The Lakers were 25-27 last season in games Russ played and 18-12 without him.

BUT the SOS (strength of schedule) was at .566 in games Russ played, and only .381 in the games he wasn’t with the Lakers.

It’s not at all unreasonable to speculate that the Lakers might have had the same 2nd half turnaround with Russ and AD against a very easy schedule.

Reaves, Hachimura, Schroder and AD were the biggest assets in the 2nd half with D-Lo missing significant time to injuries, Vando being a great defender but a nightmare offensively, and Malik Beasley being atrocious.

The Lakers would have likely still won enough games to qualify for the play in and either gotten the 7th or 8th seed.

The Big change is THIS…

The Lakers were 2-0 last season against Denver when Russ played them and he AVERAGED a Triple double in those wins…one of them came in a game without AD for the entire 2nd half (his december injury)

The Lakers OWNED Denver when Russ was with them and Russ was a legit terror for the Nuggets.

then I wondered what about Russ on the Clippers did he still own Denver??

In fact the Clippers with Russ lost to Denver in Overtime but only after Russ scored 12 pts in the 4th quarter to tie the game and send it to OT.

TLDR; Russell Westbrook completely owned the 2023 Denver Nuggets and if the Lakers kept him and squeezed into the playoffs (as 7th or even 8th seed) they likely upset Denver and the champsionship outcome is completely different. The Lakers might have thrown away #18 last year when the got rid of Russ. The SOS was the biggest impact on the different results in the 2nd half. In fact Russ was 3-0 last season WITHOUT Bron + AD…and he was 9-5 when all 3 played…the problem was always the lack of health from AD and Bron…who knew it was never even remotely Russ fault; in fact losing him may have cost them the title smh