Lakers: Could LA Miss The Play-In Tournament?

Currently mired in a three-game losing streak, the depleted Lakers will be without All-Star Anthony Davis for several more weeks. They could see their play-in chances crumble in the interim.

Your Los Angeles Lakers have seen better days.

When the team opted to go all-in on former All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook this summer and surround the team with a few young guys with upside and oodles of past-their-prime vets on minimum salaries, we knew the team's fortunes would turn on how its Big Three of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Westbrook would operate together.

After piecing together a three-game winning streak, the Lakers now find themselves in a three-game losing streak. To be fair, that winning streak falls apart a bit upon closer inspection. LA beat the tanking Oklahoma City Thunder and Orlando Magic, two teams with a combined record of 16-44. They then needed some lucky buzzer-beaters courtesy of streaky shooters Wayne Ellington and Austin Reaves plus an overtime period to barely defeat a Luka Doncic-free Dallas Mavericks team 107-104. Then the losing began. LA has fallen to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns.

The depleted Lakers will be missing All-Star big man Anthony Davis for at least the next four weeks, due to an MCL sprain suffered during a collision with Minnesota Timberwolves power forward Jaden McDaniels. They could see their play-in chances crumble during AD's extended absence.

With a middling 16-16 record, the Lakers are the seventh seed in the Western Conference at present, just 0.5 games behind the fifth- and sixth-seeded Denver Nuggets (15-14) and Los Angeles Clippers (16-15). But LA is also just three games ahead of being out of the play-in bracket, comprising the seventh through tenth seeds. The Portland Trail Blazers (13-19) and San Antonio Spurs (12-18) are the 11th and 12th seeds. Yes, LA is a few games clear of the 10th-seeded Sacramento Kings, too, who sport a 13-19 record and are missing several rotation players, and their interim head coach, due to COVID-19 protocols as of this writing.

Let's face it: the Lakers, at present, are a thoroughly mediocre team, at best. They lose handily to more talented clubs and can sometimes drop a game or two to terrible clubs.

With the loss of Anthony Davis, and several crucial rotation players sidelined due to the NBA's coronavirus health and safety protocols, the team will need to stay afloat during what should have been a home-heavy schedule over the next few weeks.

The Lakers will host the surging Spurs and the ailing Brooklyn Nets for their next two games, then will have a winnable road contest against the Houston Rockets and a pretty losable away game against the Memphis Grizzlies, before they return to the (ugh) Crypto.com Arena for a five-game homestand. Only one of the teams they'll be squaring off against in that stretch, the Grizzlies again, boasts a record of .500 or better as of this writing.

Despite the All-NBA play of 36-year-old All-Star LeBron James, the rest of the Los Angeles roster has struggled to find much consistency on either side of the ball sans AD. The team has especially had trouble containing small guards or skilled bigs. The Ghost of Isaiah Thomas is playing major minutes, and has been good for two games but terrible last night against the Phoenix Suns (in 25:33 of game time, he shot a paltry 1-of-11 from the field).

Los Angeles could absolutely sink in the standings despite having a somewhat favorable schedule, because they're just that mediocre. It's hard to imagine that, should James play 60+ games and Davis play in 50+ games, the Lakers could actually fall out of the play-in bracket and miss the NBA postseason entirely. 

But they are certainly not among the Western Conference's elite, and it's possible that the ascendant Spurs, behind the play of standout guard Dejounte Murray, or the Trail Blazers, once C.J. McCollum returns from a scary collapsed lung absence, could go on a run and claw their way back into play-in contention. This Laker roster's age and injury history was always going to be a problem, and we're seeing that bear out now. ESPN spinoff site FiveThirtyEight.com pegs the Lakers' chances of making the playoffs at all -- not winning the title, mind you, but making the playoffs -- at 27% as of this writing. Making the playoffs, of course, is not the same thing as qualifying for the play-in tournament. The Lakers have two of the best 20 players in the NBA. Regardless of their other personnel, they should be able to at least be the West's tenth seed, though the recent injury history of Davis and James could prove to be an unwelcome obstruction.