Los Angeles Lakers: How far will the Lakers fall in the playoff race?
How far will the Los Angeles Lakers fall in the West standings?
When it was first announced in February that the Los Angeles Lakers would be without Anthony Davis, many assumed that LeBron James would be able to keep the team afloat in the Western Conference.
Although, when LeBron also went down with a bad ankle injury, the conversation around the Lakers quickly changed.
It went from possibly remaining afloat in the Western Conference to how far the team would fall in the standings heading into the postseason. It was reported that LeBron is still 3-5 more weeks away from a return, while Davis is “still a ways away.”
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Assuming that the Lakers won’t be at full strength for at least three weeks, and possibly more, there’s a good chance this team will have to get by without their two stars for 10-20 more games.
As it stands, the Lakers are fourth in the Western Conference with a 29-17 record. In their last 10 games, they’re just 5-5. If they remain at that pace, there’s a good chance that by the time Davis and LeBron, Los Angeles will be in the sixth seed heading into the final few games of the regular season.
Los Angeles only has 26 games remaining on its schedule and the Lakers, at this point, would be lucky to get their dynamic duo back together for the final 10 of them. In fact, they better hope they do.
Even though this team won a championship in the NBA’s restart bubble, the Lakers would need to have a few games to get back in the swing of things and in rhythm. Even more so if the team continues to fall in the standings and ends up in a 3-6 or 4-5 playoff matchup.
The Last thing that the Lakers need is a first-round playoff matchup against the LA Clippers or Denver Nuggets, who are currently sitting in the third and fifth spots respectively. The Lakers are just 1.5 games ahead of the sixth seed in the West and I’m not sure Los Angeles has enough to hold off the Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers (fifth and sixth, respectively) without Davis and LeBron in the lineup for the next couple of weeks.
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Expect the Los Angeles Lakers to continue to fall down the West standings without LeBron and Davis. I suppose the big question and concern is whether or not they’ll be 100 percent healthy and ready to go for the playoffs. At this point, that might be the bigger target date for their duo.