In a typical NBA campaign, winning 47 times to finish 12 games over .500 (.573) accounts for an impressive regular season, representing a good shot to finish in the top four, and secure home-court advantage for Round 1 of the playoffs.
In 2022-23, such a record would have been good for No. 4 … but the 2023-24 Western Conference featured an absolute gauntlet of good teams, and 47 Lakers wins secured only No. 8. That turned into the No. 7 seed for head coach Darvin Ham’s team in his second season with the franchise after a road play-in victory at New Orleans.
As such, LAL ended up with the No. 2-seeded Denver Nuggets in Round 1 of the playoffs, which ultimately resulted in a highly competitive, but disappointing 4-1 series loss to the defending champions.
The Lakers held a lead over the Nuggets for around 70% of the series, typically jumping on Nikola Jokic and Co. early and carrying leads into the fourth quarter, only to drop Games 2 and 5 in Denver in the same heartbreaking fashion: Jamal Murray capping Nuggets comebacks with game-winning shots in the final seconds.
A few months prior to April’s conclusion, the Lakers did manage to break new NBA ground by winning the inaugural In-Season Tournament, dominating their group play in the Western Conference before defeating Phoenix in the quarterfinals, New Orleans in the semis and ultimately Indiana in the final to claim a banner that will be a mainstay of increasing importance as the years go by.
L.A.’s pair of All-Stars, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, engaged their past playoff experience to lead their teammates through that run in November and December, and both were named to the All-Tournament Team, with LeBron the MVP.
Amidst that push to the IST title, and really for much of the season, the Lakers struggled with myriad injuries to key role players like Jarred Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura and Gabe Vincent. Though the team’s excellent play in the IST helped the Lakers to a 14-9 start, they struggled after the Dec. 9 IST Final, losing five of the next six games, and thus flirted with .500 basketball for a few weeks before rallying to get to 30-26 heading into the February All-Star break.
The key to a second-half push was the insertion of Hachimura into the starting lineup alongside LeBron and AD, plus D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves in the backcourt, a group that went 18-6 when starting together, for an elite winning percentage of .750.
The idea heading into the season may have been to start Vanderbilt in Hachimura’s place, which was the preferred and effective lineup down the stretch of the season in 2022-23, as Vanderbilt’s ability to defend perimeter players fit nicely between LAL’s guards and stars, if at the expense of the offense. Indeed, Vanderbilt did start the preseason opener at Golden State, but he hurt his foot in that game, and ended up being available for only 29 games.
Before the late-season run, Hachimura dealt with a concussion, a broken nose and a left calf strain between November and early January. In the absence of either Hachimura, Vanderbilt or both, whose size was key to balancing the lineup with the smaller backcourt and LeBron in his unprecedented 21st NBA season, L.A. went with either Taurean Prince or Cam Reddish at the three.
The coaching staff also tried lineups with either Reaves or Russell on the bench as they continued to search. A lineup with both Reddish and Prince starting and Reaves off the bench did end up going 8-4, boosted by the extra IST effort, while one with Prince at the 3 next to Reaves and Russell was 6-5, as well as 1-1 with Reddish at the 3.
And so, the Lakers did eventually get to their best starting group when Hachimura started on Feb. 3 at New York, though the bench rotation was perhaps never ideal, since Vanderbilt and Wood missed almost the entirety of the second half of the season, and Ham never had the luxury of a bigger bench look. Nonetheless, the Lakers played excellent basketball in March and April, winning 14 of 21 games, and 11 of their final 14 to lock up a playoff spot.
But with Wood and Vanderbilt still not ready to return for the start of the playoffs against Jokic, Aaron Gordon and Denver, LAL were outrebounded 230-203 in the series, which gave the Nuggets a major edge. Neither team shot the ball well from the perimeter, with Denver hitting only 30.8% from three, and the Lakers 29.9%, attempted 94 free throws to their opponent’s 79. Ultimately, Denver made more plays down the stretch to secure a series victory.
