What Are the Odds the Lakers Make the Playoffs?

[An Unbiased Fan]

Lakers can definitely make the playoffs. They added Lopez at C, Ball at PG, and Ingram will be better. Really depends on the bench

[Xanadu]

.00000001% chance and that may be generous.I mean come on they are noticeably worse than the Blazer/Jazz/Wolves/Nuggets/Clips/Pelicans/OKC. All those teams have proven all stars and some have superstars or guys who could be soon. The Lakers have 0 proven all star talent hell most of their team hasn't proven to be above average starter material yet although I am sure they will. They will be competing for last place in the west for sure.

[Biased_Fan6425]

They became better compared to last year.

35-40 wins.

A lot of teams always tank at the end of the season leading to more wins.

[sonic the laker]

Despite what some people may like to believe, the Lakers have significantly improved their roster, from last year. Either through FA signing, ala KCP, and Caruso. Drafting, ala Kuzma, Hart, and Bryant. Or, another year of growth for young players, ala BI, Randle, Nance, and Clarkson. Also, the trade for Brook Lopez gave the Lakers a high calibur center, though losing DLo hurts.

1st tier: Golden State, Spurs, Rockets, Blazers, and OKC are all decidedly among the better teams in the West.

2nd tier: Clippers, Jazz, and Memphis have taken steps backwards in strength, just not sure how much until the season starts. But, they're vulnerable.

3rd tier: Minnesota, New Orleans, and Denver, are intriguing as they all added star power to their respective teams. Remains to be seen if it all fits.

4th tier: Sacramento, Phoenix, Lakers, and Dallas all have young rosters, leaning more on internal growth. Some more than others.

Other than the top 5 spots, the last 3 are up for grabs, imo. Those teams in the second/third tier will have a better chance of securing the 6-8 spots, but if the teams in the fourth tier are fortunate in having a player(s) with a breakout year, then anything could happen.

The Lakers chances of making the playoffs are low, but not impossible. As of right now, I'd say 15-20%.


ZOOM!!!!!!!

[Pinkyring]

None and to say they're better than dallas is absurd, i want us to suck but we gave away 4 or guys tanking to end the season and dirk missed like 20 early to put us in a hole, add dsj who is probably better than ball and reasonable health and we're in the 43-48 win range, lakers would be lucky to crack 35

Lol....not even to the bold part, that's absurd. Dallas lottery bound...count on it.

Whats absurd that dsj could be better thsn better ball when he was higher on a lot of draft boards or that we can win 9 more games when we gave away 4 or 5 wins tanking and our best player missed 28 total. I guess common sense to u is absurd carry on

[Edrees]

10% chance of making it. mostly likely we end up with 35 wins.

[Mirjalovic]

Lavar said they'll make the playoffs so 100%?





But seriously though, not very high. All I'm looking for is great improvement of the young guys and hopefully show enough promise to convince a FA or 2 that they are the missing piece.

Lavar Ball never wrong with his prediction

"“My son will only play for the Lakers.”
“We already got our own brand. Triple B’s. Lonzo is going to be the first one drafted with his own brand. That don’t happen.”
"His worst game ever (refering to Ball's first summer league game) "

when he say Lakers will make the playoff, you better believe it

[TTP]

OK, I'm going to summarize why I said 25% chance (as opposed to the 0%-5% chance most people said)..

(1) First, I think the expected value of wins on the team is 35 (that's obviously not enough to make the playoffs but also see my second point below). I expect a +9 boost from their win total last year for several reasons:
a. They are better at every starting position
Ball > Russell
KCP > Young
2017 Ingram > 2016 Ingram
2017 Randall > 2016 Randall
Lopez >> Mozgov
b. They have no incentive to tank, as compared to last year when they had a compelling reason to tank hard
c. Luke has another year under his belt
d. Ball is a player with a great track record in high school and college of increasing his team's victories
e. They have three starters on contract years, thus with a strong incentive to play their best (KCP, Randall, Lopez)

(2) Second, I think there is an unusually high variance with this team. That means while, the expected value is 35 wins, they could actually be much worse, or much better (as compared to a team like the Warriors where the variance is very small). That is because:
a. They have three new starters, so there are a lot of unknowns (Ball, KCP, Lopez)
b. They have one highly unorthodox starting rookie who may move the needle a lot or may not at all (Ball)
c. They have another starter who played fairly poorly much of last season but seemed to show great potential for improvement at the end of the season and in summer league (Ingram)

This variance means that, if nothing clicks, they could regress and get fewer many wins then they got last year (26). But if all things click, they could get up to 40+ wins and sneak into the 8th spot of the playoffs.

