Pacific Division

Los Angeles Lakers Power Rankings - 2012-13

Power Ranking
WEEKRECORDRANKCOMMENT
Week 2444-3711Don't think they'll be subjected to much Biggest Flop Of All Time talk now that, on top of the 30-ish games Pau Gasol and Steve Nash both missed and Dwight Howard's slow recovery from back surgery, Kobe has just been KO'd. Didn't think they'd need 45 wins to make the playoffs, either.
Week 2340-3715A week featuring wins over the Mavs and Griz, with Metta World Peace and Steve Nash missing, doesn't sound so bad. Except that Utahâ¬"s wholly unexpected win at Golden State means that the Lakers, folks, really will miss the playoffs unless they win two more games than the Jazz from here.
Week 2238-3616The good news: Only one of the Lakers' final eight games is somewhere other than Staples Center. The bad news: L.A.'s worsening health, with Metta World Peace down and Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash clearly compromised, have thrown their season into doubt for the umpteenth time.
Week 2136-3412What was supposed to be the easiest week of the season, with only two space-out games against Phoenix and Washington, might have actually been the worst. Which is saying something with these Lakers. They're now 6-12, amazingly, when Kobe, Dwight, Pau and Nash are all in uniform.
Week 2036-327Have the Lakers caught their first injury break of the season? Pau has missed 32 games, Nash 24 and Dwight six ... but Kobe might be able to steal a full week of recovery for that ankle if L.A. holds him out of their only two cushy games in the next seven days: Suns away and Wizards at home.
Week 1933-318The committee (of one) is feeling pretty good about its stubborn refusal to proclaim the Lakers' playoffs hopes doomed when they were a season-high five games out of No. 8 on Jan. 11. If they don't start the playoffs as the most feared No. 8 seed ever, it's because they went in as No. 6 or 7.
Week 1830-309Sixty-one. An iconic number in sports that, for the Lakers, has nothing to do with Maris & Mantle. For 61 days, until Sunday's one-point win over Atlanta, L.A. was a sub-.500 ballclub. Which is the longest we've seen the Lakers under .500 since a 91-day span in 2002-03 after Shaq and Kobe's three-peat.
Week 1728-2911Entering Saturday's game, Kobe & Co. had the league's fourth-easiest remaining schedule in terms of opponent winning percentage. Rather reassuring to hear that after the committee blurted into every available microphone that the Lakers would be making the playoffs no matter what.
Week 1625-2915One way or another, you can bank on a Hollywood ending to this perennial winner-turned-underdog story. The Lakers will either coalesce as the team of destiny, aided by the third-weakest remaining schedule in the West, or burst into flames. (Danny Chau, Forum Blue & Gold)
Week 1524-2813The Lakers have 18 road L's before the All-Star break for the first time since 1977-78. They're also 6-10 without Pau Gasol this season, which suggests that their Hollinger Playoff Odds -- which had risen to nearly 50 percent early last week -- could well be heading south again with Pau freshly injured.
Week 1422-2614Remember when we used to track the Lakers by listing their record based on whether Kobe Bryant took more or less than 20 shots? Not anymore. The new standard with Kobe as QB and Steve Nash playing off the ball: L.A. is 15-7 when No. 24 has at least six assists ... 7-19 when he doesn't.
Week 1319-2513Fascinating even when they finally have it going. How will Kobe Bryant play it from here? Can he possibly exit pass-first mode now after back-to-back games of 14 assists delivered the Lakers' two best back-to-back wins yet ... as well as their first win in nine tries against the West's top four?
Week 1217-2317The allegedly "new" season that began with the home rout of Cleveland is already starting to feel like the same season. Make it a 2-8 record in 2013, five straight Ls on the road and the unmistakable look of a team that isn't just injury-riddled but increasingly unhappy in each other's company.
Week 1116-2116Comment concept blatantly stolen from ESPN.com NBA editor Royce Webb: Dwight Howard's new team and his old team were the last two in the whole league to win a game in 2013. And Orlando's stunner at Staples over the Clips obviously trumps the Lakers' slump-buster against the Cavs.
Week 1015-1814Kobe Bryant's long-awaited arrival on Twitter is the only thing resembling progress in Lakerland. As our own J.A. Adande tweeted, Kobe's Lakers started 18-15 in 2004-05 with Chucky Atkins at PG and Chris Mihm at C. No matter what the circumstances, 15-18 with this roster defies words.
Week 915-1510He still can raise eyebrows like no other on those nights when he decides to, say, hoist 41 shots, but let's also not forget that Kobe, at 34, had to do some seriously heavy lifting with Steve Nash out so long ... and averaged a handy 33.8 ppg, 5.6 rpg and 4.6 apg in December.
Week 813-1411Kobe Bryant has scored at least 30 points in his past eight games. And he enters his record 15th Christmas Day game needing 29 points to surpass Oscar Robertson's Christmas record for total points scored (377). So it's probably safe to say we all know what's going to happen.
Week 711-1415No such thing as a bad win for the Lakers in their current state as they wait impatiently for Steve Nash's return ... and, yes, Pau Gasol's as well. So I wouldn't wait on an apology for how ragged they looked in DC before routing Philly or Kobe's turn-back-the-clock run of six straight 30-point games.
Week 69-1215The Lakers haven't crossed the 20-game mark with a record this far below .500 since Shaq-and-Kobe-and-Co. started 8-13 in 2002-03 ... after L.A.'s three-peat. The panic, though, runs far deeper this time, because this star-laden construction has so many flaws and hasn't proved anything yet.
Week 58-912Forty points in the fourth for Orlando? Five home losses already with a cushy schedule? Steve Nash can change the flow of the offense. He can lift spirits, too. But he's not going to help the defense one bit, which is where the Lakers looked truly awful in Sunday's fourth-quarter collapse.
Week 47-78Encouraged as the Lakers are about how quickly Antawn Jamison has taken to Mike D'Antoni, and as relieved as L.A. was to avoid its first 0-5 start on the road since 1993-94, don't read too much into what you're seeing right now. The season doesn't really start until Steve Nash comes back.
Week 35-57The party hasn't started quite yet. Not with Steve Nash (leg) potentially out for another week and not with L.A.'s five wins coming against teams that are a combined 17-35 this season. But Mike D'Antoni will be coaching soon enough and Kobe will be greeting him in an absolute Z-O-N-E.
Week 23-410You fire Mike Brown after just five games, openly flirt with Phil Jackson to tease the fans and then choose Mike D'Antoni instead to coach Kobe, Pau, Nash and Dwight? Crack open a Dos Equis, Lakers. The Most Interesting Team in the Basketball World just got even more interesting.
Week 11-315Research shows that only four teams that started 0-3 have ever reached the NBA Finals and that only one of those four -- Michael Jordan's first title team in Chicago in 1991 -- rallied from 0-3 to win it all. Have to say that sounds like a history lesson with some unquestioned relevance.
Preseason0-03Even with the injury uncertainty suddenly surrounding Kobe, you'd have to say that we just witnessed the finest 0-8 preseason in NBA history, with Dwight Howard's recovery ahead of schedule and OKC having just broken up the reigning Western Conference champs.
Training Camp41-252Maybe you can't win anything in the summertime. What you can do, though, is leapfrog everyone else in Power Rankdom apart from the defending champs when you trade for Dwight and Nash without surrendering Pau, which still hasn't fully sunk in even after writing that sentence dozens of times.

Los Angeles Lakers