Speaker 1: The volume. The eighty two game preseason is in the books,
Speaker 1: and now it's finally time for the real season. Don't
Speaker 1: miss out on any of the NBA playoff action at
Speaker 1: DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA.
Speaker 1: From the play in tournament through the finals, DraftKings Sportsbook
Speaker 1: has you covered with same game parlays, live betting odds, boosts,
Speaker 1: and so much more. The Boston Celtics are currently the
Speaker 1: favorite at plus one sixty, but the team that's third
Speaker 1: in my championship rankings the Dallas Mavericks. You can get
Speaker 1: them on DraftKings right now at plus sixteen hundred. To
Speaker 1: win the title. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use
Speaker 1: code hoops. That's Hops. New customers bet five dollars and
Speaker 1: get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly. That's code
Speaker 1: hoops hops only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours gambling
Speaker 1: problem called one eight hundred Gambler or in West Virginia
Speaker 1: visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net York
Speaker 1: call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text
Speaker 1: hope and Why to four six seven three six nine
Speaker 1: In Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling call eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or
Speaker 1: visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of
Speaker 1: Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. Twenty one plus age
Speaker 1: varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See dkang dot
Speaker 1: co slash b ball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms
Speaker 1: and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to tonight. You're
Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all you guys
Speaker 1: are having a great end to your week. So obviously
Speaker 1: we're working on some series preview stuff. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a Nuggets Timberwolves film session coming out later today. I'm
Speaker 1: all so working on a PACER's Knicks preview that's gonna
Speaker 1: come out tomorrow morning. So lots of that kind of
Speaker 1: content coming out over the next couple of days. But
Speaker 1: Darvin Ham just got fired, and so what I want
Speaker 1: to do in this video is just break down the
Speaker 1: reasons why, because obviously it's a common thing that we
Speaker 1: see from fan bases. The team starts to struggle and
Speaker 1: you start going after the head coach, right, it's kind
Speaker 1: of an easy target, not attached to the salary cap
Speaker 1: in any way. So it's someone you can fire whenever
Speaker 1: you want, hire another coach, whenever you want their franchises
Speaker 1: out there paying two or three coaches at a time
Speaker 1: sometimes because of this type of turnover, right, And in
Speaker 1: this particular case, as you guys know, I'm generally not
Speaker 1: much of a coach critic, but in this particular case,
Speaker 1: I think the Lakers kind of had to do this.
Speaker 1: And so what I want to do is I want
Speaker 1: to break down the basketball reasons why Darvinham is not
Speaker 1: the right coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. You guys
Speaker 1: know the drove before we get started. Subscribe to a
Speaker 1: brand of YouTube channel so you don't miss any more
Speaker 1: of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jsonlt
Speaker 1: so you guys don't miss any show announcements. Don't forget
Speaker 1: about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under
Speaker 1: Hoops tonight, and then keep dropping back questions in the
Speaker 1: YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of the postseason. So to be clear upfront, Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham is not the reason why the Lakers lost to
Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets. If there are a bunch of reasons,
Speaker 1: but if I had to kind of parse it down
Speaker 1: to one particular thing, they didn't have the personnel specifically
Speaker 1: to guard Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Junior. They had
Speaker 1: guys that were trying, Like Austin Reeves did a hell
Speaker 1: of a job, but he is a in terms of
Speaker 1: NBA two guards, he is a below average athlete, right,
Speaker 1: and so you're asking him to do a job that
Speaker 1: physically is kind of beyond his capability. And so while
Speaker 1: he actually did play Jamal into some lower percentages, which
Speaker 1: was part of the team scheme, but also Austin did
Speaker 1: his job within the game plan, the bottom line was
Speaker 1: is at the end of games, in particular, they couldn't
Speaker 1: get stops on Jamal Murray and then Michael Porter Junior.
Speaker 1: Ruey Hatch Murra obviously by virtue of the roster imbalances,
Speaker 1: was playing the three. And when you play the three
Speaker 1: and you have a movement shooter that's playing the three
Speaker 1: for the other team, you have to run around screens
Speaker 1: and you have to have a great amount of attentiveness
Speaker 1: to make sure that shooter doesn't get open. And Ruey
Speaker 1: Hachi Mura is a top heavy, big strong athlete that's
Speaker 1: not very laterally quick and is not good at navigating screens,
Speaker 1: and so throughout the entire series, the Michael Porter Junior
Speaker 1: and Jamal Murray problem never went away. And so yeah, like,
Speaker 1: maybe if you have a better coach in there, maybe
Speaker 1: you'll lose in six instead of five. But the bottom
Speaker 1: line is, whenever it came down to crunch time, the
Speaker 1: Lakers could not guard Jamal Murray and could not guard
Speaker 1: Michael Porter Junior. Obviously, they struggled with Yokich too, That's
Speaker 1: to be expected, he's best player in the world. But
Speaker 1: other teams around the league can do a better job
Speaker 1: on those other two guys, and that was the main issue.
