The Los Angeles Lakers’ playoff path has taken a hard turn. After winning 13 of 14 games and climbing to the Western Conference’s 3-seed, they now are likely to limp into the postseason without Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves and may have to lean on a 41-year-old LeBron James to carry the first round.
Dončić is expected to miss at least a couple more weeks with a grade 2 hamstring tear, while Reaves is out even longer with a grade 2 soft tissue strain to his left oblique. Dončić has traveled to Europe for specialized medical treatment meant to speed his return, but the timeline leaves the Lakers with very little margin. They hold the fourth seed with three regular-season games left and cannot fall lower than fifth, and in all likelihood they will land there and draw the Houston Rockets.
That matchup would tilt the series toward Houston immediately. The Rockets would have home court and would be priced around a -1200 series favorite, while the Lakers are being offered at roughly 400-to-1 to 500-to-1 to win the title across the market. For a team that looked like a contender just days ago, the shift has been brutal.
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Chris Macero did not leave much room for optimism. He called the Lakers “the free-square opponent in the Western Conference playoff battle” and, when asked whether Los Angeles could win a series with its current setup, said, “Absolutely not.”
There is a reason the market has moved so sharply. The injuries arrived within days of the 13-1 run that lifted Los Angeles into the West’s 3-seed, and they changed the way the bracket now looks around the Lakers. If Dončić and Reaves cannot return in time for the opening round, the team’s postseason hopes may rest almost entirely on James, who has already been asked to do more than any player his age should have to do in April.
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Johnny Avello said the concern is not just whether James can handle one series, but whether the supporting cast can absorb everything else around him. “Maybe he can for a series. Maybe … but LeBron also has his own aches and pains,” Avello said. He added, “Plus, Luka’s injury is not something that goes away quickly, so I don’t know if he’ll be anywhere close to 100 percent if he returns.”
That is the state of the Lakers now: a team that surged into position, then lost its shape when the injuries hit, and may enter the postseason as a dangerous opponent in name only. The bracket can still be favorable on paper, but the way the roster is built right now suggests Los Angeles will spend the first round trying to survive, not trying to control it.
