The question plenty of people are asking: Will the Lakers hold on to reach the play-in round? But the question we should be asking: Should the Lakers—who could find themselves in a tie for 10th place in the West after tonight—even really want to?
Of course the team wants to reach that stage, because it’s March: As Saint Peter’s just illustrated, you never know what can happen around this time of year. But asking whether the Lakers should push full-steam ahead with such an effort seems fair.
As we’ve heard over and over again, the Lakers are the NBA’s oldest team—one that is led by 37-year-old LeBron James, who somehow leads the NBA in scoring, but who also suffered a bad ankle sprain over the weekend. He’d already missed a game last Wednesday against Philly due to a sore knee. Managing James’s injuries comes at the tail end of a long, labor-intensive campaign in which The King ranks third in minutes per game, at 37.2. The Lakers’ other franchise player, big man Anthony Davis, hasn’t played in a month and a half and is honestly better off getting stronger and preparing for next season, given that Los Angeles isn’t accomplishing anything without him and James fully healthy. (It’s noteworthy that the Lakers unraveled last postseason after cobbling things together late due to a string of ailments. Davis went down with a groin injury during the first-round series with Phoenix, and James played with a tentativeness that made it look like he might have been less than 100%.)