Speaker 1: They played nine minutes of clutch time basketball, again within
Speaker 1: five points, within five minutes. They played nine minutes of
Speaker 1: clutch time basketball against Denver and allowed one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty three points per one hundred possessions. That's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: they shot well, that's you can't guard them. It was
Speaker 1: a one to ninety three in the regular season, so
Speaker 1: it was even worse in the two clutch games they
Speaker 1: played in the regular season. Routinely, anytime Denver locked in.
Speaker 1: They could score far more easily in the half court
Speaker 1: than the Lakers. That was the main difference. That's why
Speaker 1: you weren't beating them four straight times to get out
Speaker 1: of that series. Just in fourth quarters, the Nuggets outscored
Speaker 1: the Lakers by ten point three points per one hundred possessions.
Speaker 1: So Darvin is not the reason the Lakers lost to Denver.
Speaker 1: They lost to Denver because of personnel shortcomings. That said,
Speaker 1: Darvin's first two years as an NBA head coach did
Speaker 1: not go well, and compared to his peers in the league,
Speaker 1: he is not a good NBA coach. So if you're
Speaker 1: serious about contending for a title, you have to move
Speaker 1: on from him. You can't go into a playoff series. Again,
Speaker 1: all these playoffs series, they're typically determined by pretty small margins.
Speaker 1: The look at Nick Sixers, it was this close. Even
Speaker 1: in the Lakers Nuggets series, there were a bunch of
Speaker 1: games that hinged on a few possessions. Right, So, like,
Speaker 1: these margins are tight, and you don't want to go
Speaker 1: on to try to win four series in four series
Speaker 1: and you know, two months at a substantial coaching disadvantage. Now,
Speaker 1: before we get into the specifics with Darvin. I want
Speaker 1: to emphasize this is very different than the Frank Vogel situation.
Speaker 1: I was listening to Colin Coward yesterday and he went
Speaker 1: on a rant that I mostly agreed with as it
Speaker 1: pertains to blaming the head coach when things go wrong.
Speaker 1: He was talking about the Charles Barkley bit that he did,
Speaker 1: talking about how the Lakers and Sons suck because of
Speaker 1: the players and not the coach. And I agree for
Speaker 1: the record, the Son's lost to the Timberwolves because of
Speaker 1: the players, and the Lakers lost to the Nuggets because
Speaker 1: of the players. And it is true in terms of Collins,
Speaker 1: you know, take in the sense that like, yeah, coaches
Speaker 1: tend to be the scapegoat, and I definitely agree with that,
Speaker 1: But that is separate from the fact that Darvin is
Speaker 1: not a good NBA coach and he needed to go.
Speaker 1: So the Frank Vogel thing is a perfect example of this.
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel is a good NBA coach in my opinion,
Speaker 1: and I said this as I talked about him getting
Speaker 1: fired at the end of the season two years ago.
Speaker 1: He's an excellent defensive strategist, so if you get him
Speaker 1: a high level offensive assistant, and you have that competent
Speaker 1: staff around him, you have a good coaching staff who
Speaker 1: knows what they're doing. He just struggles to get by
Speaker 1: in that's his problem. The Lakers completely tuned him out
Speaker 1: towards the end for whatever reason. It's the exact same
Speaker 1: thing that happened in Phoenix. You saw the hit piece.
Speaker 1: The Stars just don't listen to him for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: So that is like a personality thing with Frank Vogel, right,
Speaker 1: And again I think that's a strong indicator his issues
Speaker 1: in Phoenix and his issue his issues in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: are basically the same, right, So Frank Vogel probably needs
Speaker 1: to coach a younger and more impressionable team right like that,
Speaker 1: so that he doesn't have to worry about some of
Speaker 1: the personality dynamics. So if you guys remember around that time,
Speaker 1: we had some other coaches around the league that were
Speaker 1: having success. Right We had Ima Udoka in Boston who
Speaker 1: like came in as this like former NBA player who
Speaker 1: was like a Ford who could kind of look eyed
Speaker 1: I with these guys and he'd like talk shit to
Speaker 1: their face and talk shit to the press, and like
Speaker 1: it was very much like a a he held them accountable, right,
Speaker 1: And then we saw tylu as another former player, do
Speaker 1: similar things with the Clippers and the Cavs, right, And
Speaker 1: so there was this kind of like idea that Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham was the next guy in that line, right. And
Speaker 1: the reasoning was, you know Lebron and Ad and these guys,
Speaker 1: they don't listen to Frank, So how about Darvin. Darvin
Speaker 1: can come in and be our emai Udoka And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of times when this kind of thing happens,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about a first time head coach, you
Speaker 1: don't really have a lot of evidence to go on
Speaker 1: in terms of what kind of coach he's going to be.