That is why I said that I think they have a 25% chance of making the playoffs. Expected value of 35 wins with a long tail in each direction . Perhaps 25% was a bit optimistic, maybe 20% is more realistic. But I definitely think it is well above the 1% chance that people are saying here.

This line of reasoning is flawed though because it assumes that everything else remains static. Your strength of schedule is likely tougher than last year because of the increased difficulty of the West. With the exact same roster as last year (at their last year skill level), you'd probably lose several more games this year.

Also again, if you're going to use this line of reasoning, you have to go through your whole rotation, because Lou Williams >>> whichever player you're going to list to his left. It's enough to offset the wins added from several other players.

[Heezzi]

I think the Lakers make it if they take Portland's spot.

[Pythagoras]

0% chance, but the season isn't about wins and losses for me, I'm just excited to watch the growth of Ball and Ingram. If the team even won 35 I'd honestly probably be pretty surprised, as a I think a lot would have to go right for that to happen.

[JHFVF07]

[youtube][/youtube]

OK, I'm going to summarize why I said 25% chance (as opposed to the 0%-5% chance most people said)..

(1) First, I think the expected value of wins on the team is 35 (that's obviously not enough to make the playoffs but also see my second point below). I expect a +9 boost from their win total last year for several reasons:
a. They are better at every starting position
Ball > Russell
KCP > Young
2017 Ingram > 2016 Ingram
2017 Randall > 2016 Randall
Lopez >> Mozgov
b. They have no incentive to tank, as compared to last year when they had a compelling reason to tank hard
c. Luke has another year under his belt
d. Ball is a player with a great track record in high school and college of increasing his team's victories
e. They have three starters on contract years, thus with a strong incentive to play their best (KCP, Randall, Lopez)

(2) Second, I think there is an unusually high variance with this team. That means while, the expected value is 35 wins, they could actually be much worse, or much better (as compared to a team like the Warriors where the variance is very small). That is because:
a. They have three new starters, so there are a lot of unknowns (Ball, KCP, Lopez)
b. They have one highly unorthodox starting rookie who may move the needle a lot or may not at all (Ball)
c. They have another starter who played fairly poorly much of last season but seemed to show great potential for improvement at the end of the season and in summer league (Ingram)

This variance means that, if nothing clicks, they could regress and get fewer many wins then they got last year (26). But if all things click, they could get up to 40+ wins and sneak into the 8th spot of the playoffs.

That is why I said that I think they have a 25% chance of making the playoffs. Expected value of 35 wins with a long tail in each direction . Perhaps 25% was a bit optimistic, maybe 20% is more realistic. But I definitely think it is well above the 1% chance that people are saying here.

This line of reasoning is flawed though because it assumes that everything else remains static. Your strength of schedule is likely tougher than last year because of the increased difficulty of the West. With the exact same roster as last year (at their last year skill level), you'd probably lose several more games this year.

Also again, if you're going to use this line of reasoning, you have to go through your whole rotation, because Lou Williams >>> whichever player you're going to list to his left. It's enough to offset the wins added from several other players.

We won almost the same % of games after Lou Williams trade. Yes, teams like Rockets and Wolves are stronger than last year, but teams like Clippers and Jazz are weaker, they are better than us, but it will be "easier" win games that we would lose last year. It works both ways.

[Chris76]

OK, I'm going to summarize why I said 25% chance (as opposed to the 0%-5% chance most people said)..

(1) First, I think the expected value of wins on the team is 35 (that's obviously not enough to make the playoffs but also see my second point below). I expect a +9 boost from their win total last year for several reasons:
a. They are better at every starting position
Ball > Russell
KCP > Young
2017 Ingram > 2016 Ingram
2017 Randall > 2016 Randall
Lopez >> Mozgov
b. They have no incentive to tank, as compared to last year when they had a compelling reason to tank hard
c. Luke has another year under his belt
d. Ball is a player with a great track record in high school and college of increasing his team's victories
e. They have three starters on contract years, thus with a strong incentive to play their best (KCP, Randall, Lopez)

(2) Second, I think there is an unusually high variance with this team. That means while, the expected value is 35 wins, they could actually be much worse, or much better (as compared to a team like the Warriors where the variance is very small). That is because:
a. They have three new starters, so there are a lot of unknowns (Ball, KCP, Lopez)
b. They have one highly unorthodox starting rookie who may move the needle a lot or may not at all (Ball)
c. They have another starter who played fairly poorly much of last season but seemed to show great potential for improvement at the end of the season and in summer league (Ingram)

This variance means that, if nothing clicks, they could regress and get fewer many wins then they got last year (26). But if all things click, they could get up to 40+ wins and sneak into the 8th spot of the playoffs.

