Clippers, and Mavs to jump from 13th to 6th seed, a formidable challenge with just 22 games left.
Frankly, the more realistic target for the Los Angeles Lakers is to finish in 7th or 8th place so they would get two shots at winning a Play-In game to secure the favorable #7 or #8 seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
Fortunately for the Lakers, most of the teams with whom they would be competing in the Play-In Tournament do not have winning records for the season or for their last 10 games, which gives Los Angeles an advantage.
Here are current Western Conference standings and win-loss records for the 10 teams separated by 3.5 games between 4th place and 13th place plus the teams’ win % last 10 games and games still remaining against Lakers:
PLAYOFFS:
#4 PHX 33–28, 70%, 2 games
#5 LAC 33–29, 50%, 1 game
#6 DAL 32–29, 60%, 2 games
PLAY-IN:
#7 MIN 31–31, 40%, 2 games
#8 NOP 30–30, 40%, 1 game
#9 GSW 30–30, 40%, 1 game
#10 UTA 30–31, 50%, 2 games
#11 OKC 28–31, 40%, 2 games
#12 POR 28–31, 50%, 0 games
#13 LAL 28–32, 50%
Projected Western Conference Standings and Records
If the Lakers want to avoid the Play-In Tournament and enter the playoffs as the #6 team in the West, they’re going to have to do it by stealing the Clippers’ top-6 playoff spot and kicking them down to the Play-In Tourney.
The unprecedented parity that’s infected the Western Conference of the NBA shows no signs of breaking with 15 teams competing for 6 guaranteed playoff spots and 4 postseason spots in the new Play-In Tournament.
The bad news is the Lakers have to climb over 7 teams just to avoid the Play-In Tournament. The good news is they still have 10 games against the seven teams directly above them in the Western Conference standings.
One way to project the win-loss records for the ten teams fighting for the remaining 7 postseason spots is to apply their win % last 10 games to the games remaining on their schedules to project their final win-loss records.
That would give the Lakers 11 wins and a 39–43 record, which probably means missing the Play-In. Winning 75% or 17 games, on the other hand, would elevate the Lakers’ projected win-loss record to 45–37 and #5 seed.
Here are projected Western Conference standings and win-loss records if team’s win % last 10 days is applied to the remaining games. For Lakers, we used 75%, their record since deadline, rather than 50% win % last 10 days:
PLAYOFFS:
#4 PHX 48–34
#5 LAL 45–37
#6 DAL 45–37
PLAY-IN:
#7 LAC 43–39
#8 UTA 41–41
#9 POR 40–42
#10 MIN 39–43
LOTTERY:
#11 NOP 39–43
#12 GSW 39–43
#13 OKC 37–45
Why Every Remaining Lakers Game Is ‘Must Win’ Game
While winning 75% or 17 of their remaining 23 games would essentially guarantee the Los Angeles Lakers make the playoffs, their margin for error is razor slim with every single remaining game being a ‘must win’ game.
Another way of showing how thin the Lakers chances of making the playoff are is to consider how many losses would eliminate them from top-6 seed, 7th or 8th in the Play-In Tournament, or 9th or 10th in Play-In Tournament.
If Lakers lose 7 games, they probably aren’t making playoffs as top-6 team. If they lose 9 games, they probably aren’t making 7th or 8th in the Play-In Tournament. If they lose 11 games, they’re at risk of missing the playoffs.
That means the Lakers have to view every single one of the 22 remaining games on their schedules as ‘must win’ games. They need to come out and dominate every game from the start and not allow teams to hang around.
The Lakers don’t have any margin for error to suffer a loss because they allowed an opponent to hang around and then heroically pull out a win with a great play by their star player or a blown call by one of the refs.
The Lakers’ last two dominating wins were perfect templates for what they need to do every single game. Every Laker has to come out and play like every game is the most important regular season game of their careers.
https://twitter.com/LakerTom/status/1629618835405029378
https://twitter.com/LakerTom/status/1629619178192908290
https://twitter.com/LakerTom/status/1629620300680945665
Did not watch Clipps, but what a game. Did see Westy had 7 TO’s though. Anyone watch and your thoughts.