Speaker 1: That's the risk in hire, in hiring a first time
Speaker 1: head coach. And by the way, that's something that there's
Speaker 1: if there's something to be critical of in terms of
Speaker 1: the Lakers and the Bucks hiring Adrian Griffin hiring Darvin Ham.
Speaker 1: There's a certain risk involved with hiring a first year
Speaker 1: head coach. But I understood the reasoning, they're not listening
Speaker 1: to Frank. You need to bring in somebody that can
Speaker 1: really motivate them, right. I totally understood that. I think
Speaker 1: the part that we missed at that point was Darvin
Speaker 1: doesn't have the mean streak and the audacity that Emi
Speaker 1: Udoka had to really hold the guys accountable beyond like
Speaker 1: more benevolent motivational tactics, right, and so the first year,
Speaker 1: the urgency was immediately there by virtue of their predicament
Speaker 1: in the standings. They started two to ten, so there
Speaker 1: was immediate urgency. And then we had injuries to Lebron
Speaker 1: and Ad that continued that urgency. They were fighting uphill
Speaker 1: all season. They actually overachieved last year relative to their
Speaker 1: talent level because Lebron and Ad were rarely available at
Speaker 1: the same time. They survived they got the seven seed
Speaker 1: their playoff run. I actually thought Darvin managed the Grizzlies
Speaker 1: series well. He shrunk the rotation to the right guys,
Speaker 1: He had a good game plan. Same in the Warriors series.
Speaker 1: He pivoted off of Ruey who was struggling to guard
Speaker 1: klay Tom. He trusted Lonnie Walker. I thought that was
Speaker 1: a smart adjustment. Lonnie Walker actually won them a game
Speaker 1: in Game four. Nice adjustments in the Steph pick and
Speaker 1: roll problem and they won that chess match. Right now.
Speaker 1: In the Denver series, I thought he made some mistakes.
Speaker 1: He started Dennis Schroeder in three guards against Denver in
Speaker 1: Game one and they just got completely demolished on the glass.
Speaker 1: That was a bad idea. He waited until game four
Speaker 1: to bench D'Angelo Russell, who clearly was out of it mentally,
Speaker 1: and to start Ruey Hachimura. Right, but it was like
Speaker 1: a weird situation because it was a deadline roster, right,
Speaker 1: Like they built the roster at the deadline, So everyone
Speaker 1: was willing to kind of cut Darvin some slack for
Speaker 1: what happened in the Denver series. Right. This season from
Speaker 1: the start has been an absolute disaster of mistakes. Immediately
Speaker 1: out the gates, Darvin like just lost trust in Ruy
Speaker 1: Hachimura for whatever reason. Dead giveaway was in the first
Speaker 1: three games of the season, Ruy played just forty three minutes.
Speaker 1: Tori and Prince in the same span played ninety minutes
Speaker 1: in three games. Now, Ruey had just come off of
Speaker 1: an awesome playoff frount and had just signed a long
Speaker 1: term deal. He is on fifty one million dollars guaranteed.
Speaker 1: Torrian Prince was on the bi annual exception for four
Speaker 1: and a half million. He was signed to be a
Speaker 1: bench wing. I actually liked the Torrian signing. I thought
Speaker 1: he made perfect sense as a bench wing. And there
Speaker 1: were some moments early in the season when Ruey got
Speaker 1: hurt and Jared was hurt where I was like, this
Speaker 1: makes sense. You're playing Torrian. You gotta do what you
Speaker 1: gotta do, right, But it was obvious that Ruey was
Speaker 1: a much bigger and better athlete who was a better player. Now,
Speaker 1: as we know, Ruey had a really rough series against
Speaker 1: the Nuggets this year, and Torrian actually was a more
Speaker 1: like a safer option for them, especially in a certain
Speaker 1: portions of the game. But that's new information. We didn't
Speaker 1: know that at the time. Ruey was awesome in the
Speaker 1: playoffs last year, and no doubt Ruey over the eighty
Speaker 1: two is a much better basketball player right size and
Speaker 1: athleticism next to Lebron James and Anthony Davis. But for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, it got weird because even when Jared Vanderbilt
Speaker 1: came back, it seemed like Darvin trusted Cam Reddish more,
Speaker 1: which is super bizarre. Jared Vanderbilt was one of the
Speaker 1: driving forces behind your Western Conference finals run and you
Speaker 1: had just signed him to a long term deal. Vanderbilt's
Speaker 1: on thirty nine million dollars guaranteed. Cam Reddish is a
Speaker 1: draft bust on his fourth team in five years. He's
Speaker 1: a bad NBA player. Max Christy, who's a second year guy,
Speaker 1: is just better than Cam Reddish on both ends of
Speaker 1: the floor. It made absolutely no sense, and so that
Speaker 1: ended up being the driving force, the primary driving force
Speaker 1: behind the Lakers struggles in the regular season. Darvin didn't
Speaker 1: understand on a basic level who his good basketball players
Speaker 1: were on the roster, what was crazy and what hit
Speaker 1: it from everybody. The Lakers won the nd Season Tournament
Speaker 1: on the strength of Lebron James and Anthony Davis, who
Speaker 1: were both playing at a top five level at that point,
Speaker 1: kind of similar to what we saw in the Nuggets
Speaker 1: series this year. But as soon as Lebron and Ad
Speaker 1: relaxed a little bit after winning the Nason Tournament, the
Speaker 1: issues in the rotation they rose to the surface. The
Speaker 1: Lakers went three to ten in their next thirteen games
Speaker 1: after the Ncason Tournament and dug themselves a massive hole
Speaker 1: in the standings in that span. These are crazy numbers.
Speaker 1: Tory and Prints and Cam Briddish in the three and
Speaker 1: ten stretch mind you, those guys combine for nine million
Speaker 1: dollars in guaranteed salary. They played fifty nine point two
Speaker 1: minutes per game and attempted sixteen shots per game. Ruey
Speaker 1: Hatchamura and Jared Vanderbilt a combined ninety million dollars in
Speaker 1: salary guaranteed. We're playing just forty two point five minutes
Speaker 1: per game. D'Angelo Russell, who was clearly their third or
Speaker 1: fourth best player. He had the same amount of playing
Speaker 1: time as Cam Reddish, in the same amount of shot
Speaker 1: attempts per game as Toryan Prints explain that to me,
Speaker 1: it was like playing with one arm tied, like tied
Speaker 1: behind your back for no reason at all. And again
Speaker 1: we saw Darvin's reasoning right. He leaked it to the
Speaker 1: press right after the Nuggets series. He goes, what do
Speaker 1: you expect me to do? I had a starter shitting
Speaker 1: the bed ten games in a row, and he's right,
Speaker 1: like Ruy and excuse me, Dlo and Austin in particular,
Speaker 1: especially through the first half of the season, they were
Speaker 1: really up and down and they struggled in a lot
Speaker 1: of different ways. Why brand new offense and it's hard
Speaker 1: to win in the NBA when you have two skill
Speaker 1: guards in the back court, and it wasn't until the
Speaker 1: end of the season that Austin really embraced being that
Speaker 1: primary point of attack defender and doing it really well.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. I'd get it if you had a
Speaker 1: really high level player behind him, Like let's say Gabe
Speaker 1: Vincent was healthy, which he wasn't. But let's say Gabe
Speaker 1: Vincent was healthy, and you're like, man, getting a lot
Speaker 1: of struggles out of these two guys, I'm gonna bench
Speaker 1: d lo or Austin and I'm gonna play Gabe Vincent.
Speaker 1: Totally would get it. That's why you spent the money
Speaker 1: on Gabe Vincent this summer. But that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: He played Cam Reddish and torying Prince cam Reddish was
Speaker 1: starting all of that stretch. So, like, again, I get it.
Speaker 1: If you were benching an Austin or a d Loo
Speaker 1: in favor of a high level player that you have
Speaker 1: in your rotation, that's not what was happening. You were
Speaker 1: playing a draft bust. You're starting a draft bust on
Speaker 1: his fourth team in five years, who is a bad
Speaker 1: NBA player. There was absolutely no case for it. Again,
Speaker 1: even if you wanted to play that type of player.
Speaker 1: It made more sense to play Max Christy or to
Speaker 1: slide Tornying Prince to the two and to play Ruy
Speaker 1: Hachamurre at the three. It was it was unconscionable at
Speaker 1: the time. This is actually a crazy stat to kind
Speaker 1: of demonstrate this. In February, after relentless pressure from Lakers
Speaker 1: fans and media and the front office, Darbenham finally starts
Speaker 1: leaning into Ruiy. Before February, Ruy played just twenty two
Speaker 1: point eight minutes per game. Torrian played thirty minutes per
Speaker 1: game and basically started the whole time. The Lakers were
Speaker 1: twenty four and twenty five. After February first, Ruey played.
Speaker 1: Ruey played thirty one point one minutes per game, and
Speaker 1: Torreon went down to twenty two minutes per game and
Speaker 1: he prim primarily played against bench players. Ruey started all
Speaker 1: games except for the February first game, and the Lakers
Speaker 1: go twenty three to ten, have the fifth best record
Speaker 1: in the NBA in the third best offense in basketball.
Speaker 1: That's what happened when Darvin finally started playing his better players.
Speaker 1: Darvin's not responsible for the Lakers losing to Denver, but
Speaker 1: He is responsible for them having to play Denver in
Speaker 1: the first round because he handcuffed his best players and
Speaker 1: he overused bench journeyman. The strength of the roster was
Speaker 1: abundantly clear early on in the season. It was size
Speaker 1: and athleticism in the front court. All of their lineup
Speaker 1: data early in the season was showing Lebron and Ad
Speaker 1: with a bigger player like a Jared Vanderbilt or Ruey
Speaker 1: Hatchamura really successful, or like a Christian Wood for instance,
Speaker 1: when he was healthy in the early part of the season,
Speaker 1: whenever they went big, they had success. When they played
Speaker 1: Torrian Prince at the three next to Lebron and Ad,
Speaker 1: it was a huge problem in the early part of
Speaker 1: the season that the numbers were clear, But like that
Speaker 1: was the main issue. Darvin thought the strength of the
Speaker 1: roster was on the perimeter, when actually it was on
Speaker 1: the front line. Even in Game four against Nver this year,
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting Darvin benched Jackson Hayes and
Speaker 1: leaned into a bunch of three guard lineups. That tells
Speaker 1: you what he thought of this roster. And that goes
Speaker 1: back to one of my biggest beefs with an NBA coach,
Speaker 1: with any coach at any level, if you inflict your
Speaker 1: ideology on your roster rather than building an ideology around
Speaker 1: the strengths of your roster, that's where you go off
Speaker 1: the rails. That's why Darvin trusted Torrian and Cam so much.
Speaker 1: He believes in perimeter speed and ball pressure and he
Speaker 1: saw them as the path. But what he missed is
Speaker 1: Cam is a bad NBA player and Torrian Prince is
Speaker 1: a bench player, so they were underqualified for what he
Speaker 1: actually needed from them. And I understand the roster in balance,
Speaker 1: like when you build a roster around two skill guards,
Speaker 1: you're gonna run into some issues. That's why all season
Speaker 1: long I was talking about a D'Angelo Russell trade. But
Speaker 1: even when it was even when it was talked about
Speaker 1: in terms of benching one of the guards, which at
Speaker 1: the time I understood at the early part of the season,
Speaker 1: the problem was going to Cam and going to him
Speaker 1: in such big minutes. Like I get it if you
Speaker 1: played him for like the first shift and then pulled
Speaker 1: him and then had one of the skill guards on
Speaker 1: the court with a better athlete the rest of the game,
Speaker 1: that's one thing, But like leaning into him as much
Speaker 1: as you did, especially as a starter. Didn't make any
Speaker 1: sense to me, and there were better options on the roster.
Speaker 1: Cam was like your twelfth best player and he was
Speaker 1: one of your most utilized players during the majority of
Speaker 1: the season. It made no sense. And the reality is
Speaker 1: they didn't make a trade, right We were expecting them
Speaker 1: to make a trade to address that issue. They did not.
Speaker 1: But once they didn't make a trade, we knew what
Speaker 1: the actual strength of the roster was defensive skill, frontline size,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as Darvin lean into that, they
Speaker 1: immediately took off and started winning. The second big thing
Speaker 1: that I want to hit on, and this is probably
Speaker 1: the biggest one, and this is the one that Darvin's
Speaker 1: going to have to address moving forward if he wants
Speaker 1: to have success at the NBA level in the future.
Speaker 1: Active versus passive coaching. So the other big knack I had.
Speaker 1: Darvin was far too willing to just sit back and
Speaker 1: watch the team make mistakes. On the sideline. He would
Speaker 1: often take a passive role where he basically just stand
Speaker 1: and watch, and then during the timeouts he would just
Speaker 1: yell meaningless platitudes, motivational platitudes about effort to the team.