That is why I said that I think they have a 25% chance of making the playoffs. Expected value of 35 wins with a long tail in each direction . Perhaps 25% was a bit optimistic, maybe 20% is more realistic. But I definitely think it is well above the 1% chance that people are saying here.

This line of reasoning is flawed though because it assumes that everything else remains static. Your strength of schedule is likely tougher than last year because of the increased difficulty of the West. With the exact same roster as last year (at their last year skill level), you'd probably lose several more games this year.

Also again, if you're going to use this line of reasoning, you have to go through your whole rotation, because Lou Williams >>> whichever player you're going to list to his left. It's enough to offset the wins added from several other players.

Good points. Lou Williams and Nick Young did have some very good games last year, but the Lakers seemed to have a more balanced team for next year.

Ball
KCP
Ingram
Randall/Deng
Lopez

Chemistry and health is a coin toss, just as the Sixers, but that looks like a competitive lineup. Anyway, a lot of teams have made major moves and added some promising rookies from the draft, the NBA should have more entertaining competition. With a healthy Lopez, I think 40 wins is a possibility, which could sneak into the playoffs.

[TTP]

[youtube][/youtube]

OK, I'm going to summarize why I said 25% chance (as opposed to the 0%-5% chance most people said)..

(1) First, I think the expected value of wins on the team is 35 (that's obviously not enough to make the playoffs but also see my second point below). I expect a +9 boost from their win total last year for several reasons:
a. They are better at every starting position
Ball > Russell
KCP > Young
2017 Ingram > 2016 Ingram
2017 Randall > 2016 Randall
Lopez >> Mozgov
b. They have no incentive to tank, as compared to last year when they had a compelling reason to tank hard
c. Luke has another year under his belt
d. Ball is a player with a great track record in high school and college of increasing his team's victories
e. They have three starters on contract years, thus with a strong incentive to play their best (KCP, Randall, Lopez)

(2) Second, I think there is an unusually high variance with this team. That means while, the expected value is 35 wins, they could actually be much worse, or much better (as compared to a team like the Warriors where the variance is very small). That is because:
a. They have three new starters, so there are a lot of unknowns (Ball, KCP, Lopez)
b. They have one highly unorthodox starting rookie who may move the needle a lot or may not at all (Ball)
c. They have another starter who played fairly poorly much of last season but seemed to show great potential for improvement at the end of the season and in summer league (Ingram)

This variance means that, if nothing clicks, they could regress and get fewer many wins then they got last year (26). But if all things click, they could get up to 40+ wins and sneak into the 8th spot of the playoffs.

That is why I said that I think they have a 25% chance of making the playoffs. Expected value of 35 wins with a long tail in each direction . Perhaps 25% was a bit optimistic, maybe 20% is more realistic. But I definitely think it is well above the 1% chance that people are saying here.

This line of reasoning is flawed though because it assumes that everything else remains static. Your strength of schedule is likely tougher than last year because of the increased difficulty of the West. With the exact same roster as last year (at their last year skill level), you'd probably lose several more games this year.

Also again, if you're going to use this line of reasoning, you have to go through your whole rotation, because Lou Williams >>> whichever player you're going to list to his left. It's enough to offset the wins added from several other players.

We won almost the same % of games after Lou Williams trade. Yes, teams like Rockets and Wolves are stronger than last year, but teams like Clippers and Jazz are weaker, they are better than us, but it will be "easier" win games that we would lose last year. It works both ways.

You guys were at a 26.9 win pace with him and a 23.9 win pace without him. Given that he played ~71% of a season with you, that comes out to just over a 2 win difference.

However, you guys had a more favorable schedule in those 24 games without him. Without factoring in strength of opponents, 15 of those 24 games without him were at home. This is non-negligible - the Lakers had a 41% winrate at home and 22% winrate on the road last season despite having a worse roster for their home games. While home court advantage is not as significant as those numbers would suggest, the home team still has a significant edge. This not only makes it disingenuous to just say "our winning % didn't change much without him" but it also bumps up that 2 win difference a bit.

