The terribly mediocre Lakers
- Thread starter smastroyin
- Start date
With the Mavs’ win tonight, a Clippers win over the Lakers would drop them to 3rd in the Tankathon. And Blake is back.
Also had wins by the Nets and Bulls, with another favorable result guaranteed in the Suns/Kings matchup.
Worth noting that the current #2 is Memphis a team with upside to improve enough when Conley returns. Even Atlanta isn’t that far back, though I’d argue the 2 slot is ideal to lessen the chance of it being 1 while eliminating the possibility of dropping below 5.
Also had wins by the Nets and Bulls, with another favorable result guaranteed in the Suns/Kings matchup.
Worth noting that the current #2 is Memphis a team with upside to improve enough when Conley returns. Even Atlanta isn’t that far back, though I’d argue the 2 slot is ideal to lessen the chance of it being 1 while eliminating the possibility of dropping below 5.
Last edited:
Someone posted a chart I can't find now with the exact numbers, but the Lakers finishing third-worst gives the pick the best odds of conveying to the Celtics by something like 0.3%. The odds of them sliding from 3 to 6 are slightly less than the decrease in odds of landing the number 1 pick from the 3 slot compared to the 2 slot. The difference is pretty negligible, as long as they're either 2nd or 3rd worst pre-lottery they're in the sweet spot.
Ryan Bernardoli from CelticsHub tweeted a nice probability graph the other day:
Lakers lose to the Clippers by 15, Suns win, Hornets upset Golden State in Oakland, and the Clippers come through. Lakers now have the third-worst record, percentage points behind Dallas and a half game ahead of Memphis. They are tied for the second-fewest wins with Memphis at 11, with only Atlanta having fewer (9).
Can you imagine Brad Stevens saying this? I guess maybe, sort of, if you squint really hard. I guess this is the problem with being a franchise that everyone knows is trying to clear the decks for free agents: you actually *aren't* going to get much done on the court on a given day.
"We weren't going to get much done on the court that day anyway," Walton added. "It was a creative way of trying to grow and get better for that day. The amount of questions that are being asked about having a team meeting are a little blown out of proportion the fact that we had one. It was just a way for our group to get together."
The Lakers have played only 34 games, tied for the least of any team so far. They are not going to have back to back days off until January 24-25.
That is a great point. Will also be interesting to watch them around the deadline given they are trying to line up for the offseason and it is already impacting the team morale.
1- 75.0%
2- 80.1%
3- 80.4%
4- 70.9%
5- 46.5%
6- 15.2%
7- 10.7%
8- 7.2%
9- 4.4%
10- 2.9%
11- 2.1%
12- 1.8%
13- 1.6%
14- 1.3%
Thanks DG.
Quiet night in pick-ville, only games of interest are Magic-Heat, Grizzlies-Warriors and Hawks-Trailblazers. In other news, the LA Times Lakers beatwriter reports the Lakers would love to trade Randle and Clarkson, which has set social media ablaze.
Quiet night in pick-ville, only games of interest are Magic-Heat, Grizzlies-Warriors and Hawks-Trailblazers. In other news, the LA Times Lakers beatwriter reports the Lakers would love to trade Randle and Clarkson, which has set social media ablaze.
Continuing a conversation from the regular season thread because I think it fits better here . . .
It wouldn't surprise me if LA to wins at least two of those first three games at home, but Dallas and Memphis have been playing better of late and both of those games the Lakers are on the road. The Lakers are better than they've played of late, Ball and Lopez being out really hurts them on defense and when they return I'd expect a boost. With the obvious caveat that injuries can change everything, gun to my head I'd predict they end up finishing better than the Hawks, Kings and Magic for sure. The Suns it depends on how much they sell off and decide to tank. Same with the Bulls whose ongoing current run and the depth of the 2018 draft makes it less likely they sell off at this deadline; they can afford to wait until the offseason to move Lopez and Mirotic and still get enough assets to add to the Dunn-LaVine-Markkanen-2018 pick core.
