Lakers News: The NBA will play eight regular-season games among returning in July.
The NBA has officially released its plan to resume the 2019-20 season at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, which is great Los Angeles Lakers news. The team will be able to finish what it started and continue the quest to championship number 17.
Part of the plan is to have an eight-game regular season before the playoffs that essentially serves two purposes. First, which is more important for the Lakers’ sake, is it allows the players an opportunity to play in live games at NBA speed before the games really start to matter.
Second, it gives the teams on the bubble a chance to make the playoffs. Only 22 of the 30 teams were invited to return, 13 in the Western Conference and 9 in the Eastern Conference, with the qualification being that a team had to be within six games of the eighth seed in their respective conference.
Also — which this does apply to the Lakers as it will determine who the team plays in the first round of the playoffs (potentially) — if the ninth seed is within four games of the eighth seed then they will enter a two-game play-in tournament.
To get into the playoffs, the ninth seed will have to beat the eighth seed in back-to-back games in this “tournament” format, whereas the eighth seed only needs to beat the ninth seed once to get in.
That is big and gives these bubble teams something huge to play for in these last eight games. But what about the Los Angeles Lakers, how much do they really have to play for?
Lakers news: How much could the team actually move in the standings?
The Los Angeles Lakers are the first seed in the Western Conference and have a 5.5 lead over the Los Angeles Clippers. This means that it would take the Lakers going 1-7 or worse and the Clippers going 7-1 or better for the Clippers to snag the first seed.
Yeah, probably not going to happen.
The team could theoretically fall as low as the third seed if the Clippers go 7-1 or better and the Nuggets go 8-0, but that would take the Lakers going 0-8 in their final eight games. I could see the Lakers struggling out of the gate, but not that much.
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But what about for the best record in the NBA? Can the Lakers obtain that and get potential home-court advantage in the NBA Finals against the Milwaukee Bucks?
Yes, they could. The Lakers are just three games behind the Bucks in the league standings. If the Lakers win three more games then the Bucks then it would be tied — the teams are 1-1 against each other head-to-head so it would then go to conference records.
Right now, the Lakers are two games behind the Bucks in terms of conference record, so it would really depend on who the Bucks lose to and who the Lakers beat in the final eight games that would make the difference.
Home-court advantage might not seem like it really matters all that much at a neutral site, but it can. Dave McMenamin of ESPN outlined some of the advantages that teams are discussing for higher seeds in the NBA Playoffs.
So really, the first seed in the West is all but locked in with the big fish being guaranteed home-court advantage in the NBA Finals.