45.5 — that was the over/under Brian Windhorst was working with when discussing the Los Angeles Lakers on a recent episode of The Hoop Collective. Shame on you DraftKings, shame on you.
Windhorst said: "What an insult by DraftKings. [The Lakers are] a team that's finished in the top three in the West the last two years. [They] dropped them down to 45.5 over/under."
Windhorst is slightly wrong on the facts there. The Lakers finished fourth in the West during 2025-26, but that does give them back-to-back top four seeds. They also have back-to-back seasons of 50-plus wins. They even improved on a year-to-year basis, going 50-32 in 2024-25 and building on that with a record of 53-29 last season.
Expecting the Lakers to regress from that to just around 45 wins is bold, to put it kindly. A more accurate assessment may be to call it misguided. Los Angeles lost some names this offseason. There was even one massive departure in LeBron James. To anticipate that kind of falloff, though, after their offseason retool? DraftKings is ready to print money to those hammering the over.
Lakers are much better than their win projections are suggesting
There will naturally be an adjustment period for the Lakers next season. A lot of new faces are going to be integrated into the team, and that could cost them a few games here and there. Even so, 45 puts them a lot closer to Play-In range than it does to being a playoff team in the Western Conference.
The Lakers have undergone major changes. Even if a slight individual drop-off was going to be anticipated, no one in the Western Conference has really done enough to significantly pass them by. They are still in that second tier of teams behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.
This is all before the Lakers roster is finalized, too. There could still be more reinforcements, whether it be Jonathan Kuminga or someone else.
The losses of LeBron, Rui Hachimura, Marcus Smart, and company are not insignificant. However, the Lakers did a great job recouping talent with Walker Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton, Sandro Mamukelashvili, and others. Perhaps the top of the roster is not as impressive with James gone, but the depth got replenished a ton. That should balance out.
Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves had the Lakers 30-11 when both played during the last regular season. That is a 60-win pace. The help around them has changed, but not for the worse by any significant means.
Ultimately, these Lakers should be much closer to the spots they have been over the last few years than Play-In territory. These premature projections are going to be dated pretty quickly.
Add us as a preferred source on Google