That's about it realistically IMO. Memphis has Conley likely to return soon and should enough games to push them out of the conversation before they trade Evans at the deadline. Dallas has been playing very well of late, has found a few lineups that are really clicking, and have their owner on record saying their philosophy is not to tank until after they're eliminated from playoff contention; even at worse than their current 6 games out that means they'll likely only tank for the last month of the season. Charlotte has more talent and can't tank if they want to because of the contracts on their books. The Nets have Russell returning soon, no reason to tank and really nobody to sell off. Those are the 10 worst teams in the league right now and the real competition at this point for those bottom 5 records.
BSJ had a good article about this today breaking down where they expect each team to finish and why (and if you don't have a subscription, it's worth it; it's the best coverage around for the Celtics and Bruins both IMO) and they had the Lakers finishing 4th worst.
Right, but we also care about which pick it is that conveys, no? It's good to have a lottery pick, but the ideal situation for the Celtics is to be picking two or three to get a shot at another franchise-caliber talent. The better odds of that definitely outweigh the 0.3% higher chance of having to roll over to the Kings next year, imho.
The most important thing is getting a top 2-5 pick, regardless of actual pick. SAC sucks, but there is definitely a better than not chance that their 2019 pick is either #1, or outside the top 5.
Yeah, I just want the 2018 pick. Don’t care if it’s #5. With Doncic, Bagley, Ayton, Porter, Bamba, and likely Young, somebody good would be left. Nailing the #2 or #3 picks would just be gravy.
There are at least five players this year who would have been in the discussion for #1 last year. I'd be thrilled to be in a position to draft any of them.
I'm just imagining this team next year with a healthy Hayward, and then adding one of either Ayton, Bagley, Porter, or Bamba. (because I'm thinking size with this next pick, I'm not thinking about Young or Doncic or Sexton)
Holeeeeeeee crap.
Holeeeeeeee crap.
My absolute favorite thing about #LakersPick is seeing games like Magic-Nets (today) and Hawks-Suns/Hornets-Kings/Grizzlies-Clippers (tmrw) on the schedule.
SRS currently has the Lakers as the 5th worst team in the league and objectively, that seems fair. But it doesn't account for Bropez missing more time or Lonzo being rusty when he returns from his shoulder injury. The fact that KCP can only play home games also can't be helping from a chemistry standpoint...
SRS currently has the Lakers as the 5th worst team in the league and objectively, that seems fair. But it doesn't account for Bropez missing more time or Lonzo being rusty when he returns from his shoulder injury. The fact that KCP can only play home games also can't be helping from a chemistry standpoint...
I'd rather the Lakers have the 2nd worst record and take my chances. The .3% chance the pick has of conveying if the Lakers are 3rd instead of 2nd does not come close to making up the difference of the 2nd worst record being a better pick. Come draft time, there will be a huge difference between having the 2nd or 3rd pick and the 5th pick because a bunch of the top prospects will have exposed their warts and hurt their value.
If it was like a 5-10% difference, yeah. .3%? No. Especially when it's a sample size of 1.
If it was like a 5-10% difference, yeah. .3%? No. Especially when it's a sample size of 1.
This is an interesting question... at what point do draft boards stabilize, at least for the very top end? There's obviously huge uncertainty with the one-and-dones coming into college, but at this point, they've played half a season... if the evaluations were way off, would we know by now?
As one anecdotal comparison, as of 1/20/2017, nbadraft.net had the top 11 looking like this (via http://web.archive.org/web/20170126045946/http://www.nbadraft.net/2017mock_draft):
1. Ball
2. Fultz
3. DSmith
4. Nitlikina
5. JJackson
6. Fox
7. Isaac
8. Monk
9. Giles
10. Markkanen
11. Tatum
Obviously Tatum moved way up, and Giles was still towards the beginning of his free-fall, but those are mostly all the right names. Other than Giles, whose injury was already known at this point, none of these guys really dropped way down for performance reasons. Maybe concerns about Smith's effort/defense hurt a bit, but that seems to be about the extent of warts that were discovered in the conference play season.
