When the Los Angeles Lakers reached the All-Star break at 33-31, they found themselves in a position few could have confidently predicted just a few months ago.
Despite their three best players sharing the floor in just 10 of the team’s first 54 games, the Lakers are fifth in the Western Conference.
• LeBron James missed the first 14 games of the season and an award-disqualifying 18 overall.
• Luka Dončić, the NBA’s leading scorer at 32.8 points per game, sat out the final four games before the All-Star break due to a left hamstring strain.
• Austin Reaves is averaging 25.4 points per game, but multiple calf injuries have contributed to him missing 26 games and being minutes restricted in several others; Reaves hasn’t played at least 30 minutes in a game since Dec. 10 and hasn’t started a game since Christmas.
“Top five in the West and those guys have played 10 games,” Lakers head coach JJ Redick said last Thursday night after the team’s 124-104 win over the Dallas Mavericks. “You take that.”
It’s not just the record or the top-player absences that should have the Lakers feeling good about where they are this season. They are one of 10 teams to win at least 60 percent of their games entering the break — equivalent to a 50-win season over 82 games. Yet, the Lakers have been outscored by one point this season entering the All-Star break.
How rare is it to enter the All-Star break with such a great record but a negative point differential? In the 30 seasons of the play-by-play era, excluding the lockout-shortened 1998-1999 season that saw All-Star Weekend cancelled, 245 teams have reached the break with a win percentage of .600 or better. The Lakers just became the third of those teams to have a negative point differential despite winning at least 60 percent of their games entering the All-Star break.
The other two aren’t exactly teams the Lakers want to emulate. The 2021 Portland Trail Blazers went 21-14 into the All-Star Break while being outscored by 15 points and exited the Western Conference quarterfinals against the Denver Nuggets in six games. The 1997 Charlotte Hornets went 29-19 record (.604) while getting outscored by 15 points and then got swept in the 1997 Eastern Conference quarterfinals by the New York Knicks.
That makes this season’s Lakers as somewhat of an outlier.
Los Angeles has a win percentage of .611 and is the best team over the last 30 years to have a negative point differential. The Lakers have the league’s best record in clutch time at 15-3; every other NBA team has lost at least nine clutch-time games this season.
But the Lakers have also played the fewest clutch-time games in the league. They are 16-18 in games decided by 10 points or more. Only the Chicago Bulls, Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers, Washington Wizards, Utah Jazz, and Sacramento Kings have lost more games than the Lakers by at least 10 points this season. The Lakers are nearly as likely to be blown out as they are to play in a clutch time game.
Defense remains a primary concern for the Lakers. The team ranks 11th in offensive efficiency (116.3 points per 100 possessions) but just 23rd in defensive efficiency (116.6 points per 100 possessions allowed). Among teams with winning records at the break, only the Denver Nuggets have a worse defensive efficiency ranking (24th) but they also boast the league’s best offense.
Even the fact that the top players haven’t played much together this season and have all missed time comes with an asterisk. The Lakers are 7-3 when Dončić, James and Reaves all play. But in their 152 shared minutes, the Lakers have been outscored by 26 points, scoring a woeful 107.9 points per 100 possessions while allowing 117.5 points per 100 possessions. It’s a small sample size, as Redick prefers lineups to play at least 250 minutes together before drawing conclusions, but the early returns raise legitimate questions about the fit.
In the 466 minutes that Dončić has shared the floor with Reaves, the Lakers have outscored opponents by 70 points, the best of the two-man lineup combinations involving Dončić this season. But Dončić and James have been outscored by 66 points in 680 minutes and James and Reaves are minus 36 in their 331 minutes together.
Austin Reaves had 8 assists off the bench tonight vs Warriors. In his previous 3 games as a reserve this season, Reaves had a 5:10 AST-TO ratio
Asked Austin Reaves if he would be open to accepting a 6Man role for the rest of the season
“I’ll do whatever coach tells me to do” pic.twitter.com/IXVVkzuqk2
— Law Murray 🏴☠️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) February 8, 2026
The Lakers have bought themselves time. Their record provides them the space to experiment and evolve before this season’s defining stretch. But health, defensive consistency and lineup balance will ultimately determine if they are merely a statistical anomaly or have the makings of a contender.
What is most encouraging, at least to Reaves, is the chemistry already taking hold.
“Everybody cares for one another,” he said. “Everybody wants to see the other person succeed. When you have that, statistics don’t matter. It’s just what can we do to win a basketball game. And I believe you’re really dangerous when you’re playing like that, because you’re going to have multiple people end up winning you games. and we’ve continued to grow that and we’ll continue to do that after All-Star break.”