Just like Lakers. Made some great passes and shots. Also made 7 turnovers and they lost the game.
https://twitter.com/LakerTom/status/1629620685080510464
Basically it all comes down to health. Our 2 most recent wins have come against team’s without key players in Steph and Zion. We should (and had) to win those games. The real point of this, which should be obvious, is that the Lakers do not in any way shape or form control their own destiny. They haven’t for awhile now. They need two teams to fall out of the playoff AND playin picture completely. Of all the teams in front of us it feels like Utah will fall out mainly because one assumes that was the plan all along.
KAT could be back soon which will bolster the T’Wolves chances of staying in the playin. Hard to count Golden State out when they get Steph back. NOLA might fall all the way out…unless Zion comes back and pumps them back up to what was a top 3 team. That’s just the playin teams. Those already feel like a stretch even with our new look lineups.
The playoffs feel like a mile away, yes I understand the math. Kyrie and Luka feel combustible enough that they might fall out. I actually see the Clippers either staying put or climbing just based on depth and experience and the fact that Kawhi is rounding into shape.
If the Lakers win 70-75% of their games it will be astounding, but it is possible and they can’t afford to lose many (if any) in division or conference games going forward because those basically count as 2 losses.
I’ll add that if the team misses the playoffs the season will, and should, be viewed as a massive failure. People will try and blame Russ the same way the blamed Vogel. The true fault rests with neither but with the dithering and woebegone leadership of the franchise. Could have pulled the trigger on a trade this summer. Did not. Could have spent to keep Caruso and THT and had more trade flexibility or even just better players. Did not.
What they do after this season, however it ends, will give us a very clear picture of their priorities. Are they willing to spend on a level comparable to the Nets, Warriors or Clippers? Or are they highest profile small market team of all time. Concerned more about the bottom line than the team on the court? Those questions look over all of this and we won’t really know how it’ll break until the season concludes. My hope is the players on the roster force ownership to come up to their level of winning but I have doubts that will happen. I expect at least one of the new guys to be on a new team next season simply because the Lakers won’t go deep into taxes to keep them all. We’ll see, I was (finally) wrong about the lack of in-season trades so maybe it’s portends of better things from the top down.
Honestly, in the end as it has all along, this will come down to AD and LBJ’s health and ability to play well. The rest are the trimmings and, gravy and cherry on top.
LOL. Takes a lot to get Dr. No happy. That’s the big problem with the glass-half-empty crowd. Always focused on the negative that they miss the positive. Lakers doing everything right but some still unhappy.
LOL back atcha. You do realize that, should we not make the playoffs, we’ll have basically traded a 1st round pick for players we probably could have signed in free agency, right? Or at least their equivalent. For this we should all be lining up to give Rob an apology hand job or something? Lol, you’ll not be surprised when my place in line is empty, I assume.
LMAO. You need to pay a little more attention to how the salary cap and trades and free agency work.
We traded for 6 new players whose combined salaries totalled $69.5M. We also have a way to keep all 6 playerw with Bird, RFA, or Team options so we can go over the cap to keep all of them plus Reaves.
The goal of these trades was to get players who were keepers, who were young, tall and long, athletic, and able to shoot the rock and play defense. This was a move for the present and the future.
Wait until hell freezes over if that’s what you want. The rest of us will cogratulate and thank Rob and root for things to keep coming up Lakers.
..:at a price point ownership has yet to come close to. That’s the sentence you left out.
Also, if they don’t or we choose not to keep some/most/any (something certainly atBD) then, yes, we will have traded a FRP for the plan they were following all along. Basically, the way I see it, the jury is still pretty out on how amazing all these trades are. As I’ve already said, and will continue to say, Rob did a good job hewing to the course defined for him this summer and still moved Russ who fit poorly here based onbthe choices made after they signed him. which was to cheap out. If the cheaping outbdoesnt change there’s no way we keep all these guys.
They didn’t give up a first round pick for players they are not going to re-sign.
We may not spend like the Clippers or Dubs but were not going to cut any of the 5 new players we added if they all play great.
Doesn’t mean we won’t trade them but I think we’re done letting tradeable players walk for nothing in free agency.
Need to manager the assets better than that. No more losing guys like Monk and Caruso for nothing.
The jury is always out for Dr. No.
https://twitter.com/Tim_NBA/status/1629537558345465856
This whole thing is built on a faulty premise. It assumes that all 7 teams are gonna play .500 or worse and that we’re the only team capable of getting hot to end the season. That logic is flawed…at best. Give me 7th or 8th and let’s roll.
