As the Lakers walked off the court inside ofCrypto.comArena afterThursday’s win over the Dallas Mavericks, they were feeling good about the state of the team entering the All-Star break.

Because even withtheir status as true NBA title contenders being in doubt, a bigger-picture view of their season within the context of Luka Doncic, LeBron James and Austin Reaves playing a combined 10 games together offered optimism.

“We’re top-five in the West and we’ve had those guys together for 10 games,” Coach JJ Redick said. “AR’s missed time, an extended stretch. Luka missed some time. Bron missed the start of the year. You’d take that.

“Doesn’t mean the day-to-day, [the] internal pressure you put on yourself…doesn’t mean that’s going to go away. But you’ve got to feel good about the last 14 games outside of the San Antonio game [Tuesday] night.”

The Lakers started last season 33-21, with James (four), Reaves (five) and the combination of Doncic (four)/Anthony Davis (five) missing a combined 18 games through the Lakers’ first 54 games of the season.

And through this season’s first 54 games, the Lakers are 33-21 despite a significant dip in player availability from their stars, with their best players tripling their combined amount of missed games (56) by this point of the season compared to last year.

Reaves has been sidelined for nearly half (26 games) of the season. James has missed 18 games after being on the shelf for the first 14 games because of sciatica. Doncic sat out of the four games entering the break because of a strained left hamstring, and has been sidelined for 12 games.

And even with the team having a 7-3 record in games Doncic, James and Reaves have played, there’s still context missing within the games they have been able to get on the floor together.

Those five first games the team’s star trio played together after James made his season debut in the Nov. 18 home win over the Utah Jazz came with James clearly still working to find his rhythm after the long layoff. In Game No. 8 on Christmas Day, Reaves left midway through the loss to the Houston Rockets because of a strained left calf that would later sideline him for 19 consecutive games. And Games Nos. 9-10,wins over the Brooklyn Nets (Feb. 3)andPhiladelphia 76ers (Feb. 5), respectively, came with Reaves playing as a reserve on a minutes restriction andDoncic leaving midway through the game against the 76ers because of the hamstring injury.

And this is before even factoring in key players such as Marcus Smart (10), Rui Hachimura (10) and Deandre Ayton (eight) also missing significant time.

Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos