The Los Angeles Lakers have turned their season around after the NBA All-Star break. Despite that, the Lakers are yet to clinch a permanent spot in the playoffs.
As a result, there is a real chance that the Purple and Gold may have to go through the play-in tournament to get to the playoffs. Keeping that in mind, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (BPI), the Lakers and Pelicans are most likely to face off against each other in the play-in tournament (8.5% chance).
“According to our BPI projections, this is the most likely play-in scenario heading into Tuesday’s games. It’s currently a toss-up between the Pelicans and Lakers to see who would end up hosting the 7-8 game, although New Orleans would prefer to have the Lakers pick swap option mean something, so even swapping one pick in the draft could have an impact.”
Besides the Lakers and the Pelicans, BPI also predicts that the Minnesota Timberwolves vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder play-in tournament game has an 8.5% chance.
As of now, this is nothing but a prediction by ESPN’s BPI. After all, predicting the wild Western Conference this season has been one of the toughest tasks for anyone.
LeBron James Wants The Los Angeles Lakers To Win The NBA Championship
The Los Angeles Lakers are currently the seventh seed in the Western Conference with a 40-38 record.
They are just half a game behind the Los Angeles Clippers (fifth seed) and the Golden State Warriors (sixth seed). So there are chances that the Purple and Gold will finish the season as the fifth seed.
If that happens, the leader of the Lakers, LeBron James, wants the team to aim for the 2023 NBA Championship.
“We just want to put ourselves in a position to be able to compete for a championship,” LeBron said. “It’s a journey, and obviously, we don’t have as much chemistry as a lot of other teams that are trying to compete for a championship or have aspirations to win a championship, but I like what we’ve been building over the last month or so.”
At the end of the day, every team in the NBA should want to compete for the title. The Lakers weren’t in a position to do that for the majority of the season.
Fortunately, since making some crucial trades around the NBA trade deadline, the Lakers now have a realistic shot at winning it all. Can LeBron James and Anthony Davis lead the Lakers to another title? We will have to wait and find out.
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