Andrew Bynum had been in the midst of a truly breakout season before suffering a knee injury last night against Memphis.  Bynum twisted his knee awkwardly going for a rebound landing on teammate Lamar Odom’s foot in the second quarter.  It was determined today that he will miss eight weeks with a subluxation of his left kneecap. 

The good news for Bynum is that he will not need surgery, and will begin rehab immediately.  The injury should not threaten his promising future.  The bad news for the Lakers is his absence may derail their run towards the playoffs.  Los Angeles, despite an off-season of turmoil, is one of the true surprises in the NBA largely behind the maturation of its young center.  The Lakers are 25-11, third best in the West, and have won 16 of their last 19 games.  Now they must go two months with Kwame Brown and Ronny Turiaf manning the middle.

Having turned just 20, Bynum was averaging 13.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks, all career-highs.  He was shooting 63% from the field, tops in the league and recorded 18 double-doubles.  The Lakers certainly will be hurt with his absence.  AccuScore simulated the next four games for Los Angeles without Bynum in the lineup.

Predictably, the Lakers win fewer games without their young center.  Los Angeles is going through a tough stretch to end January facing some of the best teams in the league in Phoenix and Denver at home, and San Antonio, Dallas, and Detroit on the road.  Playing these teams with Bynum would give a true sense of how good this version of the Lakers is, but now they will try and stay competitive while he recovers.

If Bynum is out for a full eight weeks he will miss roughly 30 games.  When the same decrease in winning percentage for the next four contests is extrapolated over the eight weeks it translates into two fewer wins.  While that maybe seem like a trivial amount, it would make a huge difference in playoff seeding.

Currently the Lakers are fourth in the West, and are just 0.5 games behind Phoenix for the Pacific Division lead.  The entire conference is bunched together though with the difference from the No.1 seed to No. 7 is just 3.5 games.  The top five teams are separating by just a game.  A two game difference could see the Lakers go from winning the division and a top-three seed to losing homecourt advantage in the playoffs.  Los Angeles will need to hope Brown and Turiaf hold up with increased minutes, and that Bynum recovers quickly and completely.