Life as a Dallas Mavericks fan right now is brutal. First, the franchise makes the shocking decision to trade Luka Dončić. Then, the player they acquired in return—Anthony Davis—gets injured in his very first game in a Mavs uniform. And just when it seemed things couldn’t get worse, Kyrie Irving tears his ACL, officially ending his season.
Meanwhile, Lakers fans are living the dream. The team opened the season at +2500 to win the NBA title on BetMGM and +1800 to win the Western Conference. But since acquiring Dončić, those numbers have been slashed in half and keep shrinking.
Just last week, L.A.’s title odds dropped to +1400. Then, they rattled off wins against the Timberwolves, Pelicans, and Clippers (twice) to push their streak to seven straight. That winning streak sparked another odds drop, pushing them to +1000 this week.
But does this dramatic shift in odds make sense?
At first, I was skeptical—and I still have some reservations—but on the surface, the movement checks out. Since the All-Star break, the Lakers have posted the best defensive rating in the league (105.1). That’s a bit ironic, considering one of the main reasons Dallas moved on from Dončić was his lack of defensive effort. Offensively, the Lakers rank around league average (16th).
However, Brett Koremenos of The Athletic took a deeper dive into the Lakers' defensive success, and there’s reason to believe their numbers could be misleading. According to Koremenos, opponent 3-point variance has played a massive role in their defensive success.
"Before the trade, opposing teams attempted 37.5 shots from behind the arc while converting 35.5% of them... Since Dončić has arrived, Los Angeles has been giving up the fifth-most threes per game at a whopping 41.4. Fortunately for the Lake Show, opponents have converted just 33% of those attempts, well below league average."
If those numbers regress to the mean and opponents start hitting threes at a normal rate, L.A. 's defense could look a lot more like its pre-All-Star break version—when it ranked just 17th in the league.
Another looming question is how the Lakers will handle the center position in the playoffs. Jaxson Hayes has held his own in recent regular season games against teams like the Nuggets and Timberwolves. But in a seven-game series? That’s a different beast. Opponents will have time to adjust, and new J.J. Redick’s amoeba-style defense won’t be as effective when teams can game-plan against it.
With matchups against the Knicks, Celtics, Bucks, and two meetings with the Nuggets coming up over the next two weeks, it might be best to hold off on betting the Lakers at +1000. They’ll likely drop a few games, and if you’re confident in L.A. making a deep run, you could get a better number in the coming weeks.
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