Speaker 1: And so as a result, the Lakers took on an
Speaker 1: unseerious attitude in terms of their possession by possession focus.
Speaker 1: That lack of urgency started from the head coach. They'd
Speaker 1: have a bad game where they'd get sloppy, they'd play
Speaker 1: bad basketball for a half dozen or a dozen possessions
Speaker 1: in a row, and they toast a game off, or
Speaker 1: they'd lose control of a game. And then afterwards, darvinham
Speaker 1: would go to the press and he'd be like, it's
Speaker 1: a marathon, not a sprint. We're gonna be all right,
Speaker 1: this is a long journey. No it's not. It was
Speaker 1: a huge deal. That unseerious attitude and lack of attention
Speaker 1: to detail ended up being the biggest thing that hurt
Speaker 1: them against Denver. Two runs killed them in Game one.
Speaker 1: It was like a it was either a ten oh
Speaker 1: and a thirteen. It was a ten oh and a
Speaker 1: thirteen oh. One of them was in the second quarter,
Speaker 1: one was in the thirteen the third quarter. I can't
Speaker 1: remember exactly which one was which, but two massive deadly runs.
Speaker 1: And in those runs, they played unseerious basketball, not running
Speaker 1: their offense, turning the basketball over, not running back in transition,
Speaker 1: picked sixes like it was they were toasting the game
Speaker 1: off in a matter of minutes. One of the runs,
Speaker 1: the ten oh run, was like less than two minutes.
Speaker 1: The thirteen to oh run was like three and a
Speaker 1: half minutes. It happened so fast, and you completely lose
Speaker 1: control of the game in that span that was allowed
Speaker 1: all season long. In Game two, you blow a twenty
Speaker 1: point lead at the end of the third quarter. Spencer
Speaker 1: Dinwoodie hijacking possessions and trying to drive and finish on
Speaker 1: Peyton Watson. One of the best shot blocking bench players
Speaker 1: in the league, Torrian Prince. He made a step back
Speaker 1: three in a late clock situation as a rescue possession.
Speaker 1: A few possessions later, he took another one early in
Speaker 1: the shot clock. That doesn't happen on other teams, serious
Speaker 1: basketball teams. They don't have players that go off script,
Speaker 1: go outside of their role in freelance. That doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: You don't see that with Denver. You don't see Christian
Speaker 1: Brown just go like fuck it, I'm taking a pull
Speaker 1: up three here. That doesn't happen. That is a Laker
Speaker 1: specific problem. Even the Gordon on Ad adjustment. This is
Speaker 1: less about active coaching and more about just missing what's
Speaker 1: happening on the court. So KCP is a perimeter player
Speaker 1: who's chasing Lebron around screens. Now AD can't shoot. Aaron
Speaker 1: Gordan's on the back line because Aaron Gordon's guarding AD. Now,
Speaker 1: so Lebron starts bringing Jokich up to ball screens, and
Speaker 1: immediately it's clear that Gordon's bothering Lebron at the rim
Speaker 1: and Lebron's struggling to finish. Instead of adjusting and attacking
Speaker 1: in a different way, like I don't know, have Lebron
Speaker 1: James post up KCP instead of trying to attack him
Speaker 1: from the perimeter. Have Anthony Davis post up Aaron Gordon,
Speaker 1: he had made fourteen straight shots earlier in the game. Instead,
Speaker 1: they had a bad approach and they cut the lead
Speaker 1: from twenty to eleven, which led into that fourth quarter run.
Speaker 1: That was an example of failing to identify something that
Speaker 1: was happening on the court as it was happening. In
Speaker 1: Game three, Lebron just chilling on the back line in
Speaker 1: a must win game. He was the reason why Aaron
Speaker 1: Gordon got going in that game. Tylu in Game seven
Speaker 1: of the NBA Finals was ripping Lebron a new one
Speaker 1: at halftime because he wasn't bringing enough urgency. Darvin let
Speaker 1: it slide all season, never held those guys accountable. In
Speaker 1: Game five, that third quarter run, it was so clear
Speaker 1: as the Lakers went up sixty nine to sixty, it
Speaker 1: was clear that Lebron was getting tired, the execution was dipping,
Speaker 1: the Nuggets were taking control. We were all begging for
Speaker 1: a time out in the middle of that run. No
Speaker 1: timeout was called until the Nuggets had literally turned that
Speaker 1: nine point deficit into a three point lead. That was
Speaker 1: when Darvin finally relented. And at that point it was
Speaker 1: so damn close to the end of the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: It was almost worthless end of the third quarter that
Speaker 1: like Ruyan Michael Porter Junior, at the end of the game.
