Once Thought To Be Dead In The Water, LA Punches Ticket To Play-In Tournament
The Los Angeles Lakers certainly didn’t look like a playoff-bound team at the beginning of the 2022-2023 regular season. They opened with a five-game losing streak en route to a 2-10 start. Russell Westbrook received a demotion from a starting point guard to a bench role, much to his chagrin.
Before the February 9th trade deadline, the Lakers’ record stood at 25-30. At that stage, Los Angeles looked like they were going to miss the play-in tournament all together as injuries and dysfunctional roster affected their on court performance. It also didn’t help that LeBron James missed 27 games due to right foot issues.
However, some shrewd manoeuvres at the trade deadline reshaped their roster, and breathed life into an otherwise listless season.
Late Surge Turned Things Around
The Lakers began by finally dealing Russell Westbrook in the first of a series of trades. When all was said and done, LA acquired D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, and Mo Bamba.
The Lakers also traded for Rui Hachimura prior to the Westbrook deal. And that’s when the Lakers really started to turn things around.
Since February 9th, the Lakers went 17-9, the second-best record in the Western Conference. At the same time, the dynamic duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis returned to their dominant and healthy selves. Davis missed 26 games earlier this year due to injuries. Since February 1st, he’s only missed two.
In their 128-117 win over the Utah Jazz to finish the regular season, LeBron exploded for 36 points, added six rebounds, six assists, a block, a steal, and nailed eight three-pointers. AD had 16 points, 13 rebounds, four blocks, and shot seven for 15 from the field.
The Lakers’ win against the Jazz secured a play-in tournament berth against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The winner will face the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round. And given the fact that Minnesota will be several players down due to outbursts in their season finale, that seems like a probable outcome at this point.
What made the Lakers’ climb even more impressive is that the LeBron-AD duo didn’t have to do everything on their own. Unlike before the trade deadline, Coach Darvin Ham’s stars have higher quality reinforcements in the form of their trade deadline acquisitions.
D’Angelo Russell, in his return to the team that drafted him, averaged 17.4 points, 6.1 assists, three rebounds, and shot 41.7% from beyond the arc. He had 17 points, five assists, and made 3 threes against the Jazz on Easter Sunday. Malik Beasley averaged 11 points on 39.1% shooting from three. Vanderbilt and Hachimura both had stretches of great games which enabled the Purple and Gold to claw their way back into playoff contention.
Even the holdovers made their marks- particularly Austin Reaves, Wayne Gabriel, and Dennis Schroder. Reaves rose to the occasion and became the third-best player on the team with averages of 17.4 points and 5.7 assists in March, and 22 points and 5.3 assists in April. Schroder also showed a spark off the bench- providing the playmaking ability the Lakers sorely lacked during the failed Westbrook experiment.
What’s Ahead?
The Lakers will face an understaffed Timberwolves team on Tuesday. Rudy Gobert will serve a 1 game suspension after he punched teammate Kyle Anderson during a heated argument during Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans. Making matters worse, Jaden McDaniels sustained a hand injury after punching the wall as he walked into the tunnel in frustration after getting his second foul in the first quarter and subsequently being subbed out.
Facing a frontline of Anthony Davis and LeBron James without two key pieces is less than ideal for T-Wolves fans.
On the other side, the Lakers just added two more players: Tristan Thompson and Shaquille Harrison. Thompson is a veteran big man who played alongside LeBron with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Harrison played for the South Bay Lakers in the G-League.
If the Lakers take care of business on Tuesday and stay healthy, the Grizzlies will have more problems on top of missing Steven Adams for the rest of the postseason.
After all, LeBron James has long believed that seeding isn’t important as long as they’re healthy.
-Iggy Gonzales
Photo: Keith Allison. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.