The Case for the Over

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The Lakers won 47 games last year, and has the point differential of a 45-win team, so they can take a slight step back and still beat this number. Lebron James and Anthony Davis looked good in the Olympics, showing that the Lakers still have top end talent on the roster. 

 

The starting lineup of D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, Lebron James, and Anthony Davis was good last year, and they will be starting the season with that lineup instead of the others they used for a good chunk of last year. They could get a benefit from just playing the right guys this year. Gave Vincent could give them something after missing most of last season injured.
 

It’s still the honeymoon phase for the Lakers and new coach J.J. Redick, but signs are good so far that he will be an upgrade, and it sounds like previous coach Darvin Ham just didn’t seem to have the respect of the team. 
 

They don’t have their own pick this year, so there’s no reason to tank if the season starts to go sideways. They could make a trade that it could upgrade the roster, but if they are really willing to put in assets for a major trade, they’re probably on track to finish above this number anyway.

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The Case for the Under

 

The Lakers under is typically a successful bet, partly due to them having so many fans that drive the line up. They have gone under eight out of the last ten years. Lebron teams have also not historically done well against their over-under lines, as they tend to underperform in the regular season and overperform in the playoffs, which has been a fairly consistent trend for the past decade or so. 
 

They are still really reliant on a someone who is about to turn 40 years old and a big man that has struggled to consistently stay healthy. They were healthy last year with Reaves (82), Davis (76), Russell (76), Lebron (71) all playing 70+ games. It seems unlikely that will happen again. 
 

Their bench is really bad, and they overall just don’t have a lot of guys you trust. Their 6th and 7th men are Jarred Vanderbilt, who is already hurt to start the season and could miss extended time, and Gabe Vincent, who missed most of last season. After that they are a number of young unproven players or guys on minimum contracts that didn’t help much last year. 
 

They have pretty bad defensive talent, as they are really relying on Davis to power their starting lineup to a decent defense. 

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Conclusion

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I think this number is actually pretty reasonable, compared to other years when the Lakers are more clearly overvalued. They could definitely go over this line, but I just see too many flaws in the roster, and too many injury/regression risks to feel confident in them. I like the under.