From an individual player perspective, while LeBron was on many nights not only the best player on the team but among the best in the world, it was Anthony Davis that proved to be L.A.’s most indispensable player. AD played a career-high 76 games, but in games he didn’t finish,* the Lakers went just 2-6. One win was against a Memphis team missing almost their entire regular roster, and the other was a rally-around-the-flag team win at Boston in which neither Davis nor LeBron played. Including the IST Final and play-in game, when Davis was on the floor, the Lakers won 45 games and lost 29, a win percentage of .608. Such was the load that Davis was asked to carry on both ends of the court, but especially defensively, the Lakers really struggled the few times he wasn’t there to anchor things.
*Davis had to leave two games after the 1st quarter due to getting hit in the eye.
Davis finished the season averaging 24.7 points per game – 19th in the NBA – on 55.6% shooting, which made him more efficient than all but two players who scored more (Giannis Antetokounmpo, 61.1%, and Jokic, 58.3%). He finished third in the NBA in rebounds with 12.6 per game, fourth in blocks at 2.3, and tied for 33rd in steals with 1.2. Only 11 players played more than his career-high 2,700 total minutes.
For his efforts, Davis was named to the All-NBA Second Team, his fifth All-NBA honor, and the All-Defensive First Team, his fifth time on an All-Defense team (three Firsts, two seconds) and to his ninth All-Star team. LeBron, meanwhile, was voted to the All-NBA Third Team for a fourth time, his astonishing 20th time on an All-NBA team in his 21 seasons, extending his own NBA record, not to mention making his 20th All-Star game.
LeBron did so by putting together the best – by a massive margin – 21st season in NBA history, totaling 25.7 points per game on 54.0% field goals in 35.3 games, plus 8.3 assists and 7.3 rebounds with 1.3 steals. He improved considerably from 3-point range, converting 41.0% after an off year in 2022-23 (32.1%). He became the first player in NBA history to reach 40,000 career points while extending his league record of 20 straight years averaging 25+ points, and recorded 27 double-doubles with five triple-doubles.
Impressively, Austin Reaves was the only Laker to play all 82 games, and he did so coming off a second season featuring a trip to the WCF, plus an offseason in which he competed for Team USA in the FIBA World Cup, making him one of the busiest professional basketball players in the world. Reaves still finished the season with career highs in points (15.9), assists (5.5), rebounds (4.3) and steals (0.8), and can be expected to benefit considerably from a full offseason. His typical backcourt partner, D’Angelo Russell, smashed the franchise record of 3-pointers made per season with 226 makes on 41.5%, helping him reach 18.0 points per game with his 6.3 assists in a strong 76 games.
Hachimura was efficient in getting to his 13.6 points per game, converting 53.7% from the field and 42.2% from 3, while Prince recovered from a slow shooting start to finish at 39.6% from three.
Vanderbilt was just starting to hit a groove about a month after he returned from his initial injury, reaching double figures in scoring in five of seven games, before hurting his foot late in a brilliant first half at Boston in early February. Vincent, thought to be a key offseason acquisition coming off a starting role for Miami in the Finals, ended up playing only 11 games due to a knee injury that required midseason surgery. Wood had several impactful games early in the season, but had surgery in February and was limited to 50 games. Cam Reddish, too, dealt with various maladies, and ended up playing in 48 games.
Jaxson Hayes struggled early in the year, but turned a corner in January and was a positive contributor in the second half of the season and the playoffs, his athleticism and length helpful on both ends. Max Christie showed some impressive gains in his second season, playing 14.1 minutes per game in 67 games, flashing improved shooting and consistently solid defense and rebounding.
Rookies Jalen Hood-Schifino (21 games, 5.2 minutes) and Maxwell Lewis (3.0 minutes in 34 appearances) developed more for the South Bay Lakers than with the big squad, and will look to continue their improvement in their first NBA offseason.
Ultimately, the Lakers secured some hardware with the inaugural IST championship, and rallied to lock in a playoff spot after a challenging stretch of the season, but were disappointed to see a talented group fall short of their goal at the hands of Jokic and the Nuggets for a second straight season.