As of 1/2/2016, they had the top of the draft board as:
1. Simmons
2. Ingram
3. Brown
4. Dunn
5. Poeltl
(6. Rabb)
7. Bender
8. Murray
9. Skal
10. Sabonis
11. Hield
Again, other than Rabb, who didn't declare, not a lot of huge drops there. Poeltl fells to 9th, but otherwise, not a lot of free-falling.
So I think we can be somewhat confident that we know what the top of the board is going to look like, unless Porter's injury becomes Giles-esque, or someone else steps up and joins the conversation, which Trae Young has seemingly already done.
edit: I guess that Rabb not declaring was for performance reasons, so he's probably the best example of a non-injury drop from this point in the season. But he was never in the class of the guys being discussed at the top of this year's class.
There is also the difference of it being the # 1 pick and coveying to PHI. If the LAL finish with the 2nd worst record, PHI has a 19.9% chance of getting that pick. LAL finish third, they only have a 15.6% chance of it being #1.
I woud not be looking forward to PHI adding another #1 pick to their team
Thankfully Ainge has us set up so we may be able to do this for at least a few more years.
This. Count me in the 'happy with anything in the 2-5 range" camp. The top of the draft just looks phenomenal right now and the idea that the C's would have ended up trading Fultz for Tatum + Bamba (or Ayton or Young or Doncic or Bagley or Porter or whomever #5 turns out to be) just seems too good to hope for anything more. Just maximise the chance that the pick conveys (1st) and minimise the disaster that would be LA getting the #1 pick and it convey to Philly (2nd) and don't get unlucky with the ping pong balls come May.
LAL landing the #1 pick has scary repercussions with PHI, a future conference rival, adding another #1 talent.
Looking at a sample of 8 mock drafts run in the past 3 weeks, 4 of them (Tankathon, Draftsite.com, Dan Kay and MyNBAdraft.com) have Doncic 1st, 3 of them (SI, NBADraft.net and BleacherReport) have Ayton and one (CBS) has Bagley.
The four that don't have Doncic #1 have him 2nd (SI, BR and CBS) or 4th (NBADraft). Similarly, Ayton and Bagley are no lower than 4th in any draft and Porter is 3rd to 5th in all 8 drafts. Bamba is 4th in SI, 5th in Tank and MyNBA and 6th in the other 5.
The other players to crack the Top 5 are Young (3rd in Draft.net and DraftSite and 4th in BR), Sexton (5th in CBS) and Miles Bridges (5th in Dan Kay). So a total of 8 players are listed in the Top 5 of the 8 recent drafts I've sampled with the only question mark being whether Trae Young can catch Bamba for 5th.
'Discounting'* the picks for recency, the weighted-average pick order is:
1.8 Doncic
2.3 Ayton
2.5 Bagley
4.3 Porter
5.4 Bamba
7.8 Young
8.0 Sexton
8.1 Jackson
10.0 Mil Bridges
10.3 Knox
10.9 Carter
11.7 R Williams
14.9 Mik Bridges
17.2 Duval
17.3 Diallo
19.3 Musa
20.1 B Brown
20.7 Walker
22.1 A Simons
So bottom line is that if the pick conveys for the Celtics it would probably mean they would at least get Bamba. I'd take that any day of the week and twice on Thursdays (particularly Thur, the 21st of June...)
*I used a 2.5% per day discount rate which gives the 3 oldest mocks (Dan Kay, My NBA and CBS weights of 0.7, 0.69 and 0.62 respectively relative to the newest - SI.com)
The four that don't have Doncic #1 have him 2nd (SI, BR and CBS) or 4th (NBADraft). Similarly, Ayton and Bagley are no lower than 4th in any draft and Porter is 3rd to 5th in all 8 drafts. Bamba is 4th in SI, 5th in Tank and MyNBA and 6th in the other 5.
The other players to crack the Top 5 are Young (3rd in Draft.net and DraftSite and 4th in BR), Sexton (5th in CBS) and Miles Bridges (5th in Dan Kay). So a total of 8 players are listed in the Top 5 of the 8 recent drafts I've sampled with the only question mark being whether Trae Young can catch Bamba for 5th.
