Since Jabbar turned 35, the Lakers haven’t had a player averaging 25+ points for over a decade, and after many years, Lakers fans finally have one!

And if you exclude Zhang Hao’s 13 games with the Brooklyn Nets where he averaged 21.2 points, his average in 66 games after joining the Lakers was 28.2 points!

The last rookie with such a personal performance in 66 games was named Michael Jordan! Michael Jordan averaged 28 points in his rookie season!

Besides averaging 27.1 points, there were also 7.9 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 2.5 blocks, and 0.6 steals!

Not only are the stats impressive, but Zhang Hao’s playing style elevates the team’s strength. If his teammates are awful, he can’t significantly help, like with the Brooklyn Nets, who were originally a 30+ win team in the East; at most, he could elevate them to a 50% win record.

But for the Lakers, with an excellent coach, numerous quality role players, and a clear tactical core capable of making it to the top four in the West and aiming for 50 wins, he raises the team’s ceiling to 60+ wins.

Even though they haven’t been tested in the playoffs yet, the Lakers’ offensive basketball performance this season, averaging 108 points, was inconsistent against top-notch teams, which makes them doubted in the playoffs; even with 60+ wins, they are not considered real championship favorites.

However, Lakers fans are already very happy.

Before the season began, they weren’t seen as a championship contender, and after the trade, they were desperate themselves.

Now, they couldn’t be more thrilled—the excitement is already at the plus+pro+max+supreme level.

Last night, they already secured the first place in the West. With back-to-back games today, seeing the team’s three strongest players rest, Lakers fans were more than happy to witness this!

This year, the NBA had too many injuries, far exceeding the past few seasons. It’s most important that the three main players avoid injury at the last moment. As for the highest-profile, strongest players not playing in the farewell game—so be it. Watching them in suits, Lakers fans are still satisfied.

As for winning or losing...they still care, but after the Blazers locked in sixth in the West with a 44-37 record, they also rested their players. Compared to the luck the Lakers had this year with no major injuries, the Blazers were extremely unfortunate.

Their centers took turns getting injured, even having a situation where four centers were injured at the same time. After locking in their standings, they actively rested players in the last game, and tonight’s farewell game was the same.

The Blazers’ plight well illustrates the situation throughout the NBA this year.

After the regular season ended, the teams with good records were explosively good. Yesterday, multiple teams finished their regular season, with all regular-season games ending today.

There were as many as five teams with 60+ wins. Before the Lakers and Blazers’ game began, in the farewell game, the Bulls had a blowout victory over the Pistons 133-89, breaking the Lakers’ record for the best in history with a 70-12 record.

This made Lakers fans somewhat disappointed. Fortunately, the Lakers also rose to the challenge, securing second place in the regular season, first in the West, with an advantage in head-to-head victories and division win rates over the Magic and SuperSonics.

The third-place Magic finished 64-18, tied with the fourth-place SuperSonics at 64-18, and the fifth-place Spurs at 60-22. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

The bad teams were terribly bad. The eighth-place Kings in the West only won 39 games, with as many as nine teams winning less than 30 games. Only 15 teams had a win rate of 50 percent.

There are two reasons: One is the shorter three-point line changes being better utilized than last season. This season, league confrontations and defenses were stronger, which led to a clear polarization among the teams—those who didn’t adapt were terribly bad.

Those who adapted, whether by enhancing their offense to remain super strong despite the sudden increase in defensive intensity, like the Lakers averaging 108 points, Magic with 106 points, and SuperSonics with 105 points, or by tightening their defense to suffocating levels, like the Utah Jazz allowing only 95.9 points, the Pacers allowing only 96.1 points, and the Cavaliers, who had the lowest points allowed in the league at 88.5 points, all benefited.

There’s also a special case—the Bulls, who averaged 106 points and only allowed 92.9 points, were almost like a bug.

Of course, there are teams like the Spurs, averaging 102 points and allowing 97.8 points. While neither aspect was particularly impressive, they did well enough to surge into the league’s top five with a crazy win streak at one point.

These are all teams that adapted to the defensive enhancements brought by the shortened three-point line, either from an offensive perspective, a defensive perspective, or both.

Those that didn’t adapt suffered greatly. By midseason, 18 of the league’s 29 teams had win rates below 50 percent. Teams like the Suns, Heat, and Hornets only managed to get their win rates back to 50 percent after the All-Star weekend, with all three finally finishing 41-41.

Most importantly, the better utilization of the shortened three-point line, intensified competition, and stronger defenses led to more injuries.

The Magic, Blazers, Suns, Warriors...even the Spurs, who were undefeated in March but only managed a 3-8 record in April, had their records troubled by injuries.

These two factors combined in the same season naturally led to the situation of records being excessively good or terribly poor.