What the New NBA Season Means for Los Angeles Basketball

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With the NBA season set to resume, it’s time to start prognosticating

The NBA and the NBPA have agreed on a plan to restart the NBA season. Starting July 31st, the 22 teams that were playoff eligible will play the remainder of their games at neutral site games in Orlando, Florida. The games will look similar to Summer League, in which games are played constantly throughout the day. An important thing to note is that teams that were not invited to finish the season will not play the teams that were invited. For example, in the Clippers’ fifth game back they were supposed to play the Phoenix Suns, but since the Suns were out of playoff contention, that game won’t exist, and the Clippers will proceed to play the Brooklyn Nets.

Los Angeles Clippers

The Clippers had 5 games removed from their schedule. Out of the 12 remaining games, half of them will be played against teams that currently have 30 wins or less. The Clippers have a combined 16-9 record against the remaining teams they have to play, which comes out to a .640 winning percentage. Using very rough estimation, this means that the Clippers should win about 8 games, which would put their final record at 52-24.

Editor note: That would amount to five games won out of the eight they are scheduled to play in Orlando.

Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers will also play 12 games to finish out the season. Out of those 12 teams, half of them will be played against teams with 40 wins or more. Of these teams, the Lakers have a 15-6, good for a win percentage of .714, which, using the same estimation as before, would leave them with an extra 9 games. This gives the Lakers a final record of 58-17.

Editor note: That would amount to six games won out of the eight they are scheduled to play in Orlando.

Playoff Predictions

Using these rough estimations, the Lakers will retain their top seed with the Clippers being about 6 games behind. But there are a lot of variables that need to be accounted for. For example, the average age of the Clippers is 27, while on the Lakers it is almost 30. Will a younger Clippers team be able to bounce back faster than the older Lakers? There are also questions surrounding the mindset of these two teams. Currently, the Lakers are 5.5 games ahead of the Clippers, which means they are that much closer to securing the top seed. Will they be able to before the Clippers catch up to them?