Less than three weeks ago, the Los Angeles Lakers were mourning the death of owner Jerry Buss, refuting rumors that Dwight Howard would be traded and staring down the draft lottery.
With his team mired in ninth place in the Western Conference, Kobe Bryant defiantly told Sports Illustrated, “It’s not a question of if we make the playoffs. We will. And when we get there, I have no fear of anyone – Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Denver … whoever. I have zero nervousness about that.”
Today, the Lakers are a mere two games over .500 for the first time this season. They have one road win over a winning team since Dec. 22. They are tied in the loss column with the Utah Jazz, whom they overtook just this weekend for the West’s final playoff spot.
So we have to ask: Has any team ever had a bigger half-game lead?
You know as well as I do that this is a permanent condition. Thanks to the sheer will of Bryant, the Lakers are now in the playoff picture and have no intention of getting out of it. The only question is whether the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets will cower in fear of footsteps the way the Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers have and give more ground to the most overhyped NBA team of this century.
Given his penchant for last-second heroics, I was expecting Bryant to string us along until about April 10 in Portland, when he likely would have banished the Blazers with a buzzer-beater. So making good on his postseason prediction – the first part of it, anyway – with more than a month to spare has been a bit disappointing.
The second part? That’s a little more dicey.
With just 18 games left, the Lakers don’t have the time to catch the Memphis Grizzlies or Denver Nuggets, both of whom are quietly playing the best basketball of any teams not named the Miami Heat.
And despite Bryant’s boasts, the Lakers should be nervous about a first-round matchup with the San Antonio Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder, both of whom have point guards who will run wild against LA’s thirtysomething backcourt.
So the Lakers can’t finish fourth or fifth. And they don’t want to finish seven or eighth. That leaves sixth, which is clearly within the realm of possibility and – with apologies to colleague Jan Hubbard – would give us the first-round series we really want to see.
Lakers vs. Clippers.
Right now, the Lakers are one game behind the seventh-place Rockets and two behind the sixth-place Warriors, neither of whom has had a lot of recent experience with playoff races. Both teams seem content with simply getting in, something they haven’t done in quite a while.
On Jan. 8, the Rockets beat the Lakers to climb to 21-14 and open a 5 1/2-game lead over LA. They are 13-16 since and toying with the idea of a fifth straight year of finishing above .500 but missing the playoffs. James Harden and Carlos Delfino are their only players with significant postseason experience.
On Feb. 2, the Warriors beat the Suns to improve to 30-17, nine games ahead of LA. They are 5-12 since and appear intent on somehow missing the postseason for the 18th time in 19 seasons. Even with a healthy Andrew Bogut, no one in their starting five has ever won a playoff series.
Does that sound like teams that are equipped to hold off the willful Bryant and the Lakers? LA finishes the season with a three-game homestand in which it entertains both Golden State and Houston and likely will seal the deal.
This also assumes the Clippers will remain third, which is no lock given how well the Grizzlies and Nuggets have been playing. But it is what you should root for because it has been more than a year in the making.