To be a championship team in the NBA requires a combination of skill and luck. The Lakers have top talent with Luka Dončić and LeBron James, but their fortune has been bad.
LeBron missed the first 14 games of the season with a sciatica injury, and Austin Reaves was out for the last month with a calf strain. LA has had just a handful of games where its best players have been available.
Luck, however, is finally starting to go in the Lakers’ favor.
Reaves made his return to the court in a win against the Nets on Tuesday, and now the Lakers have a near-empty injury report with just their rookie Adou Thiero out for their upcoming contest against the Sixers.
Despite all the injuries, the Lakers find themselves 11 games above .500, back home after a grueling eight-game road trip and ready for the most important stretch of the season.
“We want to get healthy,” LeBron said after the team’s win in Brooklyn. “And tonight was pretty much the first time we had everybody in the lineup and everybody healthy. Obviously, we’re still missing our rook (Adou Thiero), our rook is still coming back, but we’re getting close to healthy, and we’ll see what happens.”
The best three players on the Lakers without question are Luka, LeBron and Austin. This trio has played together in only nine of the 49 possible games. So, yes, the roster as it stands could improve and win more games simply by being healthier in the final stretch than they’ve been so far.
Now that Reaves is back, they’ll have a shot at that being a possibility.
“Austin back in the lineup just gives us that full rotation pretty much of everyone being healthy and everyone getting minutes and being able to impact the game,” Jake LaRavia said. “Really excited to see what this group can have, post All-Star and leading up to it.”
With 33 games left to play and the Lakers being three games back of the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference and one game back from a play-in spot, their fate is far from sealed.
If they finish the season strong, they could have home-court advantage for most of the playoffs. But a bad string of games moving forward, and the opposite can also happen.
For most teams, all they want is a chance to prove how good they can be. The Lakers have a shot at that now, and every goal and accomplishment is still within the realm of possibility.
Now, they just have to execute.
“I think getting healthy and having our guys available in this last stretch will be huge for us,” Lakers head coach JJ Redick said.