Benefit number one: A shorter regular season for the Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers have the oldest squad in the league, with an average roster age of 29.6. The Purple and Gold have six players in their regular rotation who are on the wrong side of 30: LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo, Danny Green, JaVale McGee, and Markieff Morris.
With the NBA’s new regular season format, every squad in the association will only play eight more regular-season games. That means that in total, the Lakers will compete in 71 regular-season games this season, 11 games less than they would typically play in.
Eleven fewer games might seem like a trivial matter, especially since every NBA player is in the middle of a three-month coronavirus sabbatical. But for a veteran squad like the Lakers, less live-action is a boon— old tires go bald and start to slip in the rain; it’s irrelevant if the process takes three years or four years, in the end, you’ll still end up in a car crash once a storm hits.
Four of the Lakers veterans—James, Howard, McGee, and Green—are essential to the Lakers’ success in the postseason. The more time they spend on the floor during the regular season picking up wear and tear on their legs, the more likely they are to suffer an injury during the playoffs.
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The Golden State Warriors are a perfect example of a championship squad with too many vital contributors playing too many minutes. During last year’s playoffs, the Warriors lost Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant to catastrophic injuries because both men overworked themselves throughout the past few years.
The new shortened regular season also has another added benefit for the Lakers. The Purple and Gold are a well-oiled machine, stocked with role players who know what they need to do on the court. The Lakers don’t need extra reps during the regular season.
However, there are several young squads that the Lakers could face in the Western Conference playoffs that need all the practice they can get. The abbreviated regular season hurts the Nuggets’, Mavericks’, Grizzlies’, and Pelicans’ slim chances of pulling off an upset against the Lakers in the playoffs (if they happen to meet). These teams won’t have time to coalesce and gain confidence over the mere eight games left under the new NBA format.