'Discounting'* the picks for recency, the weighted-average pick order is:
1.8 Doncic
2.3 Ayton
2.5 Bagley
4.3 Porter
5.4 Bamba
7.8 Young
8.0 Sexton
8.1 Jackson
10.0 Mil Bridges
10.3 Knox
10.9 Carter
11.7 R Williams
14.9 Mik Bridges
17.2 Duval
17.3 Diallo
19.3 Musa
20.1 B Brown
20.7 Walker
22.1 A Simons
So bottom line is that if the pick conveys for the Celtics it would probably mean they would at least get Bamba. I'd take that any day of the week and twice on Thursdays (particularly Thur, the 21st of June...)
*I used a 2.5% per day discount rate which gives the 3 oldest mocks (Dan Kay, My NBA and CBS weights of 0.7, 0.69 and 0.62 respectively relative to the newest - SI.com)
With Young and Sexton in the mix, wonder if Ainge is wishing the protection was 2-7 instead of 2-5.
I wonder if Philly would agree to voluntarily expanding the range to 2-7. Essentially would become a trade of the 6/7 pick for next year's SAC pick (as long as it's not 1). Way too much variance in what they get back to actually happen, I suspect, but it almost feels like both teams would be happy with that outcome.
I am not afraid of Philly at all. There is so much that can fall apart with that team, quickly. Simmons is going to be a perennial All Star, sure. But can anyone else on the team stay healthy? And can they turn their immense talent into a winning culture?
They had a winning culture this year before Embiid started missing games, right? I don't know what the future holds for Philly, but I'm sure there's a lot of evidence of some kind of losing culture holding them back.
Outside of the Warriors, Rockets, and Celtics, I'm not sure who has a real case to have a brighter future than the Sixers at the moment. Maybe the Bucks once they fire Jason Kidd? Anyone else?
This assumes Lebron goes there, right? Not sure why he’d go West to the meat grinder when Cleveland or Philly offer more likely paths to the Finals.
Nuggets seem like a stretch to me. They're 19-17, and are capped out already without even paying Jokic yet. I don't know where the ceiling on that team is going to come from.
Agree, Nuggets are not super-likely to get to that tier.
Phoenix has a lot of celiing, it just comes with a relatively low percentage of achieving it as well.
Phoenix has a lot of celiing, it just comes with a relatively low percentage of achieving it as well.
This is great work, UK. Will be fascinated to see how that evolves over the next 5 months. Maybe consider doing a refresh after the NCAA tournament?
Unless the Lakers strike out on Paul George. Which seems like a possibility unless they make a real cap clearing trade. Given the Thunder's struggles they should probably put on the full court press for George now and use the trade as their chance to clear Clarkson and Deng off the payroll (something like Deng, Clarkson, and Ingram for George).
If the Nuggets hadn't made the head scratching decision to trade Donovan Mitchell's draft rights for a pair of role-playing forwards I'd feel a lot better about their future. But right now they look like they cap out as a scrappy team that makes the second round, unless Murray or Mudiay really improve. (And I say that as a Murray fan.)
The Sixers are my dark horse for the team that LeBron chooses to spend his ring-chasing years with. As an added bonus the Sixers can spare him the PR hit and make the deal a sign & trade so that the Cavs get something in return for losing him... again.
My guess would be... not at this time. Whatever happens with the pick, I do think there's a chance of some type of draft day deal. If Philly has, say, #6, their preferred targets (but not Danny's) are gone, and Sacramento still looks like crap on a stick, then there's a chance at a deal. Or, if the pick conveys, Philly's top target is available, and the Celtics like the look of the Sacramento 2019 pick, then maybe the Celtics make a deal.
However, I'd also expect Philly to be gunshy about high round draft pick deals with the C's at this point.
I’m going to be an absolute wreck on lotto night. Will likely be rooting for Lucky to pop out at 4 or 5 so as not to have to go to that last top 3 commercial break fearing the worst. Say LA ends up at #2 in the Tankathon, I’d probably trade the Memphis pick to remove the top 1 protection. Just projecting my feelings in that scenario, but that feels reasonable. Like I said, I would be a wreck.