Speaker 1: It was like a little over five minutes left in
Speaker 1: Game five, the Lakers were up by two and Ruy
Speaker 1: just literally took a possession off, was not paying attention
Speaker 1: and Michael Porter Junior just ran off of a simple
Speaker 1: screen and caught a wide open three and knocked it down.
Speaker 1: That is the type of lack of attention to detail
Speaker 1: on a possession by possession basis that was freely allowed
Speaker 1: by Darvin all year long because he sat on the
Speaker 1: sidelines with his hands in his pockets instead of actively
Speaker 1: coaching his team. Juxtapose that with Mike Malone. That's active coaching.
Speaker 1: He's up and yelling at players the whole game. Bad
Speaker 1: basketball is simply not allowed. If he saw two or
Speaker 1: three bad possessions in a row, he was on their
Speaker 1: ass immediately about it. What happened after Game four, he
Speaker 1: went to the press conference and was like, we are
Speaker 1: doing a terrible job of protecting the paint. We have
Speaker 1: to do better. He was getting on the players. That's
Speaker 1: the sense of the sense of accountability that you breed
Speaker 1: from day one of training camp all the way through
Speaker 1: to the end of the season. And so as a result,
Speaker 1: you don't see random players for Denver, leaving the scope
Speaker 1: of their role to hijack possessions. You don't see laps
Speaker 1: as an execution that lasts more than a possession or
Speaker 1: two between before Mike Malone has a meltdown. Championship teams
Speaker 1: always have approached the season with urgency from day one.
Speaker 1: It's never been a team in NBA history except for
Speaker 1: a defending champion that chilled through the regular season. It's
Speaker 1: a marathon, not a sprint, and work their way up
Speaker 1: from a lower seed through a playoff run to win
Speaker 1: the title. It has literally never happened. If the Lakers
Speaker 1: would have done it, it would have been the first time.
Speaker 1: Only defending champions have had that type of leeway. The
Speaker 1: team that wins almost always dominates from day one. There
Speaker 1: is an attention to detail. There's a level of urgency
Speaker 1: that never waivers over the eighty two They go two
Speaker 1: or three bad games and they get together and like,
Speaker 1: we got to figure this shit out. The Lakers have
Speaker 1: won a title with Lebron James and Anthony Davis. You
Speaker 1: want to know how they started that season twenty four
Speaker 1: and three. Twenty four and three, there was no marathon,
Speaker 1: not a sprint. It was like, no, this is not okay.
Speaker 1: We have to get this figured out right now. That
Speaker 1: is the level of accountability that active coaching provides that
Speaker 1: passive coaching does not provide. Even in Game two, I
Speaker 1: put this in my notes and I was irritated, just
Speaker 1: like not being on top of it enough to challenge
Speaker 1: that Jamal Murray bump in the final minute that tied
Speaker 1: the game. Literally you identified at the beginning of that series. Wait,
Speaker 1: everything's allowed. Mike Malone and his staff were on top
Speaker 1: of that. Anybody if their man fouled the guy and
Speaker 1: they were looking at the ipop pat and they were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he raked him across the face. Challenge it marginal contact.
Speaker 1: Delo got punched in the face on a layup and
Speaker 1: Mike Malone challenged it and got it overturned. It was
Speaker 1: obvious that if you challenged a call with some marginal contact,
Speaker 1: you were gonna get away with it. And there was
Speaker 1: a huge bump foul and the final minute of Game
Speaker 1: two where Jamal Murray went to the line and tied
Speaker 1: the game at the foul line, and everyone's screaming for
Speaker 1: a challenge and Darvin just sat there and let it laps.
Speaker 1: He's he has again. If Darvin's gonna get another chance someday,
Speaker 1: there has to be a more active approach to coaching
Speaker 1: on a possession by possession basis throughout the regular season,
Speaker 1: not just holding his players accountable, but doing his job
Speaker 1: as a staff to take advantage of every advantage available.
Speaker 1: I think he left that game with two timeouts and
Speaker 1: a challenge. You couldn't. It doesn't transfer over to Game
Speaker 1: four or to Game three, and so I thought, honestly,
Speaker 1: I honestly thought that that series was just a really
Speaker 1: interesting juxtaposition and the difference between the two coaching styles,
Speaker 1: and it just kind of shine a big light on it. Right. So,
Speaker 1: to make a long story short, Darvin isn't the reason
Speaker 1: you lost to Denver. But to proceed with Darvin is
Speaker 1: to proceed with a coaching disadvantage, and playoff series are
Speaker 1: determined by the slightest of margins, So firing Darvin and
Speaker 1: hiring a more competent coach improves your chances to win
Speaker 1: the title. End of story. So moving on. I don't
Speaker 1: love any of the establishment guys except for Kenny Atkinson.
