After a thrilling win over the Grizzlies on an emotional night in which Pau Gasol had his #16 retired and raised to the rafters, the Lakers are 7-3 in the games since the NBA trade deadline, and have moved into ninth place in the tightly packed Western Conference standings.
With 16 games left to play, there are still too many moving parts to know who will end up where in the final standings, but the Lakers control their own destiny in their pursuit of a play-in spot, and if they rack up enough wins (while the right teams lose), a move up into the sixth seed and an automatic berth into the playoffs isn’t completely out of the question.