If everything goes perfect, do we make the playoffs?

[RingsDontLie]

What if everything went perfect next season?

1) No one gets injured, no locker room issues, no distractions
2) Luke Walton creates a system and atmosphere that everyone believes in, and he utilizes everyone on the roster to 100% of their capability. Lakers establish cohesion, identity, and definitive roles for each player early on in the season.
3) D'angelo Russell emerges as a star and has his breakout season establishing himself as a top point guard in the league, and brings it consistently every game
4) Clarkson emerges as a star.
5) Ingram emerges as a ROY and adapts as easily as Durant did in his rookie season. Makes the all star team in his rookie year, averaging 20ppg before the all star break.
6) Mozgov and Deng provide reliable and solid play, along with great leadership and locker room presence.
7) Nance and Black become this amazing off the bench duo providing rebounds, easy put backs, inside presence, and athleticism to spark the bench.
8) Randle emerges as a star, becomes a double double machine, while also showing a much improved mid-range jumper. Teams can no longer slack off on him and he becomes almost unstoppable on the offensive end, unless you double team.
9) Zubac becomes this genius move by the Lakers, has immediate impact in his 1st season.

If all this comes true...are we a playoff team?

[rallydurham]

I can't see them topping 35 wins under any circumstances.

They get a nice bump from kobe retiring but this is a really bad roster still. Ingram is a project and won't be ready to contribute this year. He's got a very good chance of becoming a good player and possibly a star but his body is not ready for the nba nor is his ball handling. He's going to find it near impossible to shoot even 45% from inside the arc and becoming a 3 point marksman usually takes a few years

Deng can play and he will take a lot of the load off a team that's pretty ill equipped offensively

[Marionettetc]

The premises are flawed to begin with, everything won't come together.

So I vote no. I think the Lakers are 2-3 years away from the playoffs.

[gts1]

I'm voting yes. because if indeed all those things were to happen we'd make the playoffs...

they won't but if they did

[lake_show]

If all that happens, then i think they have a shot. But even if all that happens, i don't think it's a guarantee.

This is where people get themselves into trouble because they start to convince themselves that all that COULD happen. Then they start to dream about what that would be like. Then, when it doesn't come to pass, they lose their minds. That entire list coming true is a pipe dream. But a few of those things, or versions of those things could happen.

And, even if only few of those things come true, or some versions of those things happen, it will definitely be waaaay more fun to watch than anything we saw last year.

[rand0m]

If all those things happened yes. But they won't because there is a lot of significant hurdles in that list. I'm hoping dlo starts showing he could be that player but to expect him to emerge that fast is wishful thinking. Same goes for zubac who is probably 3 years away from making any impact. Ingram could be ROY if all goes perfectly but that doesn't necessarily mean a significant impact on wins. To make the postseason from 17 wins would be unbelievable. Optimistically I think we start seeing promise of these things in the 2nd half of the season.


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[Speedlot]

Understand his question. He's saying if anything went well. If we have 4 damn stars, of course we make the playoffs. The chance of that? Slim. I'm happy if we get ONE star this year from our babies.

[Kilroy]

I mean, if everything goes perfect, we could win the championship...

But that aside, if everyone did their jobs this off season, I could see us knocking on the door of the playoffs... Kind of like the Celtics were a season or 2 ago... But I don't see us being a true playoff threat by any reasonable stretch of the imagination.

[MelosSoreWrist]

3,4,5,8 happening all next year is beyond realistic, even in a perfect scenario. If 2 of those guys eventually become stars sometime in their career in LA, that would be great.

[Levity]

10) western conference gets collectively worse

but considering minnys substantial improvement. utah fighting for that 8th seed (just got diaw). and dallas not throwing in the towel just yet, playoffs dont seem likely just yet

[worldrenownjay]

If everything goes right, this Lakers team as constructed wont sniff the playoffs

[gotokyo]

In the hyper unrealistic "perfect scenario" and Dlo, Randle, JC and Ingram all become stars next season with the role players playing the best possible role player jobs. Then there's no way this team wouldn't be competing for a championship let alone the playoffs.

[TKainZero]

Make the playoffs?
We need everything to go perfect to not send the 4th pick of the draft to philly!

Playoffs...
We signed mozgov to a massive long term deal... We are not thinking about playoffs

[Tee212]

lol if everything on that list comes true, well be a top 4 team in the west. even the playoff teams in the west now dont have half the things on that list. grizzlies/rockets/mavs/clips/thunder/blazers/nugs..4 stars?? nah

realistically let our home grown develop into stars if that ever happens. im guessing 2-4 years

[MAMBAEMD]

If all those points happened we'd all be thrilled Laker fans at the speed of the progress that we all thirst for .
And we'd still win no more than 30 games in the West.
Another such big leap in improvement the following year would put us at the door of the playoffs .
And another steady year of improvement after that would get us a 6-8 seed in the West assuming some attrition too.
Great goals to look forward to !!!
2-3 years away. Everything goes perfect

[Kilroy]

What it comes down to in my mind is we need a star player to emerge... Not just a popular player like Russell, but a guy that can put the team on his shoulders and make it easier for everyone else... Until we have that, we shouldn't even be talking about the playoffs.
So far we have 3 or 4 talented young players, but none of them have shown anything that would convince you they were the guy.

I honestly think the guy will be Ingram, but I'm not sure we have 3 years of patience before it happens...

[SlimShady83]

Anything after the 5th maybe 6th seed is up for grabs IMO ... I've been saying it for a while now and feel that we will either just make the PO or Just miss the PO by a couple games give or take. The first 20 games or so we'll know what type of team this is next year, but might take a bit longer then that to get things going

[dockingsched]

If the Mavs can make the playoffs with that roster, i wouldn't be terrible shocked if anyone in the west made the playoffs including a Luke Walton led lakers team.

[Slava]

I'd think the Lakers playing out of their skins would get to 38 wins. My expectancy is 26-30. Worst case scenario about 19 wins.

[RamonSessions7]

Perfect would be all those things start to come true, we miss the playoffs as the 9th seed. Then ping pong balls get us another one of these kids