Record predictions for every NBA team

Los Angeles Lakers (Projected Record: 24-58)

The Lakers are just too young, you guys. They aren’t an untalented team, but they have so many young players on their team and young players typically just don’t contribute much to winning. In particular, Brandon Ingram was really bad last year as a rookie, so his expected performance this year is below replacement. Lonzo Ball should be the best rookie not named Ben Simmons, but that just means he’s not the equivalent of a D-League veteran in terms of impact. My numbers expect him to be the equivalent of a seventh or eighth man in terms of impact per 100 possessions. He could way overachieve this expectation, of course, and the early returns from his first few games are strong. Projection systems are conservative by design, especially on players with limited information about them, like rookies.

Julius Randle figures to play heavy minutes for this Lakers team and he’s another player who has struggled to provide an impact on his team’s bottom line, largely due to inconsistent and often poor effort.

The Lakers did add Brook Lopez and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, both of whom are solid starters. Two solid starters isn’t enough to buoy all the inexperienced young guns still trying to figure out how to win. LA may once again be a bottom-five team in the league, but, hey, Lonzo is sure to have a lot of SportsCenter highlights, so they’ve got that going for them, which is nice.