Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

^^^ I legit effed up in that post in the last paragraph with the talk of having a shot at running down the number 2 seed. It was a huge WET brain fart (hate when that happens ) and forgot about San Antonio.

But here's a thread starter and first post on LG from markjay:

The race for Third

26 more games.

We are 5 games behind San Antonio for second and 2.5 games ahead of Phoenix, who is in seventh. Finally playing at full strength, I’m confident we can stay in the top six and avoid the play-in, but it's doubtful we can catch the Spurs.

We are essentially tied with a Minnesota and already own the tiebreaker against them, having won both games we have played them so far out of a total of three.

We are a half game behind Houston. They won our first matchup so we would have to win both of the remaining games against them to get the tie breaker.

We are one game behind Denver and, having won our first game against them, can secure the tiebreaker by winning at least one of the final two against them.

In terms of remaining strength of schedule, Denver has the toughest in the NBA, Minnesota has the third hardest, Lakers 10th, and Houston 25th.

I expect the Lakers to grind out a lot of wins now that we are (knock on wood) back at full strength and entering the part of the season when Luka is usually best. Of course we may also have to factor in some rest days for LeBron or others to be healthy for the playoffs.

I’m confident we can get top four and think we have a decent shot at third. What do you all think?


As opposed to rolling over on our backs as fans and pre-maturely raising the white flag, with 26 games to go and the HEALTH of ALL teams up in the air, by the time we get there, because you don't have every single last piece on the team you'd like to have this year. S*** happens and anything can happen.

 

That seems a bit different from conversion rate on drives to the basket but is just as important. Luka and AR excel at the expanded short range finishing as well.

In the NBA,
Stable Rim FG% (often featured in data analysis from sources like BBall Index) refers to a highly consistent, adjusted metric measuring a player's field goal percentage on shots taken at the rim (typically within 0–3 feet or 0-6 feet), filtering out noise to show true finishing ability. It is used to identify the most efficient "play finishers" in the league, such as centers and, athletic rim-running forwards.
Key details based on 2024-25 season data:

• Top Performers: As of August 2025 data, top players in Stable Rim FG% include Brandon Clarke (MEM, 77.2%), Jaxson Hayes (76.4%), and Jarrett Allen (CLE, 76.1%).
• Context: This stat highlights players who excel at finishing, often due to playing with elite passers and strong movement around the basket.

 

after what was i guess our worst game of the year, i looked around the league and saw:

minny get murdered at home by philly
phx get beat handily at home by portland whilst putting up 77 points
denver losing by double digits to the gs skeleton crew

so we weren't alone in our misery.

 

The Playoffs separate the real from the fake. Who are we?...still TBD

 

we are clearly the fake

We lay eggs against the good teams, and feast in clutch time against the mediocre ones we should be smoking but don't. I don't feel like there are any questions left as to our playoff potential unless something major happens.

 

We're 3rd in the West

 

It would be such a lakers thing to gel in the last 20 games as a dark horse.

At the beginning of the season I said we’ll go as far as Ayton and Smart take us. My reasoning was: we know what we’d get out of the big 3 but these two guys were more talented than anyone else on the roster.

To me it’s clear, when Smart and Ayton are on and playing well, we’re hard to beat for anyone. If we can get 40 games of health and high effort from them, we can surprise people. It’s a big ask.

Hayes, Rui, Kennard and LaRavia are nice as bench guys.

 

It's Houston twice, on the road. We get Denver next in LA and then those 2 games in HOU.
Huge games for us, winning 2 would send a nice message

 

I’m starting to Believe.
Now show it to me vs Denver and the Suns.

 

Only Maxi listed out for us today against Rockets, no one else even questionable.

For Rockets:

Alperen Sengun: Questionable (Back),

Fred VanVleet: Out For Season (Acl),

Steven Adams: Out For Season (Ankle),

Jae'Sean Tate: Out (Knee)


It'll be OK @svtzr

 

probably gonna get blown out ... and Sengun's gonna heal, magically.

 

BOO!!