You finish 1st and gain 14 LP. Next game you finish 1st again and gain 38. Same Diamond II rank, same lobby tier, completely different reward. Hidden MMR sits under the visible rank and tweaks every payout. Two Diamond II players running the same comp can be heading opposite ways: one underranked and earning more LP per win, the other overranked and getting squeezed back down. Until the two numbers line up, LP per game looks random even though it really isn't.
The gap closes through consistency. A player finishing top 4 in two thirds of their games sees LP gains drift up over 20 to 30 games as MMR catches up, and below a 50% top 4 rate it flips, gains shrink and losses grow. The nasty part is the tier floor. Riot stopped tier demotions from Iron through Master back in patch 11.22, so a Gold IV player sitting at 0 LP can keep losing without ever dropping to Silver while their MMR keeps sinking underneath the badge. That is how people end up stuck on tiny gains long after they start winning again. The LoL MMR Checker does the same thing on win/loss data instead of placements.