I think it's way too early to "safely say" we won't get the pick in 2018.
Yes, the Lakers have made some improvements to their roster. But so have almost every single team in the West. The Lakers still look to be no _better_ than the 2nd worst team in the West. And it's not really clear to me that the Lakers are better than PHO if Chandler, Bledsoe & Dudley are all healthy and play real minutes alongside their own talented youth. Those three plus Booker, Chriss, Bender, et al., is on paper just as good if not better of a lineup than the Lakers'.
Every other Western Conference team looks clearly superior. Even SAC, though probably still a lottery team, looks a clear step up above the Lakers.
Where are the Lakers going to get the "wins"?
I grant they may be 'better' than a handful of teams in the East. But that doesn't mean they will have a better record than those crappy teams in the East.
The Lakers have to play 52 games in the West. How many of those are they going to win?
Most of the Western conference teams will probably sweep their series against the Lakers. I can't imagine the Lakers sweeping any of the others. So they are going to get maybe just 1 or 2 wins from each of the 4 or 5 worst teams in the West. So maybe ~10 wins against western teams?
So they'll have to get a bunch of wins against the 'crappy' eastern conference teams. But their problem is that they just won't be playing that many games against those teams.