It assumed that the other teams in the race would finish with the same percentage as their last 10 games. If that was true for Lakers, they would finish at 50% to end 39-43, which would be 10th, 11th, or 12th. Seems like a logical way to project final totals.
That seems about right except the Lakers dramatically improved so I used 75%, which is their winning percentage since the trade deadline. That gives them 17 wins instead of 11 of the next 22 games, which moves them up to a tie with the Mavs and a game in front of the Clippers, who get dumped down into the Play-In.
It’s not sound logic if you’re projecting the other teams based on a different sample size from what you’re using o to project the Lakers. And the Mavs and Clipps both made major moves at the deadline as well.
LOL. OK. I believe the Lakers moves are all positive while the moves by the Mavs and the Clips have potential to be disruptive and harmful to those teams.
Anyway, it’s just a fun projection. Let’s see how close or far away it is when the season ends. I do think the Lakers record for the last 20 games will be among the best in the West.
I believe the same thing. What I don’t believe is that everyone else is gonna play .500 or worse. Other teams want momentum heading into the playoffs too…ain’t just us.
Here’s the problem. Most of these teams are playing .400 or .500 right now for season and last 10 games. Nobody’s winning 6 or 7 or 8 of 10. And they’re all playing each other, which is why they’re still bunched.
I think Lakers have best chance to break out. It’s going to be very hard to get #6 and the only way is to win 17 or 18 games. Frankly, the Lakers are that much better after the trades so it’s up to Ham and them to do it.
Best of all, even if they don’t, I like the pieces going forward. Very good fits with James and Davis and very tradeable. Unlike the past when we were chasing cap space, we now have pieces to trade when opportunity knocks. But this year is still wide open.
lol. Projections. Let’s take it one game at a time. FWIW we’ve played teams we match up well with and had injuries to key players. That scenario won’t hold. The new look hasn’t really even been tested, yet, today is a good one. Who is going to contain Kyrie and Luka? Jarred will try, probably get into foul trouble but I hope he makes it hard for Luka to get his. Don’t see anyone on our roster other than Dennis who can stay in front of Irving.
What I’m saying is that that you’re basing projections off of the two best case scenarios, that’s not sustainable or realistic, although it is fun, I guess. I personally don’t go in much for sun/loss projections. Too many factors that influence the outcome. I think you laid out great and lofty goals and I hope the Lakers are up to it but like DJ said a couple days ago: I can see 7-8 or 13-2z Vast difference between the two. One keeps the season alive and one signals it’s demise.
I think health will be the key. Not just for the Lakers but everyone in front of us as well. I can’t remember a years were so many stars have lost significant playing time to injury. That is the primary reason the west is so tight. The Warriors sit at 7 but they get Steph back next week, so you have to assume they will start playing better. I have not read a time frame for Towns and Zion but once they are back both the Pels and T-Wolves will be better as well. I do believe we make the play in. But the 6th seed will be tough. I think Dallas could slip out of the 6th seed. They traded defense for Kyrie and they were not good defensively before the trade, but a healthy Warriors team is in better position to step into that slot. I would feel better about our chances if this group had been together longer and had developed a chemistry. But they will be forced to learn on the fly which will be tough. I think our secret weapon will be our depth. After the trade we are probably the deepest team in the west with the exception of the Clippers. Our 2nd unit has played together and they have started so we should have an advantage there. I would love the 6th seed but the 8th seed seems a more realistic goal. This road trip will tell us a lot about how far we can climb. And if we have any chance at the 6th seed we will need to beat the Mav’s today.
Yes to all of the above. Health is always the key in sport but especially the NBA where the pool of talent/team is small. Our depth isn’t enough to overcome an injury to AD or LeBron, for instance. Those 5-8 games we gave away at the free throw line loom larger and larger as the season tightens. Just those are a lot of ground to recover and if you throw in the number of division and conference losses it gets doubly tough. Great test for this squad because if they ride to the challenge it really can be something special and ownership shoukd rise to the challenge next and spend to keep it together.
Well said, Michael. I especially agree about our depth being our secret weapon. Fear LeBron and AD but watch out for the others.