ESPN’s panel ranked the Lakers seventh in its latest NBA power rankings, down from sixth the week before. The Lakers were 6-2 when the list went up and have since beaten the Sacramento Kings to reach 7-2. ESPN’s case comes down to Luka Dončić, and the record shows his scoring is producing wins.
A Top-Ten Spot Built on One Player
Seventh puts the Lakers comfortably in the top quarter of the league, though behind ESPN’s top two, Houston and Detroit. The ranking reflects the views of a panel that includes Jamal Collier, Michael C. Wright, Tim MacMahon, Dave McMenamin, Vincent Goodwill, Zach Kram, Ben Golliver, Kris Rhim and Anthony Slater. McMenamin wrote the Lakers entry.
His reasoning is short: Dončić is leading the league in scoring with 38.3 points per game on percentage splits of 49.7/42.7/88.7, and the team is winning those games too.
The Record Holds Up Better Than the Underlying Numbers
ESPN sits close to the middle of the national read. The Deseret News also has the Lakers seventh, but their defense raised eyebrows in a 112-95 loss to Golden State. The Big Lead ranks them eighth and is harsher on the roster around the star, saying their bench has looked abysmal despite entering the season with high expectations, while Austin Reaves has struggled to find his rhythm.
NBA.com is the most bearish. Its Week 3 rankings dropped the Lakers from seventh to 11th at 5-2, with the second-best offensive rating (119.9), the 20th-best defensive rating (113.9) and the ninth-best net rating (+6.1). The same edition says they’re 28th in turnover rate, having committed more than 20 turnovers in each of the three games before it ran.
That particular streak has since broken: the Lakers turned the ball over 11 times in Sacramento on Wednesday. NBA.com also notes that Dončić’s assist/turnover ratio of 1.33 would be the lowest of his career by a wide margin.
Bleacher Report is the most bullish. It had the Lakers fifth a week earlier, when they were 4-1 with a +10.2 net rating. That was a big jump from where the season started: Bleacher Report’s preseason rankings had them 12th, and its preview warned that the team’s range of outcomes for what is perhaps the league’s premier franchise is wide.
Taken together, the analysts agree on what the Lakers do well and what they don’t. Everyone credits Dončić and the offense, and nearly everyone flags the defense or the supporting cast. Where they disagree is how much weight those flaws deserve this early.
Seventh Is Fair, and the Road Trip Will Settle It
ESPN’s ranking holds up, though it may be a spot generous. The record is real, but net rating is a better measure than wins this early, and a ninth-ranked net rating points to a team somewhere between seventh and ninth. That’s ESPN’s range more than NBA.com’s 11th.
The offense is the part least likely to last at this level. NBA.com notes that the Lakers’ effective field goal percentage of 60.0% would be the highest mark in NBA history, and a team on a historic shooting pace usually comes back down.
A 20th-ranked defense and 28th-ranked ball security will still be there when the shooting cools, unless the team fixes them. Those two numbers will decide whether this team is a real contender or a hot start.
The schedule will show which it is soon. After hosting Portland, the Lakers visit the Detroit Pistons on Nov. 8 and the Atlanta Hawks on Nov. 9, and Detroit is ESPN’s No. 2 team. If the defense holds up on that trip and the turnovers drop, the Lakers have a case for moving into the top five; if a Dončić scoring streak is still covering for 20-turnover nights, NBA.com’s lower ranking will look like the more accurate one.
Source: ESPN
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