Projecting the '21-'22 Season - LA Lakers

 

Credit: Kaileyn Mulcahy / Getty Images

Projected Record: 34-48

With the impending signing of Rajon Rondo, the 2021-2022 Los Angeles Lakers roster should look something like this:

	1st team	2nd team	Deep Bench
PG	Russell Westbrook	Kendrick Nunn	Rajon Rondo
SG	Kent Bazemore	Malik Monk	Wayne Ellington
SF	LeBron James	Talen Horton-Tucker
PF	Anthony Davis	Carmelo Anthony	Trevor Ariza
C	Marc Gasol	Dwight Howard

🟩 = new signing

That's 9 new players for this year.  It's fairly safe to assume that this team will likely struggle out of the gate due to lack of familiarity.  Whether or not they finish strong, however, is indeed the question.

Based on the average production (and minutes) of each player on the roster over the past two seasons, the expected win total for this team (without taking into account age) is 41.

	Proj Minutes	RAPTOR +/-	Projected WAR
LeBron James	2350	7.15	11.2
Anthony Davis	2103	5.55	8.5
Marc Gasol	1200	1.75	2.7
Kent Bazemore	1242	0.25	1.9
Trevor Ariza	1150	0.35	1.8
Kendrick Nunn	1800	-0.9	1.8
Russell Westbrook	2400	-1.5	1.7
Dwight Howard	1400	-0.7	1.5
Talen Horton-Tucker	1400	-0.85	1.4
Wayne Ellington	785	-0.05	1.1
Malik Monk	1100	-2.85	0.1
Rajon Rondo	950	-3.5	-0.2
Carmelo Anthony	1800	-3.45	-0.4
		Total WAR:	33.0
	Plus Replacement Level (8.2):		41.2

Now we need to take into account age.  This is an old team.  A VERY old team.  If this team were to go on to win the championship they would edge out the '97-'98 Bulls as the oldest team ever to do so.

Sidenote: if you're interested in the correlation between NBA production and age, a study was published in 2019 by Nemanja Vaci of the University of Oxford that goes into extraordinary detail and will provide you with all the information and evidence you can handle.

Here is the Year over Year production differences with regards to age:

age	difference YoY
20
21	4%
22	4%
23	8%
24	13%
25	29%
26	25%
27	17%
28	0%
29	-4%
30	-13%
31	-17%
32	-13%
33	-4%
34	-4%
35	-4%
36	-8%
37	-8%
38	-8%
39	-8%
40	-8%

The 2021-2022 Lakers current average age is 31.5 and we're still a month and a half from opening night.  In regard to production, they are right at that sweet spot where performance tends to fall off a cliff.

With that 17% production hit taken into account the projected win total for the '21-'22 Lakers drops to 34 - putting them on pace to maybe sneak into a play-in game.

Optimal Performance Factors

If Russell Westbrook is able to regain past form (production has decreased drastically every year for the past 4 years), the win total increases by 5.

If Anthony Davis can remain relatively healthy and play 2800 minutes the projected win total increases by 2 games.

If Talen Horton-Tucker continues to improve, the win total increases by another game.

Win total considering optimal factors: 42

Summation:  These Lakers will likely be an average team at best, more likely: a sub-average team.  With names like LeBron, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, and Carmelo it's no wonder expectations are so high.  But with everything taken into account - especially age - Lakers fans will be lucky if they make the playoffs.