ESPN has recently released their summer forecast for the Western Conference standings next season. Where do they have the Los Angeles Lakers placed?
The Los Angeles Lakers were a very busy team this offseason. With Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka in charge, the Lakers were making a lot of moves in order to try and improve the team with a vision toward the future.
To start their offseason, the Lakers pulled off a blockbuster trade with the Brooklyn Nets. The Lakers packaged D’Angelo Russell along with Timofey Mozgov to acquire Brook Lopez and the 27th overall, which ended up being Kyle Kuzma.
While Russell might become a star in the NBA one day, Lopez does make the Lakers a better team for next season. In addition to the big trade, the Lakers were able to strike gold in the NBA Draft.
On draft day, the Lakers were able to draft Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma, Josh Hart, and Thomas Bryant. Overall, the Lakers were certainly a winner on draft day.
With an eye toward next offseason, the Lakers were very careful in free agency. Due to them only being willing to offer one-year deals, they were never going to be big players.
However, they were able to add a very talented two-way player in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Caldwell-Pope decided to take the Lakers up on their massive one-year offer, and he will be a great addition to the team.
Despite improving this offseason, making the playoffs will be extremely hard for the Lakers. In ESPN’s summer forecast, they have the Lakers finishing 13th in the Western Conference with a six-win improvement. Here’s what they had to say.
"LaVar Ball guaranteed the Lakers would make the playoffs in son Lonzo’s rookie season, but his projection was not included in the ESPN Forecast calculations, and our panel sees the Lakers falling well short of postseason action — though still improving by six wins from a season ago. That incremental improvement pushes Los Angeles out of the bottom five in the NBA, which is good because the Lakers aren’t going to benefit from being bad: They’re finally conveying their 2018 first-round pick (to Philadelphia or Boston) no matter what."
With the 32 wins projected by ESPN, the Lakers are above the Sacramento Kings and the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference. However, they are just a few games behind both the Dallas Mavericks and Memphis Grizzlies for 11th and 12.
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Seeing the Lakers improve in the win total is certainly an encouraging thing. If the Lakers want to lure some big-name free agents this offseason, their young core has to look good. While not making the playoffs is always disappointing, this coming season is all about the young guys continuing to improve.