Many commentators, e.g. Magic Johnson, have pooh-poohed the chances of the Lakers in reaching the playoffs. Their reasoning is thus: the Lakers are currently 17-21. To have made it in the playoffs in the Western Conference two years ago required 46 wins out of 82 games (last year was shortened by the strike). So the Lakers would need to go 29-15 over the last 44 games to make the playoffs, a hard task.
This reasoning strikes me as bad. What's important is how far they are out of the 8th place in the Western Conference. Currently they are only 3 games behind the 8th place team, Portland. Hence they only need to win 4 more games than Portland over the next 44.* That's much easier than Magic and others would have you believe!
*Note: they also have to worry about Utah and Minnesota who are between them and the Trailblazers, but the same chain of argumentation applies.
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