Before Klay Thompson’s Achilles injury in November, fans of the Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers dreamed of the potential for real rivalry between the two teams at the height of their strength.
Klay, Steph Curry, Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green against current NBA champions LeBron James and Anthony Davis, playing in the Western Championship, seemed a perfect scenario.
Thompson’s injury changed that thinking. Instead of the Warriors returning to the top of the Western Conference standings, they would probably be fighting for one of the top four.
This set up another scenario, where a Lakers with the number 1 or 2 ranked would face the Warriors with the 7th or 8th place in the first round of the NBA playoffs (assuming the Warriors survive the game round).
Now that option may be off the table with LeBron suffering a sprained right ankle on Saturday in the Lakers’ loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported for the first time, citing a source, that LeBron is out indefinitely.
The consequences of LeBron’s injury – combined with the uncertainty surrounding Davis’s foot injury – could change the scenario for the Western Conference standings.
The Lakers (28-14) are currently third in the West, a tie behind the Phoenix Suns (27-13) for the second seed, 2.5 games behind the Utah Jazz (30-11) for the first seed and two games ahead of the Los Angeles Clippers (26-16) in the fourth division. The Denver Nuggets (25-16), who lost to the Lakers in the West final in last season’s bubble, are half way behind the Clippers.
It is conceivable, with LeBron and AD both wasting time, the Lakers can lag behind the Clippers and Nuggets in the standings and go into the playoffs as the fourth or fifth seed.
As for the Warriors, they entered Saturday’s game in Memphis with a record 22-20, good for the ninth seed in the West. Seeds 7-10 will participate in a play-in tournament to see who gets seeds 7 and 8.
With the Lakers potentially falling to the fourth or fifth division and the Warriors being sold to the seventh or eighth division, it now appears that the two teams meeting in the first round of the playoffs are off the table.
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Of course, a number of things can explode this scenario, including more injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic. And LeBron and AD could return in time to rescue one of the West’s first two seeds.
But for now, it seems that Warriors and Lakers are no longer on a collision course to face each other in the playoffs.
Maybe they can meet in the second round? Positive thinking.
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