The Los Angeles Lakers are officially the first seed in the Western Conference.
With a win over the Utah Jazz on Monday night, the Los Angeles Lakers made official what was already a formality: they clinched the first seed in the Western Conference.
This is a big deal for the Lakers as the team has not even made the playoffs in the last six seasons, let alone be the first seed. The last time that the Lakers finished with the first seed in the Western Conference was exactly 10 years ago, when Kobe Bryant led the team to its last championship.
It has felt like an eternity for Laker fans, who had to struggle through the worst stretch in franchise history (and it really is not even close). To celebrate the moment, we wanted to bring you several figures that highlight just how long it has been since the Lakers were the first seed in the Western Conference.
Los Angeles Lakers’ facts and figures, first seed edition:
431
That is how many losses that the Los Angeles Lakers have had in the regular season since they were last crowned as the kings of the Western Conference. When you break it down, that is only 43 losses per season (counting this year) which might not seem that bad.
However, that average is held up by some good years where the team finished in second and third place and the team only having 15 losses this season. The Lakers had four consecutive seasons with 55 or more losses, by far the worst stretch in team history.
To compare, the Los Angeles Lakers lost a combined 419 games from the 1994-95 season through the 2008-2009 season.
110
That is the position that LeBron James was on the all-time scoring leaderboard at the end of the 2009-10 season. James had just passed Laker legend, Byron Scott, towards the end of the season and was on a fast track to the top of the list.
James had 15,251 career points at this time and since then has added another 18,894. He is now third all-time on the scoring list, having just recently passed Kobe Bryant the night before his untimely passing.
17
That is how old Anthony Davis was the last time that the Los Angeles Lakers were the first seed in the Western Conference. Davis was just wrapping up his junior year of high school when the 2009-10 season ended.
And yes, AD was a beast even back then.
53
For those that love both the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers, this one is for you. When the Lakers wrapped up the 2009-10 season on April 15, 2010, a young, promising left-handed pitcher by the name of Clayton Kershaw had just made his 53rd career start two days prior.
While all the focus in LA was on the Lakers at this time, the Dodgers enjoyed their own two-year NLCS run with Manny Ramirez where Kershaw really started to become a household name in LA. Little did we know (or maybe we did) that he would become one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history.
Kershaw is now up to 345 career starts, three career Cy Youngs, an MVP, five ERA titles and eight all-star appearances; all of which have come since the Lakers were first in the West.
2
That is how many playoff series the Los Angeles Lakers have won since winning the NBA Finals in 2010. The team won one playoff series in each of the following two NBA Playoffs and were eliminated in the first round in 2013 without Kobe Bryant.
If the Los Angeles Lakers are going to win NBA Championship number 17 then they are going to need to win twice as many playoff series in the Orlando bubble than they have in the last nine seasons.