OKC Thunder: Ranking difficulty of seeding schedules for all 22 teams
3rd) Lakers – Cumulative opponent win total: 321
Seeding Game Record: 3-5, cemented top seed in West and will play one of Blazers or Grizzlies. They’ll be the last team to discover who they will play in round one.
- Lakers 103– Clippers 101 (July 30)
- Raptors 107 – Lakers 92 (August 1)
- Lakers 116 – Jazz 108 (August 3)
- Thunder 105 – Lakers 86 (August 5)
- Rockets 113 – Lakers -97 (August 6)
- Pacers 116 – Lakers 111 (August 8)
- Lakers 124 – Nuggets 121 (August 10)
- Kings 136 – Lakers 122 (August 13)
Since the home court isn’t a factor it’s hard to imagine the Lakers will be invested in playing full out in every match just to try to catch the Bucks for first overall.
They played LeBron James and Anthony Davis more minutes in the first match Thursday but the Lakers wanted to win that game and should have done it easier than they did, given who was missing for the Clippers.
The only reason I can come up with for the Lakers to play LeBron and AD extended minutes in any of these games is to gain a psychological edge prior to the playoffs. If that’s the case then games versus the Jazz, Rockets, OKC Thunder, and Nuggets could be approached that way, but it’s not very likely.
Similarly to the Bucks, the Lakers need to keep their core moving toward good conditioning but the priority is getting everyone through the seeding games healthy.
The other obvious note on the Lakers is they don’t play any early games every single one of their games is on national TV. It’s not like anyone cares about other teams right? Yeah, that’s a bit of shade but did the powers that be seriously consider there is a real chance LeBron and AD don’t play (or play limited minutes) in many of these games?