Los Angeles Lakers: 3 goals for the remainder of the season

With 25 games remaining in the 2017-18 NBA regular season, these are my three goals for the Los Angeles Lakers when the All-Star break is over.

The Los Angeles Lakers find themselves in limbo after the All-Star break. They don’t have the rights to their own first round draft pick, making them non-players in the tankathon involving the teams at the bottom of the standings.

The Lakers are eight games out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference with their current 23-34 record and have been out of the playoff conversation for sometime. To tops things off, management traded two of their best players for veterans on expiring contracts and the rights to the first round pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

These elements of not being candidates for tanking and out of the playoff race while keeping an eye on the summer and free agency puts the coaching staff in a bind. With no incentive to tank, do they play veterans fewer minutes to give the young players valuable playing time?

That is just one of the questions I’ll be discussing in this piece. The Los Angeles Lakers have done well to keep their record where it currently is considering all of the youth they play and the injuries they’ve had to deal with this season.

Speaking of injuries, the Laker whose missed the most time should be back on the court when the team returns to game action on Feb. 23 against the Dallas Mavericks. The health of Lonzo Ball is where we begin our discussion about three goals for the Lakers in the final 25 games.