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The Lakers Win Again and People Have Opinions on that

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So, the Lakers won again. They beat the Spurs. On the road. On another one of those 1-game road trips to the mid-west that we all love. Hooray! Hooray? Ugh.

This is the collective response across the internet this morning, with more and more Lakers’ fans moving past the conflicted about wins stage to the why the hell are you winning games stage completely. You’ll also very easily find people taking glee in the Lakers’ misfortunes by actually winning games — and not just Suns fans.

Anyway, I’m not here to tell you how to feel. You’re mad? I get it. You’re mad online? Okay, I’d advise against that, but to each their own.

Again, I do understand why fans are upset. I don’t need to spell it out completely, but losing close to 60 games and then losing your (high) draft pick is bad. Losing that draft pick and having that trigger losing your pick two years later is pouring salt on the wound and then rinsing it off with some hydrogen peroxide. This is the situation the Lakers face with their 2017 and 2019 picks. None of that is lost on me.

If you talk to Luke Walton, though, he’s of a different mind entirely.

I know, I know. What else is the head coach supposed to say? Well, we were trying to lose, but Tyler Ennis didn’t cooperate! I mean, we already sat Russell and then pulled Clarkson from the game after bumping his knee — which didn’t even look that bad! We never play any veterans unless we absolutely have to and these guys still won. What more can you ask from us???!!! Yeah, I’d imagine that would go over well at the league office.

I remember when our good buddy and Pro Basketball Talk HBIC (head blogger in charge) Kurt Helin ran FB&G, he always had a go-to talking point when the Lakers lost a close game and/or had some issues with the refs. He’d say that the Lakers should have done more to win the game earlier and that a missed call by the refs or a bad break near the end of the game wasn’t the sole reason the team lost. Don’t put yourself in position to lose that way in the first place. Make more FT’s or turn the ball over less or be less terrible on defense for that stretch where the other team went on a run. Etc, etc.

I know there’s a flip side to that argument too, though. When you get near the end of a game and the score is close, the stakes are magnified and each possession takes on greater importance. If a ref misses a goaltend call or doesn’t see a player step out of bounds in the final couple of minutes and the team who benefits from those missed calls wins the game? Oh, boy. Fans are going to be mad even if the rational line of thought is what Kurt used to say — you should have done more to not be in a position where those things even matter.

I bring this up because I sort of feel like this is where the Lakers are now with their lottery odds and getting these end of season wins. The Suns are going to continue to lose. They are unabashedly gaming the system as much or more than the Lakers are. So, by winning games now, the Lakers are, in essence, the ref’s missed call or the bad break at the end of a close game I mentioned above. They are now finding themselves on the wrong end of things at the end (ironically, by winning).

This is where it’s easy to also use the same argument Kurt used to use. The Lakers should have done more to put themselves in a position where these end of season wins didn’t matter. I mean, how’s that 10-10 start to the season look now? Remember how excited we were? Remember those dreams of a chase for the 8th seed? Those feelings were real too, you know.

Of course, it’s not really the same and is more complicated than that. And there’s an argument to be made that what helped the team get those wins (Lou Williams being fantastic, Nick Young bombing 3’s, some stabilizing play from other veterans) were things some fans were against anyway. Some will quickly point out that they wanted more minutes for the young players (I wanted those things too, by the way) and that as long as the kids were getting minutes the wins and losses didn’t matter so much. Those were fine, rational points then just as they are now.

But, you know, that’s now how it went down. And I would argue that trying to get the most out of the team you have in front of you, teaching them good habits, and, yes, trying to win games should always be the goal. And when you do that, you know, you’re actually going to win some games. Which is what the Lakers did. Are the young guys better off for that? I’d argue they are, though reasonable minds can have alternative views.

This is why all of this is complicated and, really, I’m just going to take the same approach Walton does in his quote at the top of this piece. I want the Lakers to play hard and to do the right things on and off the floor. If that leads to wins, it leads to wins*. In the end, the Lakers are going to need some luck to keep their pick. The same luck they had to keep their picks the last three seasons. I’m hoping their luck doesn’t run out, but the team really can’t control that**. There’s only 4 games left and then we wait. Buckle up, you guys.

*It’s hard to legislate what other teams do too. For example, against the Spurs, Gregg Popovich sat Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge the entire 2nd half. Tony Parker and Patty Mills only played 5 of the final 24 minutes. The Lakers can’t control what their opponents do, they can’t control what the Suns do, they can’t control what anyone else does. If you think the Lakers should be doing more to lose games themselves, I don’t know what that would really be beyond shutting down everyone and just forfeiting.

**I feel this needs to be explained again: the Lakers having the 3rd worst record vs. the 2nd worst record doesn’t mean the Lakers are going to lose their pick. It means their chances of landing in the top 3 change from 55.8% with the 2nd worst record to 46.9% chance with the 3rd worst record. This 9% difference is significant enough to mean something, but insignificant enough that I’m not shedding tears over it. Don’t get me wrong, over a large enough sample size, I think 9% matters a fair amount. It literally means if the lottery were to happen 100 times, the Lakers would, if the odds held, keep their pick 9 more times. But the lottery won’t be held 100 times in May. It will be held once. And in that single sample, that 9% means less to me. Even though I understand the math, it just does. Sorry.


Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tank You Very Much says

    We had a beautiful tank – a HUGE tank – this was the best tank ever – then we drove it off a cliff into the ocean. Our tank sank.

    • Anonymous says

      mr Johnson will trade some of them any way, why hurt your own self, in draft by winning games so Iate in season? crazy.

  2. Eric says

    I want the best possible odds for my favorite team. If you’re still in playoff contention, I completely understand. Once that is over, the team should rollover, especially if they can lose their pick!!!

    • LALaker#14 says

      NBA players don’t just rollover, their jobs and their reputations are on the line. Tanking is not their responsibility.

  3. RR says

    One other thing to add here: I think it is important to remember that if the Lakers do keep the pick, then the 2018 pick goes to Philadelphia and is unprotected. Given the scenario with the 2019 pick being tied to this year’s pick, obviously keeping both of those is preferable, but in that case, we will still be in a scenario next year in which we may well have another 20-30 win team but no pick at all.

    And, yes, the key point as Darius makes, is that while it does change the percentages, finishing with more wins than PHX does not mean that the pick is gone.

  5. Tom Daniels says

    Thank you Darius. What he have seen over the last stretch of the season has been good, necessary stuff. Ingram playing MUCH better. Russell looking very good. A more agressive Nance on offense (3s!). Nwaba showing himself to be a promising find.

    Honestly, all that is more important than the pick. Russell is really getting comfortable and asserting himself, and if Ingram is showing flashes of what he can be, and if Nwaba is earning a rotation spot in this league…well, you can’t have both. You can’t have the young guys look good AND lose every game.

    I want the pick. But it is a close to 50/50 thing either way. We know for sure that we have these guys. If the last two number 2 picks look questionable and because of that we get another one, I would not be excited about that. If the two we already have look like quality ball players AND we still have a chance of getting another pick…I like that better actually. I’ll give up 9% probability on this year’s pick if the birds in the hand look good.

    You can’t have it both ways. If these guys are any good they will win now and then. This is a good thing.

    • Marco says

      No, that’s just nonsense, I’m sorry. Win 3 meaningless games against bad competition will not “awake” our young players, and put them in the path to greatness – things work in a continuum, and they would evolve as players exactly the same way if we finish the season 20-62 or 24-58. Or do you think that 90 minutes of good basketball is a life-changing experience to them? It was not an exchange of “bright future for our young players for 9% more chance of catastrophe”. We just increased our chances of total wreack on our team by 9%, that’s all.

  6. KevTheBold says

    We are at such a desperate stage in our laker lives, that losing our picks in this rare, talent rich draft, especially by our own stupidity is a real tragedy.
    I know Walton, hates to lose, as it reflects on him.
    However he should be thinking ahead, towards another few years of this frustration, versus scratching for a few future damaging season end wins.
    What could he have done?
    Easy,..Pull Ennis,.. the guy had a hot hand obviously {career high} and could care about our future or his stats.

  7. Marco says

    I feel bad to my stomach everday that I wake up and see a W. Christ, how stupid these people are? Really? Mention 1 good outcome of winning the wolves, grizz and spurs game. I’ll save you the trouble: There’s none.

    PS: I’m a long time reader, first time commenter. I Live in Brazil now but lived for a few years in my youth in Cali, when I feel in love with the Lakers. And I can’t believe we’re throwing out almost 10% of chances in keeping our pick.

  8. Phil says

    Some of these responses are kind of ridiculous. Losing the pick would really suck no doubt, but 9% on one draw isn’t a HUGE deal. Noticeable sure, but not really game changing.

    Also, smart or not as the draft goes, I’m a little bit disgusted by people saying the Lakers coaches and players should actively try to lose. This is the most successful franchise in NBA history. Rooting for that team to intentionally make a mockery of itself, even when the product on the floor is bad anyway this year, just makes me feel dirty.

    Losing this pick would be a blow, and I wouldn’t be happy at all about it. But odds are it wouldn’t be the difference between 2nd and 3rd that would lose it. Get a little perspective ople. This pick alone is not what’s going to make or break the Lakers.

    • KevTheBold says

      Setting yourself up for the best possible chances is always smart.
      The opposite is like adding an extra bullet into the chamber in a game of Russian roulette.
      As for losing with a purpose,..that’s the nba, the way it’s set up for drafting.
      Don’t hate the players, hate the system.
      As for the pick positively impacting our future, I’d give it 50/50, while losing the pick is 100% against.

      • Joshua says

        Whether or not it’s smart should be based on a cost benefit analysis. In this case I think the benefit is often overestimated and the cost ignored.

        • KevTheBold says

          The cost is the only aspect which what could be termed an estimate, a guess. The benefits are percentage based. Math vs guessing, which is smart?

          • Joshua says

            And the math tells us that the difference is not very big.

            As for the costs, I’d argue it’s more than just guessing, even though it’s difficult to quantify them. This is real life with real people, not NBA 2K, so you can’t just sabotage games and think that has no side effects.

            • KevTheBold says

              Not very much? So add another 10% onto your taxes to uncle Sam and take 10% of your day and stand in a closet.
              I’m willing to read about your ‘side affects’, and as smart as you are, I assume you will have some math or facts to back them up.

              • Joshua says

                I think the math concerning the lottery has already been explained in sufficient detail (including in the article) so that it’s unnecessary to go over the exact impact again.

                As for the side effects, let’s just go with your example of pulling Ennis because he’s hot? What message does that send to young, impressionable players? In terms of creating a winning culture where you don’t want your players to quit during games, in terms of what makes you get playing time, in terms of how the Lakers as an organization treat a player who has to fight for his NBA career at this point and gets pulled because he is playing well, in terms of Luke*s credibility and trustworthiness as a coach etc.

                I think you get the picture. You wouldn’t just waste opportunities to actively develop your players but would also mess with their heads in an unhealthy way. You can lower your chances of winning by shutting down veterans but there are certain lines that can’t be crossed without paying a price for it.

  9. david h says

    darius: my opinion is that when magic johnson; president of basketball operations said he wanted the lakers to be great again, he forgot or did not think or care a week ago we were in a better position to obtain the 2nd position in this year’s lottery.
    tell me that we will be no in worst lottery position if we win the remaining four games. tell me we will be in no worst lottery position if we lose the remaining four games. i’m all for each win and each loss presenting it’s own player evaluation. because of season’s end in sight and for a moment there, I thought this was all about the future and how we were going to be great again. too early and much too expect? like going for a rebound, this should have been all about positioning.

  10. R says

    This also speaks to how corrupting the lottery process is, and how the league is busy making the situation even more corrupt by making draft picks ever more valuable by, for example, the new “SuperMax” contract option for super elite players. Nothing improves a bad situation like making it worse I guess must be the league’s line of “reasoning”.

  11. Justin says

    I’ve already come to terms with the possibility that we will finish with the 3rd best odds to keep our top 3 pick. Your post is spot on with the rationale that I’ve made while going over and over this tankathon in my head these couple of weeks. It’s still basically a coin flip between 2nd and 3rd worst record. While I will be holding my breath on lottery night, and utterly disappointed if the Lakers card is pulled before the top 3, I am only focusing now on the fact that the team is currently +6 in the win column over last year with a real chance to get a few more dubs before the book closes on this season. We’ve also seen nice progress from D’Lo and BI, whom I consider to be the two most important cornerstones of the franchise at this point. We have no clue what Magic and Pelinka are planning for this offseason either. Time to get ready for another roller coaster ride leading up to the 17-18 opener and forget about the issues that are out of our control.

    • Guest says

      While we’re at it, let’s also re-sign Travis Knight (he’ll foul out in two minutes), Adam Morrison (to wave a towel), and Robert Sacre (to show off his tattoos).

      For point guard, I can’t decide between Smush Parker and Steve Nash.

  13. FredP says

    I am with R that the vile should be directed toward the league and not the team. Stern set up this system and then showed the league how to game it with NO and their tank for The Brow. This game was won when the Spurs locked up their division and decided that #1 was out of reach. The veterans treated it like a preseason game and it took their bench players to make it interesting. If the Lakers players could not shine against this lack of effort and talent, then wholesale changes would be called for in the offseason. If you look at the best 5 man lineups the Lakers have rolled out this season, trading Williams and benching the rest of the veterans was about as tanky a strategy as one could imagine. The good has been the development of the young players who finally got the playing time necessary to see what they can do. Is it really all that bad that they are capable of winning an occasional game?

  14. LKK says

    I, too, share the ambiguity expressed by many here concerning the draft picks. However, it has been refreshing to see this team finally develop a defensive mentality. The young core has been brought along to actually playing hard on D by the hunger of the team’s journeymen. Nwaba, Ennis, Brewer, Robinson and Black are hungry and only know one way to play the game. These guys are auditioning for NBA jobs and are not holding anything back. In the process, their effort has rubbed off on the young Lakers. Russell & Randle, in particular, look more focused on D recently than at any previous point in their young careers.

    I think lessons can be learned moving forward about roster construction. Teams have got to have some self motivated, tough and gritty players in order to be successful. I hope Johnson and Perlinka take note and don’t succumb to the siren call of the superstar savior.

    I’m hoping the lottery works out in the Lakers’ favor. My fantasy has Ingram and Josh Jackson wreaking havoc in the years to come. Or perhaps DAR and De’Aaron Fox joining forces to lead the Lakers back up the standings. It remains to be seen how it will all turn out.

  15. A Horse With No Name says

    If it weren’t for the exciting, uplifting play of Brandon in 10 minutes of action last night, I’d probably be more upset about the loss. This kid gives me great hope for the future of the team. He is part of that new wave of super freaks: guard skills and ridiculous length that render traditional positions meaningless. He’s the child of Odom and Durant, the cousin of young Antetokounmpo. He is going to be a star. (And Russell is going to be very good too.) There is a way forward with these youngsters.

  16. mitchell d steinman says

    We should have never entered the tankathon. It’s a disgrace in the face of what this franchise –arguably the greatest in all of sports until 4 years ago –is all about.
    This team should have competed. Coaches should have demanded the all out fight and hustle that Brewer and nwamba bring every minute they’re on the court.
    Dang should have been used as a stretch 4 who actually has the ability to run the pace and SPACE offense that Luke wanted to run but never demanded on running.
    So instead this once proud franchise, still my favorite in all of sports, has seudo fans in a frenzy because Brewer, Ennis, Metta, and Black couldn’t properly lose the game

    • Lou says

      I agree with this. You have said it much more eloquently than I could have. Tanking is a complete negative. You are teaching a team to lose. Once something is taught it is very hard to unteach it. It seeps into every level. Everyone knows what is going on and the negative effects are lasting.
      Ever effort should be made, at all times, on all levels – playing, coaching, managing, owning – to win games, playoffs, championships. Not win lottery picks over which one has no real control.

      • Marco says

        ‘Cause that didn’t work for the Spurs, or OKC, or Rockets in the 80’s…. no, sir

    • KevTheBold says

      Labeling fans who, for valid reasons believe in maximizing our chances to add some much needed talent to our roster, as ‘pseudo fans’ is silly.
      Wanting our team to return to glory Mr. Scott, equates to more than simply ‘demanding they fight’,.. it means having the pieces to do so.
      The Lakers, nor any championship team ever, won without the proper amount of talent,…which we now lack sir.

      • mitchell d steinman says

        You’re absolutely right. There’s no doubt that most tankworthy fans are just as passionate about our Lakers as I am. My bad.

  17. Anonymous says

    I understand that a lot of us here think that 9% is not going to make a big difference in one lottery but it is not the % that scares me with Lakers being in the third position only one team needs to make their way to top three from 4th pick onwards and Lakers will loose their pick. If they had second pick even if one team makes their way up to top three, Lakers would still get the third seed. I am worried that Lakers will end up being the fourth seed and lose their pick. Sorry about the English as I am not from an English speaking country.

