The Importance Of The Regular Season

We've watched this team waltz through the regular season playing nearly .500 ball until the All Star break, and then finally picking up the pace.

We haven't developed our young players
We have inconsistent lineups
We lack cohesiveness
In the playoffs, good defensive teams can take away your first, 2nd, and 3rd options, and you have to go deep into your bag. You practice that bag in the regular season.
We have no bag to dip into and no one on one specialists who can go get us buckets consistently.

I know as fans we can choose to look on the bright side and believe it's possible to pull off the amazing, and the results last year played into that, but the reality is miracles of that size just don't happen.

Let's look at history and a simple stat that gauges consistent effort across the regular season, the +/- or average margin of victory. (Since 2008)



Statistically, the champions come from the top 6 seeds, but really higher than that unless they have an all time great at the peak of their powers.
2011 Dirk
2010 Kobe/Pau
2023 Jokic

This year's champion is likely coming from the top 6 overall +/- teams who took the regular season seriously.



Look at the placement of the Lakers in relation to the best teams in the league. We're lucky to be in the play in game, and we'll have a short playoff run most likely. We just aren't that good. If they pull off the impossible, it will go no further than we did last year, and the real contenders will step up at that point.

 

Just in case you are interested, here is year by year rankings:

Also note, teams that repeated going to the Finals will often experience a dip in wins and +/-.

2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023

Basically, if we make an interesting playoff run, we should be thankful. That happens. But we have no business even sniffing the hopium of becoming champions. It would break all of the natural laws of physics and set terrible precedents for all teams moving forward that want to cruise during the regular season and flip the switch. We simply aren't good enough consistently for that.

 

Hard to win a lot during the regular season when your coach is unknowingly sabotaging your ability to win and it takes him TWO THIRDS of the season to figure it out.
90% of the blame pie goes to Ham this season. The remaining 10 lies with our brilliant FO for hiring him.

 

Every year it feels like there are teams outside the top 6 that have a punchers chance. This year we have:

Milwaukee
Philidelphia
Golden State
LA Lakers

can they catch fire and go on a run? Yes, it's theoretically possible. But a long playoff grind is much like a long season grind. If they couldn't pull of the grind in the regular season, then there must be a reason they catch fire. That perfect trade, getting players back from injury, coaching change, or one last stand by the HOF group on their last legs. "Never underestimate the heart of a champion"

Never underestimate the importance of the regular season.

 

I don't disagree Ham has a HUGE role in our demise, but that being said, we have to be passing the pipe around to really think we have a legitimate shot to go very far. This team just isn't that capable.

 

I bet with a real coach, this team could have gone to the Finals. You don’t have to agree, but that’s how I feel.
I’m just looking forward to the day Ham is fired. If he’s not this summer, I’m not going to watch many games next season.

 

I completely agree with you on the coach. Most of us were pretty fired up about this roster in the preseason. We were deep at most positions, and were concerned about enough minutes to go around at key positions. We were prepared for injury.

And then we got hammed. But it doesn't change the fact that you need that right coach for the whole season to do good things. I think Milwaukee has no shot with their new coach. I don't see them catching fire. I don't see us with a prayer. I don't think Golden State can sustain.

The only chance I see for an extended round miracle outlier is Phili with Embiid back from injury. Probably not enough to dethrone Boston unless they get injured.

But coaching absolutely matters. Hard to imagine a coach doing a worse job than Ham this year.

 

Nah ,our superstars told us it doesn't matter

 

21st season for Bron .. The mental and physical fatigue are too much to be better in the regular season against younger and fresher competition

 

This is the funniest part. Yes, let’s ignore all historical data regarding the connection between regular and post season performance because…we have a 40 year old lebron?

 

Completely agree.

The team has shown us what it is over and over again.

Our stars aren’t good enough to carry us to a title and our role players and coaches have flaws the good teams and good coaches can easily exploit.

We are every bit of a play in team and if we make the playoffs we will be taken out by a team that has it together.

 

we're not going to be any different next year, imo. and we can't blow it up because we don't control the pick. i mean, we'll be ham-less, so there will be slight improvement, but we'll still be led by guys who aren't quite the guys who won the ring a few years ago with little wiggle room to work around them.

 

A good coaching hire could change that, but I have no idea who that guy is.

 

I hope it’s someone who has ties with Rondo and wants him as an assistant. That’s all I got.
I’m in the “anyone but Ham and Doc” boat.

 

Very good post OP. It drives me nuts whenever I hear something along the lines of "seeding doesn't matter" when NBA history clearly bears out that only Top 3 seeds win championships, subject to very rare exceptions. Part of it is self-reinforcing (teams good enough to win four 7-game series tend to also win a bunch of regular season games), part of it is that its just too difficult to win multiple series without homecourt advantage.

I'm not sure if regular season net rating will continue to be useful as a predictive stat considering teams care less about the regular season (for example, last year the Nuggets were a +3.3 net rating team but were a much better playoff team than say those 2019 and 2020 Bucks teams that were +8.8 and +10.1 net rating, respectively). Our net rating (+0.4) says we're on par with or slightly worse than the Rockets (+1.0), but no one thinks we would have a similar likelihood as the Rockets of beating the Thunder or the Wolves in a first round playoff series.

 

I wanna see that number adjusted with our starting lineup of AD Bron Rui Reaves DLO. I think our net rating is severely misleading...take out the first 50 games and I wanna see an adjusted net to really judge this.

 

it's a season long indicator. If history proves correct, all of the other teams that want to do the same would be wasting their time. Either you're good enough of you're not. Not a single team outside of the top 8 in the last 20 years, and we are sitting at #19. To me, that spells crack if we think we have a shot.

It truly would be a statistical outlier. Laker fans would not be upset a all, but it's just so unlikely. We didn't care enough all year long, so I doubt we have what it takes to amp up the effort for a full postseason.

 

yeah, the best teams can coast and still finish near the top (like denver pretty much did this year). we coasted but weren't good enough to do it. this will show up again in the coming weeks.

there's also just the habit-building aspects of it. it was so frustrating watching the ball and person movement on offense in yesterday's game after watching us develop bad habits in that regard all year long.

the reason denver can do it in the clutch and we can't is that they've done it all year the same way.

 

Lakers, Kings, Warriors, Pelicans, Heat, 76ers all in the play-in. On the East, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Indiana within 2 games of the play-in. On the West, Clippers, Mavericks, Suns within 2 games of the play-in.

I’m not sure if I agree with the premise that the Lakers didn’t see the regular season as important, and complacently coasted through the year because they misguidedly thought they could flip a switch.

The league is very competitive, injuries and other circumstances happen. Many good teams fall to the play-in range.

Aside from the post-IST hangover stretch in December, I thought the team competed and played with a sense of urgency for a majority of the season.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this team is going to win a championship. But it’s not because we sleepwalked through the regular season. It’s moreso due to bad coaching and weaknesses in the roster that were exacerbated by timely injuries to key role players.