I doubt they would. Reason being, even if the pick stays with Philly at the 6-8 range, they’d still get a very good player based on UK’s work above, and Sacramento is so bad, there’s no way they pass up the chance to steal the 2019 #1 overall. They’d be able to save some face in that scenario by saying they “only” gave up their own pick, probably 15-25 next year depending on who they sign and Fultz’s progress, for the Tatum pick swap.
Can you imagine if they agreed to let Danny keep the 2018 #6 (Bamba) and they get the 2019 #1 anyway? Their fans would be estatic until they realize they could have had both... There’s just no way they can take that chance when public perception (to date) is that they got fleeced in the swap.
You’d trade the Memphis pick over a 20% chance of crapping out in that scenario and a 2019 Kings pick backstop? I definitely would be a wreck in that scenario but would feel pretty confident in an 80% chance at getting the result we want.
With that said, Memphis is currently sitting at #4. If these results hold (and they surely won’t), I wonder if Memphis would be willing to trade their 2018 pick unprotected for the Lakers/Kings pick plus the 2019-2021 pick they owe the Celtics. In that scenario, the Celtics lock in another top 5 pick and the Grizzlies gain an extra pick.
I could also see Ainge using the Memphis pick to move up from like 5 to 2 or 3 if we hit on the Lakers pick and there was a guy he was targeting.
Didn’t say it was rational, but in the moment I’m quite certain that 20% would feel like Russian Roulette with 5 bullets and I’d put my left nut on the table to remove any doubt. But Ainge is a stone cold assassin so it would never happen anyway—he wouldn’t have agreed to that protection if he wasn’t fine with the results either way. And, given that it’s Ainge, I just have to trust Red’s instincts that he is the luckiest s.o.b. alive.
Don’t think Memphis would be interested given the chance of missing out on the Lakers pick this year. The delayed gratification is a semi-minor annoyance for Boston, who is already adding Hayward; it would be a catastrophe for the Grizz. Loving the trajectory of that pick though. Teetering on the edge of a rebuild decision and will have to be bottom 8 next year and bottom 6 the year after to keep their pick before it becomes unprotected? Yes please.
Sorry for rambling. I’ve been tankathoning so hard for so many years now I’m riding an unbelievable high.
Great reference, I just went and re-read the full article.
As for the russian-roulette of the lottery, I'm OK with the small 15%/20%/25% chance of a #1 pick result. Those who don't actually understand odds would overvalue that uncertainty, and pay an excessive price to get rid of it. Not so Danny. If another team like Memphis overvalues certainty of their own, or undervalues the security they could provide, I'm confident Danny will identify and use that mismatch. And if not, I'm sure he'll sit there and take it as it comes. It's a high-variance business; non-gamblers need not apply.
Last year in the actual lottery-room video, when the balls came up for #1 and it was announced "Boston Celtics", Danny let out the tiniest, only-slightly-audible "Woo!". It echoed in the room, which then fell back to utter silence.
Its June, Danny picks up the phone and hits the speed dial...ring, ring, ring
NBA exec (to the rest of the office): "shhh, its Boston calling. Turn down the lights, draw the shades and by all means, do not pick up that phone!"
How many more executive does Danny need to fleece for this to become the norm?
I hear ya. For the past 3+ years, I’ve been more upset at Nets/Lakers wins than Celtics regular season losses. It’s sad but tankathoning has become part of the excitement for me. I feel like team building is far more fun to root for in the NBA than any other sport and, while the Celtics are in an incredible spot right now, I feel like nailing this Lakers pick would put them in a whole different stratosphere.
I mean, 4 years ago our best players were who? Bradley, Sullinger, Olynyk? Now, we have a good shot at a core of:
Horford
Tatum
Hayward
Brown
Irving
Ayton/Bagley/Bamba/Porter/Young
...with Ainge and Stevens guiding them and a potential lotto pick from Memphis on top of it. I mean...