The Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James are in unfamiliar territory. Only three times in James illustrious career has his missed the postseason. Now, we could be witnessing the fourth time this has happened. The Lakers are just 1.5 games above the San Antonio Spurs for the 10th seed out in the Western Conference. This means that they are currently locked to take part in the play-in tournament that goes on between the seventh through 10th seeds in each conference. There is only nine games left to go in the regular season, so can the Lakers really turn it around?
First things first, the only chance that they have is through the play-in tournament. The Denver Nuggets are the sixth seed out in the West right now, and they are already too far away for Los Angeles to catch up. So, they are going to have to try and stay ahead of the Spurs, then make a strong play-in tournament run just to grab the eighth seed. The rest of their regular season schedule is brutal though. They play the Dallas Mavericks, New Orleans Pelicans twice, Denver Nuggets twice, Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns, Oklahoma City Thunder and the Golden State Warriors in no particular order. They will most likely be listed as underdogs in every game except the Thunder matchup and maybe even one of the Pelicans games.
Some sites have them listed with a six percent chance to make it into the postseason at the moment, and it feels like that is correct. The Lakers have to change a lot of things throughout these last few games just to get into that elimination tournament, and even then, they have tough matchups ahead. If the standings stay as they are, they would face off with the Pelicans in the first game of the play-in. The Pelicans have a top five net rating in the NBA throughout the past 15 matchups, mostly because C.J. McCollum has drastically improved their scoring. Then, they would have to take on either Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves or the Los Angeles Clippers. All three of those teams have been better than the Lakers, especially the Clippers. The Clippers haven’t lost to LeBron and the Lakers since Tyronn Lue took over as the team’s head coach.
With Anthony Davis still sitting on the sidelines and LeBron facing numerous injuries of his own, it’s not hard to imagine them missing the postseason here. Russell Westbrook has been improving, but the teams’ issues clearly go far beyond his stat lines and impact on the game. The roster that was built here just didn’t take any consideration into chemistry and defense. It’s why they rank so low in both of these departments. Maybe next year this team will turn it around and be a high seed, but this won’t be the year. Honestly, I think we see them miss the playoffs this year.