Speaker 1: He's the one guy I like. But he has a
Speaker 1: similar issue to Frank Vogel in the sense that he's
Speaker 1: in the past struggle to get buy in from older veterans.
Speaker 1: That's famously what happened in twenty twenty. The NETS guys
Speaker 1: just kind of tuned him out and basically punted him
Speaker 1: from the locker room. But I do think he's a
Speaker 1: good coach. Tylou would be ideal. He has an excellent
Speaker 1: feel for what works in modern basketball on both ends
Speaker 1: of the floor. Spacing concepts. He's big on matchup, attacking,
Speaker 1: big on ball pressure, and physicality on the defensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. He would definitely get buy in from
Speaker 1: the Stars. But I just don't see universe where Balmer
Speaker 1: lets him go. I think Tyler's one of the five
Speaker 1: best coaches in the league, so like if I'm Steve Balmer,
Speaker 1: I'm clearly aware of that. So even if I did
Speaker 1: punt and move on from the Kawhi Paul George James
Speaker 1: harden Era, I want Tylu as my coach. So I
Speaker 1: just doubt they give him up. But if they do
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, if Tyler works out some sort of
Speaker 1: deal with Balmber where he walks away from the last
Speaker 1: year of his deal and the Lakers can get him,
Speaker 1: that would literally be a home run. Could not do
Speaker 1: better than that, right, JJ Reddick, This is an interesting idea.
Speaker 1: JJ's a really smart basket said this before in the show.
Speaker 1: I think he's the best at what I do for
Speaker 1: a living in terms of analyzing basketball games. Obviously we
Speaker 1: see him do so many interviews, but if you actually
Speaker 1: watch him break games down, not just in the broadcast booth,
Speaker 1: but also also when he does when he actually does
Speaker 1: sit down and like do playoff series breakdowns and starts
Speaker 1: talking about adjustments. Super smart basketball mind. I think he
Speaker 1: particularly has a great feel for offensive concepts, which I
Speaker 1: think would be useful on a team like this that
Speaker 1: runs five out and has a lot offensive skill. You
Speaker 1: could also kind of see it as a collaborative kind
Speaker 1: of thing with Lebron, where Lebron is like kind of
Speaker 1: pseudo operating as like a de facto member of the staff,
Speaker 1: like an assistant basically, then you bring in experienced assistants,
Speaker 1: especially to help on the defensive side of things. So
Speaker 1: I kind of like that's an interesting idea, But another
Speaker 1: first time head coach comes with a certain amount of risk, right,
Speaker 1: and this is a season with a great amount of urgency,
Speaker 1: could very well be the last season Lebron plays at
Speaker 1: a superstar level with his age, So I kind of
Speaker 1: lean towards the guy like a Kenny Atkinson who has
Speaker 1: a certain high floor. But that has risk as well
Speaker 1: if you can't get the guys to buy in. But
Speaker 1: at least if the season takes a turn for the worst,
Speaker 1: next year probably wouldn't have anything to do with Kenny Atkinson.
Speaker 1: It would probably have more to do with personnel. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: here's the bottom line. Lebron and ad can carry you
Speaker 1: home in the playoffs. They've shown that they're two top
Speaker 1: ten playoff players by like for sure, right, that goes
Speaker 1: without saying, but you do need some marginal improvements on
Speaker 1: the roster and you need a baseline level of competence
Speaker 1: at the head coach position that Darvinges did not provide,
Speaker 1: and so that's where they have to go from here.
Speaker 1: So like Tyler would be by number one, i'd probably
Speaker 1: go Kenny Atkinson two, and then I would take JJ
Speaker 1: over any of the other establishment guys. And then I
Speaker 1: don't think you can get some young hot shot assistant
Speaker 1: type of thing in there, because it's the same kind
Speaker 1: of deal where you're gonna have trouble getting the stars
Speaker 1: to buy in. But again, my order of operations would
Speaker 1: be TYLERU, Kenny Atkinson than JJ Reddick. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for today in this particular video.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be back in a little bit with some
Speaker 1: film on the on the Nuggets Timberwolve series. I'll see
Speaker 1: you guys. Then the volume