Now finally consider that if you're going to add wins by upgrading Mozgov to Lopez, Young to KCP, etc, you're going to have to consider a significant loss from Lou to whoever is getting those minutes (Ennis + Brewer?). You're going from a player that made your team several wins better to a likely negative player.

Losing Lou probably subtracts at least 3 wins. The Lakers were 10.3 points per 100 possessions better when he was on the court in 2016-17. Whether you want to admit it or not, he was probably the most productive player on your team last season.

[alessandrux]

Who is this Randall guy?

[markjay]

[youtube][/youtube]

This line of reasoning is flawed though because it assumes that everything else remains static. Your strength of schedule is likely tougher than last year because of the increased difficulty of the West. With the exact same roster as last year (at their last year skill level), you'd probably lose several more games this year.

Also again, if you're going to use this line of reasoning, you have to go through your whole rotation, because Lou Williams >>> whichever player you're going to list to his left. It's enough to offset the wins added from several other players.

We won almost the same % of games after Lou Williams trade. Yes, teams like Rockets and Wolves are stronger than last year, but teams like Clippers and Jazz are weaker, they are better than us, but it will be "easier" win games that we would lose last year. It works both ways.

You guys were at a 26.9 win pace with him and a 23.9 win pace without him. Given that he played ~71% of a season with you, that comes out to just over a 2 win difference.

However, you guys had a more favorable schedule in those 24 games without him. Without factoring in strength of opponents, 15 of those 24 games without him were at home. This is non-negligible - the Lakers had a 41% winrate at home and 22% winrate on the road last season despite having a worse roster for their home games. While home court advantage is not as significant as those numbers would suggest, the home team still has a significant edge. This not only makes it disingenuous to just say "our winning % didn't change much without him" but it also bumps up that 2 win difference a bit.

Now finally consider that if you're going to add wins by upgrading Mozgov to Lopez, Young to KCP, etc, you're going to have to consider a significant loss from Lou to whoever is getting those minutes (Ennis + Brewer?). You're going from a player that made your team several wins better to a likely negative player.

Losing Lou probably subtracts at least 3 wins. The Lakers were 10.3 points per 100 possessions better when he was on the court in 2016-17. Whether you want to admit it or not, he was probably the most productive player on your team last season.

Excellent analysis! Thanks. I appreciate your taking the time and effort for this analysis.

The Lakers obviously lost a very strong bench piece in Williams, but they picked up other bench pieces, particularly Kuzma and Hart who are both 22 year and ready to contribute. I'll stand by my claim that they have an expected valley of 35 wins, but I may have homer glasses on. I've been following Ball for a long time and am very optimistic about how he can affect the culture of a team.

[bulliedog8]

OK, I'm going to summarize why I said 25% chance (as opposed to the 0%-5% chance most people said)..

(1) First, I think the expected value of wins on the team is 35 (that's obviously not enough to make the playoffs but also see my second point below). I expect a +9 boost from their win total last year for several reasons:
a. They are better at every starting position
Ball > Russell
KCP > Young
2017 Ingram > 2016 Ingram
2017 Randall > 2016 Randall
Lopez >> Mozgov
b. They have no incentive to tank, as compared to last year when they had a compelling reason to tank hard
c. Luke has another year under his belt
d. Ball is a player with a great track record in high school and college of increasing his team's victories
e. They have three starters on contract years, thus with a strong incentive to play their best (KCP, Randall, Lopez)

(2) Second, I think there is an unusually high variance with this team. That means while, the expected value is 35 wins, they could actually be much worse, or much better (as compared to a team like the Warriors where the variance is very small). That is because:
a. They have three new starters, so there are a lot of unknowns (Ball, KCP, Lopez)
b. They have one highly unorthodox starting rookie who may move the needle a lot or may not at all (Ball)
c. They have another starter who played fairly poorly much of last season but seemed to show great potential for improvement at the end of the season and in summer league (Ingram)

This variance means that, if nothing clicks, they could regress and get fewer many wins then they got last year (26). But if all things click, they could get up to 40+ wins and sneak into the 8th spot of the playoffs.

That is why I said that I think they have a 25% chance of making the playoffs. Expected value of 35 wins with a long tail in each direction . Perhaps 25% was a bit optimistic, maybe 20% is more realistic. But I definitely think it is well above the 1% chance that people are saying here.

