At this point, it's unlikely that the Lakers end up in the bottom (top?) five without some big deadline trades or some other exogenous event (e.g., injury).
There are 30-32 games left. Two teams trail in the win column by three games, two trail by four. It may not sound like a lot but, given how few games are left, that's a heck of a hurdle. Even if the Lakers play only .300 basketball from now on (unlikely, given their schedule), they'd still need one of the four behind them to play .400+. Sacramento? No. Dallas? Maybe. Orlando? No. Atlanta? No. Every game that goes by matters more than the previous one.
Meanwhile, there are five teams with either 18 or 19 wins (The Lakers are one of them, with 19.). Memphis has 18, Conley is gone for the year and it looks like Evans is on the way out. Chicago, also at 18, just lost Mirotic. I can't believe Brooklyn is still at 19 (I was sure that they would be bottom-3.), but they are. And I have no idea what to make of Phoenix.
The bottom line is that, in order for the Lakers to end up at the bottom, we're gonna need some pretty significant help at this point.
We had several years of bad luck with the ping pong balls. The past few, though, have been good. Let's hope that the streak keeps up.
Mike