    • Craig W. says

      You are somewhat wrong in that we won’t get ‘pushed’ down in the order. A team may be picked to the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd position, but that doesn’t mean we will get pushed to 4th. Teams are picked from one to three, then listed in ranking order. The 1st team is picked, then the 2nd, then the 3rd. It is only that the reporting is done from 14 thru 1 for dramatic purposes.

      Don’t confuse the science of what will happen with the presentation. Yes, it is true, that our odds go down after the 1st team is picked and they go down more if that first team is outside the top three, but that isn’t the same as us being ‘pushed’ out of the top three.

  18. Craig W. says

    At the beginning of the year it was thought that the young players would take most of the year to learn and the team would come together and be a tough ‘out’ at the end of the year. Well, that’s what apparently happened, even if we did sit the vets and trade Williams – implementing a front office tank.

    One thing that will come out of this is that we will have a deeper well of talent to work with this summer.

    The difference is not between having our pick and not having our pick, but only a 9% greater chance of winning the lottery. What the heck, all this is a crapshoot anyway.

    • RR says

      Prior to these two wins, the Lakers had lost 19 of their previous 21 games. Ennis is still only 22, but he had not shown much sign of being a guy you want on an NBA roster until the last couple of games. I have been saying for the last couple of years that the Lakers should get a couple of D-minded guys from the DLeague to be down-roster players, so I like the Nwaba pick-up. But he is a 9th-10th man at best. Robinson has played well, but he is 26 and very limited even sporting a high PER. He is at best a 5th big. Add that to the circumstances of the SA game, and suggesting that these two wins are a sign of better things to come is shaky at best. What we need to see is sustained difference-making improvement on both sides of the ball from the lottery picks and Zubac, as well as evidence that the team D is no longer the worst in the league.

      My own views remain the same as before the season: Russell and Ingram are talented young guys with a broad base of skills, but neither looks to me like a guy who can transform your franchise.

  19. Teamn says

    Looking forward to the day when tanking no longer matters to the Lakers, let alone the NBA.

    Darius — I’ve come to the site a couple of times recently and been re-directed to a “raffle” site. I’ve been able to navigate away, but not sure if that is one of your advertisers or someone hijacking your URL.

      • teamn says

        Darius,

        iPad, if that makes a difference. Looked like the desktop version of the site, but I can check. If it happens again, I will take a screen shot and can send to you if that would be helpful.

        Appreciate all the hard work on this site!

  20. LALaker#14 says

    The coin toss is the deciding factor. A mere flip of the coin. Everything else is speculation.

    • Craig W. says

      Actually it is a number of numbered ping pong balls, not the flip of a coin. You are right, however, in that all this is a proportional chance. That method was instituted to prevent tanking – and now the tank is simply more scientific.

      I think I like John Ireland’s method of a round robin tournament among teams outside the playoffs, and the order of the draft is from winner to biggest loser. That way all teams will be incentivized to build the best team possible during the entire year. Perhaps the lowered team would have home court advantage, but losing would not be rewarded with a higher draft order.

  21. Alexander says

    At the end of the day, all this is a change in the likelihood that in the one and only draw (of ping pong balls), our chances are reduced by 9 pct points. It is material. Imagine a doctor telling you you have a 9% chance of dying from the operation. This is more so from the impact (death, or in our case loss of a top-3 pick) than the pure percentage. At the same time and for same reasoning, it is not the end of the world. Being jumped by someone outside the top 3 does not mean anything new, either one of our balls shows up or it don’t.

    Not big on conspiracy theories, but the NBA is a big-money league, not some utopian organization based on fairness. Sure Ewing went #1 to NY because of luck. Sure we kept our pick last year for same reason. Had nothing to do with the Lakers being in LA, being the most popular NBA franchise worldwide, or having gotten screwed by the same league office in CP3 ways that are still very much in front of us. Letting this pick go to Philly does several very bad things for the league – rewards overt tanking, makes Philly absurdly stacked while dooming the Lakers to the end of their youth movement without enough strong assets, i.e. mediocrity.

    To those ready to condemn me as a conspiracist, I will offer this – an escrowed bet on whether we get the top-3 pick or not. Given that the odds just slipped below 50%, you get the better deal. I just believe the likelihood for a League Office ping pong ball nudging is enough to offset the percentage points I’d be underwater in such a bet.