This line of reasoning is flawed though because it assumes that everything else remains static. Your strength of schedule is likely tougher than last year because of the increased difficulty of the West. With the exact same roster as last year (at their last year skill level), you'd probably lose several more games this year.

Also again, if you're going to use this line of reasoning, you have to go through your whole rotation, because Lou Williams >>> whichever player you're going to list to his left. It's enough to offset the wins added from several other players.

And you could also assume the pelicans, mavs, suns, kings, all got better too, if you do the exact same thing he did with the lakers.

Suns have better young talent than the lakers and the kings have a lot of good young talent too. No guarantee that the lakers end up better than them. Lakers might be the worst in their division

[DEEP3CL]

None and to say they're better than dallas is absurd, i want us to suck but we gave away 4 or guys tanking to end the season and dirk missed like 20 early to put us in a hole, add dsj who is probably better than ball and reasonable health and we're in the 43-48 win range, lakers would be lucky to crack 35

Lol....not even to the bold part, that's absurd. Dallas lottery bound...count on it.

Whats absurd that dsj could be better thsn better ball when he was higher on a lot of draft boards or that we can win 9 more games when we gave away 4 or 5 wins tanking and our best player missed 28 total. I guess common sense to u is absurd carry on

Everything you said was absurd, no way was DSJ higher than Ball on any draft boards that I saw, so I guess we live in make believe land. Secondly Cuban and the Mavs have only been stalling the enviable,and that's a rebuild. "Giving away 4-5 wins"...is a stretch, no way the Mavs were making the post season last year. I saw a lot of Mavs games and all it is, is Cuban trying to put a band-aide over a fatal wound. I'm telling you now the Mavs won't come close to 48 wins, not with that roster.

[Pinkyring]

Lol....not even to the bold part, that's absurd. Dallas lottery bound...count on it.

Whats absurd that dsj could be better thsn better ball when he was higher on a lot of draft boards or that we can win 9 more games when we gave away 4 or 5 wins tanking and our best player missed 28 total. I guess common sense to u is absurd carry on

Everything you said was absurd, no way was DSJ higher than Ball on any draft boards that I saw, so I guess we live in make believe land. Secondly Cuban and the Mavs have only been stalling the enviable,and that's a rebuild. "Giving away 4-5 wins"...is a stretch, no way the Mavs were making the post season last year. I saw a lot of Mavs games and all it is, is Cuban trying to put a band-aide over a fatal wound. I'm telling you now the Mavs won't come close to 48 wins, not with that roster.

Lol ok dude enjoy homerland u sound ridiculous, conveniently left everything out i said, regardless to our rebuild we have a hell of a lot more talent than the lakers do and only a fool would think otherwise

[Curmudgeon]

I looked for Vegas futures with the odds that each NBA team would make the playoffs, but couldn't find any. I only found each team's odds for winning a championship.

[DEEP3CL]

Whats absurd that dsj could be better thsn better ball when he was higher on a lot of draft boards or that we can win 9 more games when we gave away 4 or 5 wins tanking and our best player missed 28 total. I guess common sense to u is absurd carry on

Everything you said was absurd, no way was DSJ higher than Ball on any draft boards that I saw, so I guess we live in make believe land. Secondly Cuban and the Mavs have only been stalling the enviable,and that's a rebuild. "Giving away 4-5 wins"...is a stretch, no way the Mavs were making the post season last year. I saw a lot of Mavs games and all it is, is Cuban trying to put a band-aide over a fatal wound. I'm telling you now the Mavs won't come close to 48 wins, not with that roster.

Lol ok dude enjoy homerland u sound ridiculous, conveniently left everything out i said, regardless to our rebuild we have a hell of a lot more talent than the lakers do and only a fool would think otherwise

Lol...dude if I sound like a fool, do you think you sound rational ?

I'm far from a homer, in this very same thread I'm already on record saying the Lakers won't make the playoffs. So your thought holds no weight, secondly if you think the Mavs have talent to get them in the playoffs next years then god bless you, sorry to burst that bubble but they don't. And I didn't conveniently leave anything out that you said...unless you were referencing Dirk, I tried to be nice and not say anything bad about him, but dude Dirk has been the best player by default because Cuban been covering that team with band aides for the last 6 years. Dirk isn't a top 20 talent in the NBA anymore and chances are he'll miss more games this upcoming season as well.

But you think they're winning 48 games ?....yeah ok!