The Lakers' streak is over. Was it real?
On LeBron James, Marcus Smart, Deandre Ayton, the key to the big three, and luck
It’s important to remember that the Lakers weren’t supposed to be great.
ESPN projected them for 46 wins. DraftKings, 47.5. I don’t predict specific records, but I had them seventh in the conference. The preseason consensus was that the Lakers would be a slightly-above-average team. This wouldn’t be a gap year, necessarily, but it would be a season in which they could find their bearings, figure out what to do with Austin Reaves (set to decline a player option) and LeBron James, and begin the hard work of pivoting toward a Luka Doncic-centric roster.
And for the first 58 games, that’s more or less what happened! Just a few weeks ago, I wrote:
Much like LA’s defense, my thoughts on this team are incohesive. I suspect the Lakers are mediocre. I think they suspect they’re mediocre.
Watching the Lakers has been a slog for much of the season, and the team's general joylessness was exacerbated by endless media coverage of said joylessness. (Try having reporters ask you a dozen variations of the same three questions every night and see how chipper you are.)
After their dispiriting loss to the Devin Booker- and Dillon Brooks-less Phoenix Suns on February 26th, their third straight defeat, the Lakers seemed to be spiraling. Every day dawned a new crisis.
LeBron James missed a bunch of games with injury and was lost in the shuffle when healthy, fueling speculation about his Lakers future that overshadowed nearly everything else. Luka Doncic’s complaining was somehow louder than his league-leading bucket-getting, while Deandre Ayton thought playing like Clint Capela was worse than playing like Deandre Ayton (it’s not). The team’s supporting characters cycled between inconsistent, injured, or ineffectual on a daily basis like they were spinning some sort of cosmically cursed destiny wheel. They were winning more than they were losing, but it sure didn’t feel like it.
Somehow, things turned around overnight. Starting with a February 28th win at Golden State, the Los Angeles Lakers ignited into one of the hottest teams in the NBA, winning 12 of their last 13 (including nine straight) before falling to the Detroit Pistons in a sloppy but hard-fought game last night.
Unlike some other recently streaking teams like Atlanta, this hasn’t been done solely at the expense of the league’s marshmallow men. In March alone, the Lakers have beaten New York, Minnesota, Denver, Houston (twice!), Miami while on the second night of a back-to-back that saw them arrive in South Beach at 5:00 am, and Orlando.
Those Western Conference wins against standings peers were incredibly important. A few weeks ago, LA was flirting with the play-in. Now, they have two fewer losses than the Rockets, Nuggets, and Wolves in the race for the third seed.
As you might expect after a long string of success, the vibes are as sunny as the SoCal weather. Luka Doncic is putting up MVP-worthy numbers. Austin Reaves is healthy again. LeBron James and Deandre Ayton have found their roles. Marcus Smart is Marcus Smarting.
But all of that, while true, obscures an even bigger driver of recent success. I’ll allow ESPN’s Kevin Pelton to explain:
In other words, anytime a team has a surprising hot or cold streak, you might want to check three-point percentages before anything else.
Let’s look at a table with some relevant statistics, excluding last night’s loss: