Speaker 1: M M all right, welcome to say the Lakers post
Speaker 1: game so on Dash Radio. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for coming to hang out with Rog and I. Um,
Speaker 1: I am so glad that the Lakers at least showed
Speaker 1: some fight there in that second half, because, as Roger
Speaker 1: and I always complain about, it's just so hard to
Speaker 1: learn anything about the team, about the scheme, about the lineups,
Speaker 1: about the players when they aren't playing hard, when they're
Speaker 1: mailing it in. And it kind of looked like it
Speaker 1: was headed in that direction as another one of those
Speaker 1: nights where the Lakers just we're gonna get out classed
Speaker 1: in every facet of the game from a give a
Speaker 1: ship standpoint, And obviously they started to show some fight
Speaker 1: and we got to learn some interesting stuff. Um. But
Speaker 1: first of all, Roger, how you doing, man? I hope
Speaker 1: you're having a good week so far, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to into the bottoms of stuff tonight. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: like full disclosure disclosure, I was dropping my mom off
Speaker 1: at L A X and it's an international flight, so
Speaker 1: I was just staying staying there and I peeked at
Speaker 1: the score and we're down like twenty already. I think
Speaker 1: with what like five minutes gone, So I'm gonna need
Speaker 1: you to kind of film me in on that part.
Speaker 1: I walked in around the third quarter, I think like
Speaker 1: eight or nine minutes still left in the third quarter,
Speaker 1: But walk me through. What what the hell happened to start?
Speaker 1: Was it the starters? Was it Bradley DeAndre Jordan's just
Speaker 1: not bidding? Uh? Did Russ turn it on? Kind of?
Speaker 1: I know he had eighteen in the third Was there
Speaker 1: some aggression showing? So film me in there. So I
Speaker 1: kind of have a it's weird, I'm looking at an
Speaker 1: incomplete game to me, like the Lakers were in the
Speaker 1: close game the whole time. Like I started from the
Speaker 1: third and it was like a three point game or something.
Speaker 1: So for me, I saw a good game. I don't
Speaker 1: know about you guys, and I saw a pretty good game.
Speaker 1: You should be you should be thankful that you missed
Speaker 1: the beginning. I mean, so, I thought the story at
Speaker 1: the beginning the game was transition defense. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's kind of two there's two parts to that because um,
Speaker 1: part of transition defense has to do with like your
Speaker 1: overall foot speed as a lineup, right, So when you
Speaker 1: go with Anthony Davis, who you know, as we've frequently
Speaker 1: talked about Anthony Davis's strengths as a as a as
Speaker 1: a basketball player primarily have to do with his size
Speaker 1: and length in conjunction with his defensive instincts and his
Speaker 1: uh skill set, you know, is his ability to be
Speaker 1: more coordinated and and and you know, his ability to
Speaker 1: do things offensively that most bigs are are don't have
Speaker 1: the touch or the basketball like you to be able
Speaker 1: to do the truth of the matter is that he's
Speaker 1: not overly fast and like a linear you know, just
Speaker 1: running wind sprints up and down the floor. And then
Speaker 1: obviously when you run that in conjunction with DeAndre Jordan,
Speaker 1: who's flat out slow, you can have a situation where
Speaker 1: the overall foot speed of the lineup is is problematic.
Speaker 1: And obviously the Knicks were just running up and down
Speaker 1: the floor and shooting the lights out and getting anything
Speaker 1: they wanted. But you know, there are there are dead
Speaker 1: giveaways to me that associate transition defense with effort, and
Speaker 1: a good example of that is like, for instance, there
Speaker 1: was a play, you know, there were several plays early
Speaker 1: in the game where the trailer was wide open. If
Speaker 1: the trailer is wide open, that's an example of guys
Speaker 1: not running back because typically in transition defense, you sprint,
Speaker 1: all five guys sprint, try to get a foot in
Speaker 1: the paint, and then from there they spread out too shooters.
Speaker 1: And so if you get to the rim and you
Speaker 1: take away whatever the easy runout is, and there's only
Speaker 1: four guys there, or there's only three guys there, then
Speaker 1: naturally there's gonna be somebody trailing the play who's wide open.
Speaker 1: And and like the Knicks got a lot of really
Speaker 1: good three point looks out of that. There's another play
Speaker 1: in the second quarter, early in the second quarter when
Speaker 1: the when the wheels were really coming off, where Dwight
Speaker 1: Howard was guarding New Orland's Noel. New Orleans Noel was
Speaker 1: jogging down the floor and Obi Toppin got wide open
Speaker 1: on the back end for a like a half court
Speaker 1: lob and he ended up dunking on like Wayne Ellington,
Speaker 1: and Wayne Ellington jumped up and tried to not get free,
Speaker 1: and Obie Tompa just kind of dunked over the top.
Speaker 1: If you're like, if the big man runs back and
Speaker 1: puts a foot in the paint and he turns around
Speaker 1: and he looks and he sees near Land's noel and
Speaker 1: he thinks he's good. But the other guards and forwards
Speaker 1: in the lineup are just simply not running back. That's laziness.
Speaker 1: That's not lineups, that's not personnel. That's laziness. And then
Speaker 1: the other big part of it was rim pressure. The
Speaker 1: game turned around. You know, we talked all the time
Speaker 1: that the the the You can't just to ask someone
Speaker 1: to drive to the basket every single time because it's
Speaker 1: too fatiguing. It's not realistic to ask an athlete to
Speaker 1: put in the physical labor it takes to drive to
Speaker 1: the basket every time. That said, there needs to be
Speaker 1: a certain amount of balance there. You need to at
Speaker 1: least attempts to frequently put pressure on the rim or
Speaker 1: your shot quality will go to hell really fast. And
Speaker 1: in the late second quarter and progressing through the rest
Speaker 1: of the second half, both Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: put a great deal of rim pressure, actually made a
Speaker 1: conservative effort, concerted effort to get to the basket, and
Speaker 1: the Lakers started getting good shot quality. They started making shots,
Speaker 1: which allowed them to set their defense, which allowed them
Speaker 1: to get stops, which allowed them to get out in transition.
Speaker 1: It's that same you know, snowball effect that I always
Speaker 1: talked about. It's the thing that defines Laker basketball. Getting stops,
Speaker 1: getting out in transition and getting easy shots, and that
Speaker 1: all that all starts with them being able to put
Speaker 1: pressure on the rim, which is the biggest strength of
Speaker 1: this lineup, and early in the game they were simply
Speaker 1: not making that concerted effort. And so those two things,
Speaker 1: to me, the transition defense and the lack of rim pressure,
Speaker 1: are clear indicators of poor effort. And it's confusing to
Speaker 1: me because this is back to back games now where
Speaker 1: the Lakers have shown a lot of fight when they
Speaker 1: got down big, but but them coming into the game,
Speaker 1: this lacks of daisical. Them coming into the game without
Speaker 1: belief in their system is to meet another indictment of
Speaker 1: the coach. And I think guys finally kicking it into
Speaker 1: gear and finally starting to put their foot on the
Speaker 1: gas in attempt to fight back and win the game
Speaker 1: is more indicative of just competitive nature. You're in the game,
Speaker 1: you're getting your butt kicked. Guys on the other team
Speaker 1: are talking trash to you, they're playing up to the crowd.
Speaker 1: The crowd's yelling at you. Finally your competitive nature will
Speaker 1: kick in and you'll fight back, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what we saw in both games. But them coming out
Speaker 1: the gate without that, to me, continues that trend, that
Speaker 1: theme that I've been preaching about for the last week,
Speaker 1: which is, I don't think this group is bought into
Speaker 1: the coaching staff, and I don't believe. I don't think
Speaker 1: they believe in what they're doing, which is problematic. And
Speaker 1: obviously there's a bunch of other stuff that we're going
Speaker 1: to get into, like that you saw in the third quarter,
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter having to do with problems with
Speaker 1: the zone and having to do with the manual quickly
Speaker 1: getting going. But that was the story at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the game. Story the beginning of the game was
Speaker 1: no rim pressure and no transition defense. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: another game where when I look at this, or kind
Speaker 1: of at the end the end of the first quarter,
Speaker 1: I thought like, this is a game Maybe Vogels just
Speaker 1: fired after this one lose by thirty to a NIXT
Speaker 1: team that's down. I think Derrick Rose and and someone
Speaker 1: else I was thinking about it, though, Like we talked
Speaker 1: a lot about scheme and scheme combined with effort and
Speaker 1: that stuff you have to get to but you can't
Speaker 1: get to scheme without effort, right like, and like an
Speaker 1: analogy I was kind of thinking of. It's like when
Speaker 1: you start to like a long time ago, when I
Speaker 1: was starting to work out, go to the gym. You
Speaker 1: do all this research track, like, oh, what's the best
Speaker 1: work out to do? What's the best like meal plan
Speaker 1: to do? And I read something that like stuck with me.
Speaker 1: I forgot where it was from. This was before like
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a billion dollar business. Now you
Speaker 1: have all these influencers who are fitness influence and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I saw like a quote that really stuck with
Speaker 1: me and goes, the best workout is the one you
Speaker 1: actually do right like and the best meal and the
Speaker 1: best meal the best meal plan is the one you
Speaker 1: actually stick to, right And there's all these extremes, And
Speaker 1: that's kind of how I'm seeing this team as well.
Speaker 1: I think we're better as a switching team, but again,
Speaker 1: the effort. If the effort is not there, I thought
Speaker 1: I saw DeAndre Jordan Avery Bradley again getting killed and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's again the drop coverage. I don't like
Speaker 1: that on manual quickly. But again, that's a you can't
Speaker 1: get to scheme without effort. And I think you're right,
Speaker 1: this team is really coming out. Lack of daisical and
Speaker 1: it's been clear my position. I'm not on the fire
Speaker 1: Vogel because I think that solves maybe some issues. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a short term solution to a bigger
Speaker 1: issue this team has. But if that's the only way
Speaker 1: they'll wake up, like to me, firing Vogel is the
Speaker 1: same thing I keep comparing it to like taking DeAndre
Speaker 1: Jordan now the starting lineup, like that helps, but that
Speaker 1: that's a band aid, that's something that has other unintended consequences.
Speaker 1: But maybe the teams just there. I didn't get to
Speaker 1: watch the first half. I don't know how ugly or
Speaker 1: how bad that effort was. Um, but yeah, that's kind
Speaker 1: of my thing here. You can't even get to you
Speaker 1: can just go ahead and make a mental note that
Speaker 1: it was really bad. Yeah, I figured, yeah, again and
Speaker 1: again Russ picked it up in the third quarter. Um,
Speaker 1: I got to see that. I would like to see
Speaker 1: that a little bit more in the first quarter. I
Speaker 1: know it's tough with the two big line up. Eighteen
Speaker 1: points of his twenty four I think at the time
Speaker 1: was in the third So let me know, like, how
Speaker 1: did Russ pick it up? Did it start a little
Speaker 1: bit in the second quarter, a little bit ending that
Speaker 1: ending that half, or or was it just a third quarter?
Speaker 1: Kind of pushed by him because I saw we were
Speaker 1: down twelve at halftime, which to me, a guy who
Speaker 1: didn't watch the game, dial that's not too bad. But
Speaker 1: obviously they were down, like I think it was, it
Speaker 1: was like the second quarter, but that was just you know,
Speaker 1: so they got down. I can't remember exactly how much
Speaker 1: it was off the top of my head, but they
Speaker 1: were down right around there. And like I said, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a you can only sit there and and
Speaker 1: watch your team get railed without you know. It's one
Speaker 1: thing if you're the Orlando Magic and you're going into
Speaker 1: Milwaukee and Milwaukee just has better guys than you, and
Speaker 1: when they're trying, there's nothing you can do to stop them.
Speaker 1: That's that's a completely different vibe. It's different when your
Speaker 1: Carmelo Anthony and you're Wayne Ellington and you're you know,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis, and your Russell Russell Westbrook and you know,
Speaker 1: you're good, arguably better than the guy across from you
Speaker 1: and he's whipping your ass up and down the floor.
Speaker 1: At that point, something is gonna kick into your competitive
Speaker 1: nature and you're gonna start to see some fight. And
Speaker 1: that's what you saw. And again it all just like
Speaker 1: it all started, in my opinion, with rim pressure. And
Speaker 1: obviously anytime you score basket, it makes you feel better
Speaker 1: about yourself, it makes you a little bit more willing
Speaker 1: to do the dirty work. Um. But so getting into
Speaker 1: the the part of the game, because for the record, guys,
Speaker 1: we're not going to dwell too much on the Frank
Speaker 1: Vogel thing. We got into that really deep on the
Speaker 1: Sunday Pots. So for those of you who want to
Speaker 1: hear our take on the Frank Vogel situation, I'm pro
Speaker 1: firing Frank Rags pro keeping him. Go to my Twitter
Speaker 1: feed and scroll down a Roger Twitter feed you'll find
Speaker 1: a link to the show. Or just go on any
Speaker 1: of your podcasts uh feeds and search for State of
Speaker 1: the Lakers and listen to our last episode. We do
Speaker 1: a real deep dive into Frank, what it would look
Speaker 1: like to get rid of him, the reason why I
Speaker 1: think it would work, and the reason why Roger thinks
Speaker 1: we should keep him. But diving into what was the problem,
Speaker 1: because once they started trying, there are a couple of
Speaker 1: things that that stood out to me because I think
Speaker 1: this is a same team too, and the reason why
Speaker 1: is because they're lazy on defense. Okay, however, you know
Speaker 1: when they do buy in where does try, they are
Speaker 1: capable of doing a certain amount of work on the defensive.
Speaker 1: So if you ask them to do an extremely difficult job,
Speaker 1: which is Frank's original defensive scheme, which is a drop
Speaker 1: coverage which requires guards to fight over the top of screen.
Speaker 1: He he really really wants the guard and the big
Speaker 1: to be able to shut down the action through back
Speaker 1: pressure from the guard chasing over the top and the
Speaker 1: big man kind of disrupting things at the point of
Speaker 1: attack while also keeping enough distance to where he can
Speaker 1: deter the lob and deter the rin. So from that standpoint,
Speaker 1: that job is extremely difficult, and most of these guards
Speaker 1: can't do it, and so they don't believe in it,
Speaker 1: and so they don't do the work, so that coverage
Speaker 1: doesn't work, and so you have these other two defenses
Speaker 1: that Frank has been going to, which is switching, which
Speaker 1: takes the physical labor of defense and turns it into
Speaker 1: a mental labor. Instead of having to chase over the
Speaker 1: top or or run or be physical and and and
Speaker 1: do all of the dirty work. It's a mental job.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is communicate and pay attention.
Speaker 1: If you're paying attention to what's happening around you, you
Speaker 1: see screens coming, you see where they're coming from, You
Speaker 1: see who it is. You talk to the other defender.
Speaker 1: You you plan a switch, you talk a switch, you
Speaker 1: make a switch. You're good. That's an easier job, so
Speaker 1: the guys are more willing to do it. And then
Speaker 1: you have the zone defense, which is obviously a lot
Speaker 1: easier physically because you're not asking guys to fight through screens,
Speaker 1: and you're not asking guys to cover a lot of ground.
Speaker 1: They're just responsible for an area on the floor, and
Speaker 1: generally speaking, you're willing to give up driving lanes because
Speaker 1: there's someone behind you. And the problem with it, though,
Speaker 1: as you saw, was and I'm sure you saw this
Speaker 1: when you checked in in the third a quarter, the
Speaker 1: Nicks just flat out solved it. And the big part
Speaker 1: that they figured out was if they rotated the ball
Speaker 1: on the perimeter, the weak side corner would eventually be
Speaker 1: wide open for a backcut and you saw be you
Speaker 1: saw it will be top and get a bunch of
Speaker 1: dunks out of that. And then they were also starting
Speaker 1: to get some really high quality three point looks out
Speaker 1: of it as well. The point is is the zone
Speaker 1: is jenky. The zone is jenkie. It's gimmicky. It's not
Speaker 1: gonna work. The zone has to go. If you're gonna
Speaker 1: use the zone, it needs to be in very short
Speaker 1: spurts two or three possessions, or maybe after a made
Speaker 1: free throw here, or they're just to confuse the other team.
Speaker 1: But it cannot be your bread and butter. It cannot
Speaker 1: be a thing you run seven eight possessions in a
Speaker 1: row because guys are going to solve it. The switching
Speaker 1: defense is a thing that you can actually run consistently.
Speaker 1: Everyone says, we don't have the defenders at the point
Speaker 1: of attack to run a switching defense. That's true, but
Speaker 1: we also don't have the defenders at the point of
Speaker 1: attack to run a traditional drop coverage or any other
Speaker 1: traditional man to man defense. The switching defense, at the
Speaker 1: very least, even if it does give up matchups that
Speaker 1: will hurt the team at the very least, it stagnates
Speaker 1: the other. At the very least, it turns them into
Speaker 1: an isolation team. At the very least, you can offer
Speaker 1: help on the backside and hope that your rotations on
Speaker 1: the back end will cover from some of that ground.
Speaker 1: I think they need to go into more switching and
Speaker 1: less zone and and kind of do what the Houston
Speaker 1: Rockets did in two thousand eight. Teams switch every single
Speaker 1: day for the rest of the season, and by the
Speaker 1: time the playoffs come, you'll be very good at it.
Speaker 1: They the Houston Rockets ran that defense strictly to be
Speaker 1: prepared for that Western Conference Finals matchup, and a damn
Speaker 1: near worked. That wasn't They weren't running it for the
Speaker 1: regular season. They weren't running it for a first round matchup,
Speaker 1: for a second round matchup. It was strictly a game
Speaker 1: plan for the Warriors. It was strictly a game plan
Speaker 1: for the postseason. And that's kind of the way that
Speaker 1: I look at this. They're going to have to switch
Speaker 1: because they don't have the personnel to run anything else.
Speaker 1: Lean heavily into it. Now, get good at it, and
Speaker 1: then maybe that can be something you can lean on,
Speaker 1: like the Brooklyn Netts last year to defend well enough
Speaker 1: so that your offense can carry you in the big moments. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, to be honest, they might just not have
Speaker 1: their personnel for a good defense. Like, just like with
Speaker 1: with what I'm watching, I might agree with you, like
Speaker 1: switching might be the answer, but again that there's other
Speaker 1: issues with that. To me, you can't switch with like
Speaker 1: two to three players that are unswitchable, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like you can't switch with Carmelo and Malik
Speaker 1: Munk and Wayne Ellington on the floor and a D
Speaker 1: as your backup as as the only center right Like,
Speaker 1: there's it causes way too many problems. We went to
Speaker 1: a D at the five a lot tonight. I thought
Speaker 1: they hunted Milik Monk. I thought they hunted Carmelo Anthony
Speaker 1: in that second half, our defense did pick up. I
Speaker 1: don't like, like a lot of people say, go to
Speaker 1: that zone and it's a nice switch up. I just
Speaker 1: think NBA teams are too good to run that too consistently.
Speaker 1: To me, a zone is kind of like you're not forfeiting,
Speaker 1: but you're kind of showing that you can't defend and
Speaker 1: as if the zone is the only way they're they
Speaker 1: compete and they give effort. Like to me, that's another issue.
Speaker 1: And if of itself, like I don't like the zone, Look,
Speaker 1: that's not something you can build in identity do with it.
Speaker 1: And it's also something our coach obviously is very much against.
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel came out against his own and it's just
Speaker 1: not a way that he likes to run. We have
Speaker 1: to find some way to play. And maybe again it's
Speaker 1: just personnel. We're playing a lot of guys. To me,
Speaker 1: where it's a lot of trade off basketball and that's
Speaker 1: where this team is. This team might just be a
Speaker 1: five team right now, Like that's that might just be
Speaker 1: how good they are right now. They're gonna win and
Speaker 1: lose some back and forth. Russell Westbrook put him back
Speaker 1: in the game again tonight. We'll see how many times
Speaker 1: he can do that. But with the defense, I don't
Speaker 1: really see an answer here. And this is why to me,
Speaker 1: Vogel is starting Avery Bradley, and I know that drives
Speaker 1: people crazy. It's starting DeAndre Jordan's who might not have
Speaker 1: a job in the NBA if it wasn't for this team.
Speaker 1: It should an archetype of defense that he likes and
Speaker 1: I think he would rather, you know, have a guard
Speaker 1: kill you in the mid range or a guard scoring
Speaker 1: over DeAndre Jordan's than being able to get picked on
Speaker 1: or have Anthony Davis at the top of the key.
Speaker 1: So I don't really know where we go with this
Speaker 1: until I guess Lebron comes back. Lebron needs to be
Speaker 1: the defensive kind of he needs to play at an
Speaker 1: all defense level, and is that realistic? So I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure where we go with this team. And it's
Speaker 1: just the team. I thought. Domin, who's uh, one of
Speaker 1: the dominant one of our friends, he said something interesting.
Speaker 1: Is this the team that gets down five or is
Speaker 1: this a team that came back? And I think they're
Speaker 1: both right there. This team is both. They're both yeah.
Speaker 1: And again like blaming this on I keep harping back
Speaker 1: on this. I know we don't want to talk about
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel very much, and those those are the Frank
Speaker 1: Vogel rumors and stuff will continue to get louder. But
Speaker 1: like to me, I don't know. I can't see Russ
Speaker 1: who's been a coach under Frank, who's been coached by
Speaker 1: Frank voga less than a couple of months, um, just
Speaker 1: already already going into the Yeah, I can't play for
Speaker 1: this coach, you know what I mean. Like that's and
Speaker 1: we have a bunch of new players on this team
Speaker 1: where it's Frank Vogel's first time coaching them as well.
Speaker 1: I think Tanna that their tanta of the fourteen new
Speaker 1: players or something are new. Like so, like that's where
Speaker 1: that's where the separation to me is in the in
Speaker 1: the Frank Vogels lost the team. He has barely coached
Speaker 1: this team like this, He's coached a D and Lebron
Speaker 1: and maybe losing them is everything. But like that, that's
Speaker 1: where I can't get to that they're just they just
Speaker 1: sucked because of they're not buying it. That that's where
Speaker 1: I can't jump to, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But yeah, with the good, it's it's it's a combination
Speaker 1: of three factors. And this is something that I've preached
Speaker 1: about this entire season. It's it's it's it's three factors. Equally,
Speaker 1: it's the it's the inability of Frank to be able
Speaker 1: to understand modern offensive concepts well enough to put these
Speaker 1: guys in position to succeed. Because again, that's that's one
Speaker 1: of the little pieces of the pie because again, if
Speaker 1: you look, the Lakers are a bottom third offense, and
Speaker 1: regardless of what you want to say about personnel and
Speaker 1: regardless of what you want to say about effort, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of of offensive talent on the floor for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. That's not where the talent shortcomings are. And
Speaker 1: they still can't score. They still can't score. So to me,
Speaker 1: that is indicative of a coach that doesn't understand how
Speaker 1: to use his offensive personnel. And then the second little
Speaker 1: chunk of the pie chart is that buying concept that
Speaker 1: we talked about were we won't get too far into,
Speaker 1: but for whatever reason, if you're if you're ranking, you
Speaker 1: know the the the willingness of of these players, these stars,
Speaker 1: these role players to do the job the coach is
Speaker 1: asking them to do. They're very low in the league
Speaker 1: in terms of their buying Okay, so that's the those
Speaker 1: are that's two of the three pieces, and I would
Speaker 1: argue both of those are associated directly to Frank. Now
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that the players don't share blame for
Speaker 1: the effort, but they but for whatever reason, Frank isn't
Speaker 1: able to get that out of it. And then the
Speaker 1: third piece of the chart is The third piece of
Speaker 1: the chart is personnel. They they have personnel shortcomings there.
Speaker 1: They have a lack of forwards, they have a lack
Speaker 1: of um, they have a lack of of defensive personnel,
Speaker 1: guys who are willing on their own volition to do
Speaker 1: the defensive job. That's a whole other issue that you
Speaker 1: can't put on Frank. That I agree with, But the
Speaker 1: other two thirds you can't. And you know, here's the
Speaker 1: thing with the DeAndre Jordan thing. And I think we've
Speaker 1: gotten to the point now where this absolutely has to
Speaker 1: be said. Okay, Frank plays DeAndre Jordan for two reasons.
Speaker 1: He believes it improves them defensively. He believes it helps
Speaker 1: them with defensive rebound. Though the numbers don't match. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the numbers very clearly state the exact opposite. With the
Speaker 1: with DeAndrea on the floor, with Lebron Russ and Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: they rebound less than a third. They rebound less than
Speaker 1: two thirds of of of opponent's misses. That would rank
Speaker 1: dead last in the league. With DeAndre Jordan on the
Speaker 1: floor and with Lebron, A d and Russ, they give
Speaker 1: up about a hundred and fifteen points per a hundred
Speaker 1: possessions that would rank dead last in the league. So
Speaker 1: I in the film matches it. So I, honest to God,
Speaker 1: don't know what he's thinking. It's like it's it's a
Speaker 1: concept that's in his brain that doesn't match up with
Speaker 1: what's happening on the court. And to me, that's an
Speaker 1: indictment of him in his ability to bring the best
Speaker 1: out of this group. And and I don't saying how
Speaker 1: that keeps getting glossed over and all of this because
Speaker 1: because it and it goes even a step further, even
Speaker 1: beyond the defensive rebound, and even if beyond the defensive end,
Speaker 1: they get run off the damn floor every time in
Speaker 1: transition because the over the overall foot speed of the
Speaker 1: lineup is too slow. And so like if you're spotting
Speaker 1: a team twelve minutes like that every night, it's no wonder.
Speaker 1: They get off to a bad start, and then the
Speaker 1: guys don't believe in what Frank's doing, and then the
Speaker 1: effort tanks, and then they find themselves down by twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty points, and then suddenly they give a ship
Speaker 1: and suddenly, without DJ on the floor, they go on
Speaker 1: a run now tonight. They actually did go play well
Speaker 1: with DJ on the four in the second half, but
Speaker 1: that was largely because the effort. It was just they
Speaker 1: finally turned it up and the Nicks let their foot
Speaker 1: off the gas because they thought the Lakers had quit.
Speaker 1: But but that that the DeAndre Jordan thing, to me
Speaker 1: is like the final nail in that coffin it. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you move on from them. I think
Speaker 1: part of the DeAndre Jordan's thing too, that we don't
Speaker 1: discuss enough. A D wants to start a powerful like
Speaker 1: That's clear, right, you would agree with that like a
Speaker 1: D if it was his preference, if it's a perfect world,
Speaker 1: if he made all the choices. He likes starting at
Speaker 1: power forward, that's very clear. I think that's also part
Speaker 1: of it. Vogo likes it too big, and I don't
Speaker 1: it matches what his second superstar wants. His second Sart
Speaker 1: wants to start at power forward. A D has talked
Speaker 1: about how more comfortable that is. He's talked about the
Speaker 1: rigors of starting at center, even though you know, you
Speaker 1: talk about the benefits of it um even to him physically.
Speaker 1: But he obviously feels the guy who's out there playing
Speaker 1: basketball the guys is that actually out there playing thirty
Speaker 1: five minutes of a game he feels starting at power
Speaker 1: forward helps in whatever way. Secondly, with the vote with
Speaker 1: the Vogo offense thing, here's my question. So in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City in two thousand, whenever they went to the finals
Speaker 1: that first time, their coach was Scott Brooks, right, and
Speaker 1: I have do I have that right? I believe they were.
Speaker 1: They were coached by Scott Brooks, and everyone was wonder
Speaker 1: telling Scott Brooks, you need to change your late game offense.
Speaker 1: It's all just Kevin Durant. I. So it's all Russell Westbrook,
Speaker 1: I sells, right, you remember that that moment. And then
Speaker 1: they brought in Billy Donovan. Right about who's now I
Speaker 1: believe the coach of the Shark Chicago Bulls doing a
Speaker 1: great job with Chicago Bulls. They brought brought in Billy Donovan.
Speaker 1: And what happened it was the same late game offense,
Speaker 1: same thing. Russell Westbrook got to do what he wanted
Speaker 1: and he went to Katie and got to do what
Speaker 1: he wanted. To me. This is offensive. Yes, there's complications,
Speaker 1: there's better offensive coaches, there's some there's things you can
Speaker 1: do there's more awful actions that I would like to see.
Speaker 1: But to me, this is like, to me, this is
Speaker 1: a Russell Westbrook fit trying to fit him into the
Speaker 1: offense type of situation, like find Frank Vogel. To me,
Speaker 1: bringing in a new guy is a new guy being
Speaker 1: gonna be able to set up a whole new offensive
Speaker 1: system in the middle of the season with Lebron missing
Speaker 1: the games that he does, Like, we're lucky right now,
Speaker 1: Russ and a d are healthy. Like that's I'm not
Speaker 1: like a Frank Vogel super apologist where I think Frank
Speaker 1: Vogel is the best coach or you know, he's some
Speaker 1: amazing coach. I think that's my whole point. I think
Speaker 1: you kind of lost me there, but like that's that's
Speaker 1: my whole point. There's like, to me, bringing a new
Speaker 1: coach brings in other issues. Yeah, So, I mean, the
Speaker 1: late game offense is separate from the rest of the
Speaker 1: game in my opinion, because for starters, late game offense,
Speaker 1: there's a reason why it devolves into isolation basketball, and
Speaker 1: there's a reason why it devolves into letting the stars
Speaker 1: run the show, and it's because of the fact that
Speaker 1: in general, it takes on a playoff like nature. Okay,
Speaker 1: the reason why in the playoffs switching works so well.
Speaker 1: The reason why in the playoffs the guys that are
Speaker 1: able to attack matchups do so well is because when
Speaker 1: defenses are really dialed in, they can shut down just
Speaker 1: about any action. There's no sophisticated way two xs and
Speaker 1: oes your way to quality looks at the end of
Speaker 1: games against the top tier defenses when they're really dialed in. So,
Speaker 1: from that standpoint, like the reason why Billy Donovan couldn't
Speaker 1: convince Russ and k D to do better in crunch
Speaker 1: time is because you can run the best pick and roll,
Speaker 1: you can run the best you know off ball action,
Speaker 1: you can run whatever in the world you want to run.
Speaker 1: They're just gonna switch everything, and at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's gonna come down to can Rust create
Speaker 1: an advantage against this guy in isolation, Kim Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: create an advantage And and so that's just the reality
Speaker 1: of late game offense. The reason why I think it's
Speaker 1: so important in the beginning of the game or the
Speaker 1: rest of the game, I should say, is because it
Speaker 1: has to do with confidence and comfort and bringing the
Speaker 1: best out of your players. So I think we can
Speaker 1: all agree that Russ, Lebron, and a d could all
Speaker 1: be better offensively than they have been this season. I
Speaker 1: think we can all agree with that Anthony Davis is
Speaker 1: several levels below what he was in the bubble in
Speaker 1: terms of a versatile three level score. The dude basically
Speaker 1: doesn't have a three point shot anymore. Okay, Russell what Russell?
Speaker 1: Westbrook has his own slew of offensive issues, and then
Speaker 1: Lebron his percentages are down across the board. Now, a
Speaker 1: lot of that has to do with him getting cut
Speaker 1: out of that game early, a lot of that has
Speaker 1: to do with him trying to fit in Russ, and
Speaker 1: a lot of that has to do with injuries. So
Speaker 1: I don't want to over get into that, but the
Speaker 1: point is, with this group, with all the shooting that
Speaker 1: they have, you should be able to bring the best
Speaker 1: out of these guys offensively, And to me, that starts
Speaker 1: with from the opening tip, letting them, allowing them, setting
Speaker 1: them up to feel comfortable, so that they feel confident,
Speaker 1: so that throughout the game they're in a rhythm and
Speaker 1: they play their best basketball. That's where the xs and
Speaker 1: os come in. That's where running sets matters. That's where stopping,
Speaker 1: that's where getting away from the offense where you just
Speaker 1: dump it into the post to a D every single time,
Speaker 1: or dump it in the post Lebron every single time,
Speaker 1: or ask asked Russ to cave in the defense by
Speaker 1: just putting his head down and getting to the rim.
Speaker 1: That's where that doesn't work when you're when you're when
Speaker 1: you're asking those guys to do that, inevitably, that's easier
Speaker 1: to guard. It's harder to guard at the end of games.
Speaker 1: In crunch time, Lebron and a D and Russ and
Speaker 1: their athleticism will overpower teams in crunch time. But at
Speaker 1: the in the throughout the rest of the game, you've
Speaker 1: got to find a way to get them easier looks.
Speaker 1: You've got to find a way to get everybody easier looks.
Speaker 1: And to me, Frank has shown that he's basically incapable
Speaker 1: of doing that. And and you know, I think the
Speaker 1: guys from l FR talked about this on their last part,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I'm such a huge believer in.
Speaker 1: When you ask someone to do a scheme, and you
Speaker 1: asked them to do a dirty job and it works,
Speaker 1: you're more willing to do it. For instance, if you
Speaker 1: have a day job at nine to five and you
Speaker 1: show up and your boss tells you, hey, if you
Speaker 1: do x y Z for me, you're gonna get a raise.
Speaker 1: You do x y Z for me, you're going to
Speaker 1: get a promotion. And you do it, and you get
Speaker 1: the promotion, it all feels worth it, and you're willing
Speaker 1: to continue those habits. But what if you do all
Speaker 1: those things and the race doesn't come. What if you
Speaker 1: do all those things and you don't get the promotion,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you're gonna buy back out, You're
Speaker 1: gonna disconnect again, and you're gonna stop caring. And that's
Speaker 1: the problem with this. In Frank asked these guys to
Speaker 1: do a job, and it was a hard job, it
Speaker 1: was a dirty job. And when they did it, they
Speaker 1: went twenty four and three to start the season. And
Speaker 1: so every single guy on the team was bought into
Speaker 1: the concept. They believed in it, and they were willing
Speaker 1: to do it. This season, Frank tried to run the
Speaker 1: same scheme with some players that were physically incapable of
Speaker 1: going it. When when he did so, they lost a
Speaker 1: lot of games. Now, obviously there were other factors that
Speaker 1: play there, and I'm not trying to gloss over that,
Speaker 1: but the point is that that that concept there is
Speaker 1: what has this team not bought in. They don't they
Speaker 1: don't believe in what they're doing because they don't see
Speaker 1: it working. And so in a lot a large part
Speaker 1: of that is there. They made a shift in personnel
Speaker 1: to offensive minded personnel, and the offense sucks. So when
Speaker 1: you have offensive minded personnel and the offense sucks, you're
Speaker 1: gonna lose games. Guys aren't gonna believe in what they're
Speaker 1: being asked to do. If this team was scoring a
Speaker 1: million points and was top five in offense, which they
Speaker 1: absolutely should be with Lebron, a d and Russ on
Speaker 1: the roster and with all of this shooting, if they
Speaker 1: were top five in offense, they'd be sitting with a
Speaker 1: much better record, and they'd be much more willing to
Speaker 1: do the job that they're being asked to do because
Speaker 1: they would believe in it. They'd be bought into that coach,
Speaker 1: and it would be it would be that same culture
Speaker 1: building that you're seeing from all these good teams like
Speaker 1: the Sons and Warriors this year, and that you saw
Speaker 1: from the Lakers back in. So from that stand point,
Speaker 1: I just I just think getting someone in the door
Speaker 1: that has the ability to maximize this offense at the
Speaker 1: very least, will allow them to do what Brooklyn did,
Speaker 1: which is defend well enough to win, which they absolutely can't.
Speaker 1: This team will defend better than that Brooklyn team because
Speaker 1: they'll have Lebron and a D on the floor. But
Speaker 1: they've got to get to the point where they believe
Speaker 1: in what they're doing, and right now they don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and it doesn't matter what I think or how
Speaker 1: I feel about it, Like I can kind of see
Speaker 1: the writing on the wall. It just feels like this
Speaker 1: is where it's going to get to. This is just
Speaker 1: how the NBA works. The coach gets the even if
Speaker 1: it's right or wrong, he gets the he gets the
Speaker 1: first act right, the coaches cut first. But to me,
Speaker 1: like anyone can do stuff when things are going well, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's not the point about this. Lebron and Nady know
Speaker 1: this works even if the personnel is kind of jankie.
Speaker 1: Even if the personnel is not working. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: like this comes from the top down, Like this should
Speaker 1: be leadership. That's the whole point of your superstar players.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to be bought in first, right, how many
Speaker 1: games have you seen Lebron defend this year? And again
Speaker 1: I said, it's not fair that he has to be
Speaker 1: the defensive guy this year. That's just what it is,
Speaker 1: like he has to be that Anthony Davis as well.
Speaker 1: I think his effort has gone up in the last
Speaker 1: few games, but to start the season it wasn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't defensive player of the year type of stuff that
Speaker 1: he can do. So again, this might just lead to
Speaker 1: Vogo getting fired and we get a new guy in.
Speaker 1: To me, like, that's a band aid to a bigger
Speaker 1: issue that we have in the offense. It's ugly, Frank,
Speaker 1: Vogo's offense has never been pretty. You talked about it
Speaker 1: a lot over the summer. Lebron has the key, Lebron
Speaker 1: has the keys to the offense. Lebron has Lebron runs
Speaker 1: the offense and Volgo runs the defense, and you talked
Speaker 1: about how beautiful of kind of a partnership that is. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a guy offensive genius in Lebron and they say, look,
Speaker 1: people have said that David Fislow actually runs a lot
Speaker 1: of the offense, But I mean the post up offense
Speaker 1: isn't eight. But also like Frank's not Frank Vogels probably
Speaker 1: like double teams is what's coming to a D. And
Speaker 1: it's not his problem that Ad is not a good
Speaker 1: pastor out of double teams. And we'd like to see
Speaker 1: more pick and roll. But if you're telling me for
Speaker 1: us and a D to Russ and a D, come
Speaker 1: to Vogel and like, hey, we want to we want
Speaker 1: to spread pick and roll, He's gonna say, no, run
Speaker 1: a post up. Like that's that's the kind of like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get deeper into the conversations there, like
Speaker 1: I feel like it's too easy just be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the coaches telling them runn post up every play, or
Speaker 1: the coach doesn't have any complicated actions. That's that's sure,
Speaker 1: Like that that kind of that can be true. But
Speaker 1: I like I was there at the Minnesota game where
Speaker 1: we went to a D at the five and spread
Speaker 1: around with shooters. We got destroyed defensively because we just
Speaker 1: don't have the guards that can keep up. There's a
Speaker 1: balance that Vogel is trying to play and and I
Speaker 1: feel for him there, but like that's where I'm at here,
Speaker 1: Like maybe bringing a new guy helps. I just think
Speaker 1: that's bad process to get to the result, even if
Speaker 1: it gets the result we want, that's just not the
Speaker 1: good process to get to it. But it looks like
Speaker 1: the writings on the wall, it looks like that's that's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna get. I just I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: solves the main issues tough. Maybe that solves it for
Speaker 1: like a couple of weeks and then and then maybe
Speaker 1: the are back to you know, given the effort that
Speaker 1: they want to playing five basketball. I just I just
Speaker 1: don't think that's secure in the middle of the season.
Speaker 1: But we've kind of gone on that for for a
Speaker 1: way too long. Probably. Yeah. Like I said, if you
Speaker 1: guys want to hear a deeper, to dive into the
Speaker 1: frank vocal thing, just listen to our last episode. I
Speaker 1: was curious, R, what have you What have you thought
Speaker 1: about th h t s massive falloff over the last
Speaker 1: three games. Uh? Such a such a stark difference right
Speaker 1: from the from the first podcast we did on th
Speaker 1: h D. After his three games, I think teams are
Speaker 1: starting to really scout him. Um, he's still not confident
Speaker 1: enough with his jumper to me, like it looks better
Speaker 1: it looks cleaner, but he's not confident with it. When
Speaker 1: the ball swings to him, he has to be wide
Speaker 1: open to shoot it, and that's just not gonna work
Speaker 1: right now, especially with the spacing spacing issues that we have.
Speaker 1: If he's on the floor next to Russ and a
Speaker 1: D and Avery Bradley. To be honest, like, he has
Speaker 1: to be willing to shoot. He has to be a shooter.
Speaker 1: He can't be a guy that's also like, he can't
Speaker 1: be Russ, right, He can't be a guy that just
Speaker 1: can't shoot. We have one guy in us already like that.
Speaker 1: Every valley is another guy that has to be kind
Speaker 1: of open to shoot. T HD can't be in that.
Speaker 1: Teams have scouted him very well. Teams are ready for
Speaker 1: the drive every single time, and his finishes are becoming
Speaker 1: more and more wild. Uh, he's still kind of a
Speaker 1: good passer out of it. But I think I saw
Speaker 1: he's like three for three for twenty or something the
Speaker 1: last three games. Just it's really dropped off again. Like
Speaker 1: it's another thing. Is THD the guy in those first
Speaker 1: three games or the THHC this guy probably somewhere in between, right,
Speaker 1: Like he's probably not this probably not this bad, and
Speaker 1: he's probably not that good yet twenty years old. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get fluctuating games. That's just how it is. He's
Speaker 1: just on a good team where him being bad actually
Speaker 1: like impacts impacts the team a lot more. You know,
Speaker 1: Like on a bad team, he can lose and it's fine.
Speaker 1: But on this team that's trying to win every single night.
Speaker 1: When you have he he can't afford to have the
Speaker 1: games that he's having. He has to have some kind
Speaker 1: of impact, especially um, even if he's not starting, he's
Speaker 1: playing a lot of minutes where we need him to
Speaker 1: be impactful. But yeah, it's been it's been a really
Speaker 1: tough stress for him. I expected him to turn around,
Speaker 1: but he needs to start shooting, like he can't be
Speaker 1: a guy that teams can just lay off like they
Speaker 1: are right now. Yeah, I think shot selection has been
Speaker 1: a big part of it. This is something that I
Speaker 1: preached about a lot. I used to talk about a
Speaker 1: lot with Kyle Kuzma, and then I talked a lot
Speaker 1: about with Anthony Davis early in the season. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I think Anthony Davis has been so
Speaker 1: much better as of late is he's gone away from
Speaker 1: the super difficult shots at the beginning of the game.
Speaker 1: That's that's to me has been abundantly clear. He's made
Speaker 1: a concerted effort to get higher quality shots closer in
Speaker 1: the rim early in the game to build his rhythm.
Speaker 1: So PhD comes in and a couple of I think
Speaker 1: they've lost each of his first three, right, or the
Speaker 1: lost two or three, I can't remember, but they were Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right. So they were two, there were
Speaker 1: one and two in those in those three games that
Speaker 1: he averaged over twenty points or whatever. And the reality
Speaker 1: was he was taken and making a lot of difficult
Speaker 1: shots in that game, uh, in those games. So the
Speaker 1: reality is is like he kind of tricked himself into
Speaker 1: thinking that that's good process when it's really not. You know,
Speaker 1: especially with this group, with all the talent that he's
Speaker 1: playing with, he needs to kind of adopt that approach
Speaker 1: that I was constantly preaching with Kyle Kuzma. Let the
Speaker 1: games come come to you, make sure your first couple
Speaker 1: shots are good, and then from there you'll have a
Speaker 1: better opportunity to feel confident and then go to your
Speaker 1: one legged fade away, then go to your step back
Speaker 1: three when you feel comfortable, and when you feel confident,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, it's impossible for a shooter to
Speaker 1: get out of their own head. That's just the reality
Speaker 1: of it. A jump shot is a total mind f
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, You're gonna miss a lot.
Speaker 1: And so from that standpoint, it's really really hard for
Speaker 1: shooters to contextualize misses. So if you go into a
Speaker 1: game and you take your first three shots, are you know,
Speaker 1: one open three, but the other two are a step
Speaker 1: back three and a one legged fade away from ten feet,
Speaker 1: the reality is is in your head, you're gonna tell yourself, oh,
Speaker 1: I just don't have it tonight. It's like, okay, do
Speaker 1: you actually not have it tonight or you're taking bad shots,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And and from that standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's like if if you if your first three shots
Speaker 1: are good process and they're balanced and you're open, then
Speaker 1: you can at least you're probably gonna make two or
Speaker 1: three of them, and then from there you go into
Speaker 1: the rest of the game feeling comfortable, feeling confident, feeling
Speaker 1: good about yourself. With this group too, he doesn't need
Speaker 1: to take as many of those extremely tough shots now
Speaker 1: tonight he was in the predicament of no Lebron, which
Speaker 1: obviously adds a whole other element of offensive creation need
Speaker 1: in his role. But with Lebron in Detroit, he was
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. A lot of forcing the ball
Speaker 1: into crowds of people around the basket and a lot
Speaker 1: of tough shots. So with him, he's young, it's so hard.
Speaker 1: We got we gotta remember he turns twenty one, literally,
Speaker 1: I think in two days, So we've got to we've
Speaker 1: got to contextualize this as a guy who has a
Speaker 1: lot of growing to do as a basketball player. But
Speaker 1: the reality is is what he what he did is
Speaker 1: he tried to continue a bad process from his first
Speaker 1: three games into his next three games. And you add in, uh,
Speaker 1: and you add in the circumstances surrounding Lebron, and this
Speaker 1: is what you get. Obviously, I don't think I think.
Speaker 1: I think there's been some fluctuation with his role to
Speaker 1: like you, you go from not playing basketball at all
Speaker 1: since the Sun series. Uh, you know, at least NBA basketball,
Speaker 1: NBA regular season meaningful basketball to suddenly you're in a
Speaker 1: game with no Lebron where you're giving a lot of
Speaker 1: a green light to suddenly Lebron's back and you're starting,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly it's we're in Detroit and we're going
Speaker 1: back to DeAndre Jordan. Now you're coming off the bench. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then now Lebron's gone again. So he's had a
Speaker 1: massively fluctuating role here over his first couple of weeks back.
Speaker 1: So that's the the other bone that I would toss him.
Speaker 1: It's just some some consistency, some some sort of chemistry
Speaker 1: that he could build in a consistent rotation pattern would
Speaker 1: go a long way, I think to helping him feel
Speaker 1: more comfortable. I'm still a believer in what he can do.
Speaker 1: Like you said, the reality somewhere in the middle. The
Speaker 1: reason why I asked you about that, I hopped on
Speaker 1: UH spaces before the game to talk about this concept,
Speaker 1: and I was curious on your opinion. There was a
Speaker 1: proposed trade that was thrown around having to do with
Speaker 1: Jeremy Grant with the Detroit Pistons. So the way that
Speaker 1: this would inevitably end up looking with salary matching is
Speaker 1: it would basically be centered around um th h T
Speaker 1: and Kendrick Nunn for Jeremy Grant. So I am a
Speaker 1: huge proponent of that trade if the Lakers nearing the
Speaker 1: trade deadline are trending towards looking like a bona fide
Speaker 1: But if there, if the wheels are coming off and
Speaker 1: they're twenty three and seventeen, I'm against it. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to I wanted to hear your before I get
Speaker 1: too part further into giving my opinion. I was curious
Speaker 1: what you thought about that proposed. Yeah, well, just to
Speaker 1: close on the th h T point, he's such a
Speaker 1: rhythm player right and he needs the basketball in his hands,
Speaker 1: which is kind of counterintuitive to this team, like he's
Speaker 1: gonna have to work off the ball, But just right now,
Speaker 1: his skill set is totally everything basketball in is in
Speaker 1: his hands, running ball screen actions where he's the one controlling.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff right now where he's just
Speaker 1: in the corner. It's like Malik Monk running actions or
Speaker 1: Russ running actions. And you talked about him playing with
Speaker 1: Lebron tonight with Lebron was obviously out, but just a
Speaker 1: lot of that and he's getting comfortable with that. I'll
Speaker 1: give him time. You you said it right there. To me,
Speaker 1: it's the what's the team looking like in February, Like
Speaker 1: if they're looking like a title contender. If they're looking
Speaker 1: like they're ready to compete, then yeah, then you know,
Speaker 1: make that move. It's just to me, trading th HT
Speaker 1: for a minimal kind of like to me, Jeremy Grant
Speaker 1: is not the difference between a team that's five hundred
Speaker 1: and then going to a title you know, like, would
Speaker 1: you kind of agree with that, Like, Jeremy Grant doesn't
Speaker 1: change you from a middle team to a title contender
Speaker 1: like that. That's not the jump to me you get
Speaker 1: with Jeremy Grant. The other rumor I guess was also
Speaker 1: Miles Turner, But yeah, with Jeremy Grant, Like that's my
Speaker 1: position on it. I think Taylan has shown enough to
Speaker 1: me where you know, you don't trade him unless at
Speaker 1: least right now we'll see how the season kind of progresses.
Speaker 1: But for me, right now, like Taylor has shown too
Speaker 1: much to me to where like I don't want to
Speaker 1: trade him until we kind of see what this season
Speaker 1: is before we get get to that point. Are you
Speaker 1: on that? Are you on that path as well? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So you know, first of all, I'm higher on Jeremy
Speaker 1: Grand than everyone else in terms of the role that
Speaker 1: you know, what people keep forgetting is, you know, I've
Speaker 1: had I've heard a lot of people bring up his
Speaker 1: shooting percentages in Detroit. Who the health cares about his
Speaker 1: shooting percentages in Detroit. That shot profile will not even
Speaker 1: remotely resemble his shot profile with an amazing and then yeah,
Speaker 1: the fit to me is is a no brand. And
Speaker 1: you know, the key to running a D at the
Speaker 1: five is having players in that six five to six
Speaker 1: a range who can defend multiple positions, either up a
Speaker 1: position or down a position, and on the offensive ent,
Speaker 1: don't hurt your spacing, you know. And that's where it
Speaker 1: helped having a Kyle Kuzma, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: That's where it helped. Having an Alex Caruso. That's where
Speaker 1: it helped having the k CP, even though he's a
Speaker 1: little smaller. But you know, the point is is when
Speaker 1: you you when you have those guys, those hybrid guys,
Speaker 1: those wing guys, they are what make a D at
Speaker 1: the five work. One of the big reasons why a
Speaker 1: D at the five struggled this year is Lebron has
Speaker 1: been out, so it's been a lot of guards and
Speaker 1: a lot of Carmelo Anthony and that's just that you're
Speaker 1: putting too much physical responsibility on guys that are physically
Speaker 1: incapable of doing it. Now, in terms of the trade,
Speaker 1: there's a couple. There's a basic basketball philosophy that we
Speaker 1: all have to come to terms with, okay, and it's
Speaker 1: the it's the reality of the Anthony Davis trade. It's
Speaker 1: kind of it kind of sucks to watch Lonzo Ball succeed.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're happy for You're happy for Lonzo, but
Speaker 1: it sucks as a Laker fan when you remember what
Speaker 1: it was like when he was with you. It sucks
Speaker 1: watching Josh Hart turned into a solid role player. It
Speaker 1: sucks watching I was always been super high Brandon Ingram.
Speaker 1: I think he's more number two than the number one,
Speaker 1: But I think he is the closest thing we have
Speaker 1: to a modern day Kobe Bryant in the terms of
Speaker 1: the way he um, the way he's structurally puts his
Speaker 1: offensive game together as a three level score. I love
Speaker 1: those guys, but I understood the obvious gamble when you
Speaker 1: put your chips in for Anthony Davis. There was a
Speaker 1: chance that was gonna fail. There was a chance Ad
Speaker 1: got hurt, or Lebron got hurt, or for whatever reason
Speaker 1: they lost in the bubble and you have no title.
Speaker 1: That is the game that's gambling. That's what it looks
Speaker 1: like in real life when you when you make a
Speaker 1: big sports pet, you know like that, that's just that's
Speaker 1: just that's the reality of of of of You can't
Speaker 1: have any you can't win anything if you're not willing
Speaker 1: to risk anything in a lot of ways. And that's
Speaker 1: what the whole Lebron James experience has been like for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. When you brought Lebron on, you understood there'd
Speaker 1: be a certain amount of chaos, a certain amount of turnover,
Speaker 1: but you you have the potential to win an NBA championship.
Speaker 1: That's the way I look at this Jeremy Grant thing.
Speaker 1: You have to understand that there's a chance that you
Speaker 1: could be sitting you they could go on a fifteen
Speaker 1: game win Street, be sitting in really good shape. Trade
Speaker 1: t HD for Jeremy Grant and be make a run
Speaker 1: for the tie, don't and come up short, and the
Speaker 1: next season you're watching th HT look like an All
Speaker 1: Star with the Detroit Pistons. That is a potential outcome,
Speaker 1: That is something that could happen here. That's the game.
Speaker 1: But the flip side of that is, look at how
Speaker 1: talented at the top of the league is. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to denigrate the Lakers NBA title, but I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that Miami Heat team nowhere near as good as this
Speaker 1: Miami Heat team from this season. That Denver Nuggets team
Speaker 1: not even in the same stratosphere of this Golden State
Speaker 1: Warriors team, this Phoenix Suns team not even in the
Speaker 1: same stratosphere as the Houston Rockets. This year is going
Speaker 1: to be tougher. Your margin of error is smaller. You're
Speaker 1: gonna find yourself in a game five against Phoenix or
Speaker 1: against Golden State, and you're gonna be staring across the
Speaker 1: line at Draymond Green, Andrea Guadala, Andrew Wiggins, Clay Thompson
Speaker 1: and Steph Curry. That is going to be an extremely
Speaker 1: difficult game to win on the road in Golden State.
Speaker 1: Do you like your chances more if the lineup is
Speaker 1: lebron A d and Jeremy Grant with Russ and one
Speaker 1: of the good guards, or if it's two kind of
Speaker 1: iffy players in that lineup, or maybe it's Trevor Risa
Speaker 1: who doesn't do anything as well as Jeremy Grant does
Speaker 1: it in that spot, and that's that's the way you
Speaker 1: gotta look at this. It's a basic philosophy you have
Speaker 1: if you cling to multiple and the same goes for
Speaker 1: the Warriors. What if the Warriors lose to the Lakers
Speaker 1: in Game five and lose the series, but hey, they
Speaker 1: got James Wise, Wiseman and Jonathan cominga like, that's that's
Speaker 1: the curse and the blessing of having young talent and
Speaker 1: right now talent at the same time. You have to
Speaker 1: tow that line. You have to make that decision. Am
Speaker 1: I willing to risk it all and potentially have to
Speaker 1: watch those guys succeed elsewhere to get the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Speaker 1: That's that to me is the risk. And for the record,
Speaker 1: Lebron and n d might be enough right now to
Speaker 1: do it without making a move. They might, but although
Speaker 1: right now it doesn't look like it look like And
Speaker 1: then really quickly, the last thing I'll say is in
Speaker 1: the bubble, Lebron is the best player in the world,
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis looked like he might have been the
Speaker 1: second best player in the world somewhere else in the
Speaker 1: top five. Maybe right now Anthony Davis looks more like
Speaker 1: the tenth best player in the world, and right now
Speaker 1: Lebron James looks more like the seventh or eighth best
Speaker 1: player in the world. So that that same that they
Speaker 1: both might, through rhythm, get back to where they were
Speaker 1: in the bubble. I certainly hope they do, and I
Speaker 1: kind of believe they will, but that's not guaranteed. The
Speaker 1: margin for error is different this year. And so as
Speaker 1: much as I loved HT and I genuinely believe he'll
Speaker 1: be an All Star, one a fringe All Star somewhere
Speaker 1: in that, a guy that not an MVP candidate but
Speaker 1: an All Star. I genuinely believe that. But you straddling
Speaker 1: that line more often than not will leave you unsatisfied. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know you don't have to push me too
Speaker 1: hard to compliment brandon Ingram. I feel like me and
Speaker 1: a few other people were the first people to uh
Speaker 1: to put our flag down on Ingram Island, and what's
Speaker 1: going on over there is it's kind of sad for him,
Speaker 1: But look, Anthony Davis is Anthony freaking David's like you
Speaker 1: understood that looked at Lakers over pay maybe, but you
Speaker 1: do that for a title. And I'm of the belief
Speaker 1: if you have a chance to win, you go all in,
Speaker 1: like that's just what you're supposed to do. That's the
Speaker 1: whole point of all this. The whole point of this
Speaker 1: is to win. There is lines to draw that like
Speaker 1: this is the GM's decision, No, this is on this
Speaker 1: is Rob Blinka's job to kind of decide where that
Speaker 1: where that line crosses. Jeremy Grant again, to me, a
Speaker 1: great player. He was one of the best players to
Speaker 1: me that defended Lebron and a d in the whole bubble,
Speaker 1: Like I thought he was great on them. And that
Speaker 1: that Denver series to me is a lot closer than
Speaker 1: people remember, just because it did end in five. Like
Speaker 1: you talked about the teams who are good right now
Speaker 1: compared to those in the bubble, the Golden State Warriors,
Speaker 1: maybe that's one. But like the Milwaukee Bucks ran through
Speaker 1: the regular season, they got beat by the Miami Heat.
Speaker 1: Farren Square, you can joke about the bubble. Miami beat them.
Speaker 1: That's the team the Lakers beat. That's just there's good
Speaker 1: teams every year. I think the Lakers, like where the
Speaker 1: was it was the lead bad or the Lakers just
Speaker 1: really dominating that run. Sixteen and five is sixteen and five.
Speaker 1: You can calm about the teams that they played, but
Speaker 1: I don't really want to go back and forth on
Speaker 1: that tailan or Jeremy Grant. That's such a that's such
Speaker 1: a tough thing to get to. It's funny if you
Speaker 1: look at the Lakers account today, I think they tweeted
Speaker 1: something like invest in the future with the tailing with
Speaker 1: tailor shooting around. I thought that was kind of funny
Speaker 1: with the with the rumors swirling. But it's a tough
Speaker 1: line of job. But to me, if the Lakers are
Speaker 1: close enough, they look like real title contenders and let's
Speaker 1: say like th hd s in the rotation, but it
Speaker 1: looks like they've kind of found something with Kendrick Nunn
Speaker 1: and League Monk, and they found a rotation that like
Speaker 1: maybe he can go somewhere else and they'd be fine.
Speaker 1: They have enough ball handling off the bench to score
Speaker 1: and you can trade that for Jeremy Grant. Yeah, that's fine,
Speaker 1: go ahead, do that make win. Now moves to the
Speaker 1: whole point of the Lebron era, like you're here to win,
Speaker 1: you got one already, Like this, the whole point of it.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens after. But the whole point is
Speaker 1: to win now, and the Jeremy gran move would be
Speaker 1: a sign of that. Just in my opinion, I want
Speaker 1: to see the team processing upwards enough to to get there.
Speaker 1: Like to me again, Jeremy Grant, exactly, don't go down
Speaker 1: with the ship. You don't go down with the ship.
Speaker 1: You read the cards because they can't trade to they
Speaker 1: can't trade t h right now anyway, with the terms
Speaker 1: of this contract. I think if you have to wait
Speaker 1: till December, so you make the read at the time,
Speaker 1: don't go down with the ship. But if it looks
Speaker 1: like the ship has a chance, exactly, don't hold your car,
Speaker 1: don't hold your chips if it has a chance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean I've seen stuff like this. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: not comparing Jeremy Grant to Michael Muscala. That's not fair.
Speaker 1: Like Jeremy Grants a hundred times way better. But I
Speaker 1: just remember we traded Zubach for like Bach, who is
Speaker 1: now the starting center for the like Clippers and one
Speaker 1: of the best room protecting bigs in the league and
Speaker 1: one of the best contracts in the league. YadA YadA, YadA,
Speaker 1: Um for you know, Michael Scala, who is the Laker
Speaker 1: for a little while, and Jeremy grat seven, it's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's like he's an old player as well,
Speaker 1: like if you can get but to me right now,
Speaker 1: like with the Pistons, take th HD for Jeremy Grant,
Speaker 1: like I don't, like, I don't think they've seen enough
Speaker 1: from t HD to trade their you know, a guy
Speaker 1: that they invested in a couple of seasons ago. So
Speaker 1: there's the two sides of this. I think THHD has
Speaker 1: to show a little more to get to that Jeremy
Speaker 1: Grant level as well. But like, yeah, oh, I think
Speaker 1: Detroit and but I mean it's irrelevant. I I think,
Speaker 1: I think that Jeremy Grant move was fine, but I
Speaker 1: don't think. I don't think Detroit used him as part
Speaker 1: of their future are But I mean, obviously I don't
Speaker 1: have voices in the front off Jeremy Grant. The Pistons
Speaker 1: aren't close to anywhere where they need to care about,
Speaker 1: you know, winning and all that. They they just got
Speaker 1: the number one pick and trying to build around him
Speaker 1: and how I don't want to get into how Kate
Speaker 1: and t HD fit. That's where a Pistons kind of podcast.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, that's where I'm at with it. If
Speaker 1: they can show on our process that they're going up,
Speaker 1: and yeah, go ahead, do a win now move. But
Speaker 1: I just don't think Jeremy Grant changes the five dred
Speaker 1: team to a UH to a title contender and this
Speaker 1: team like Lebron's played by eight games nine games now, Like,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen this team yet. That's the positive, that's
Speaker 1: the positive, heere, I guess, but but yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: don't know us to go with that. That's we haven't
Speaker 1: seen You're right, we haven't. We haven't seen Lebron in
Speaker 1: a D in a lineup with another forward yet. And
Speaker 1: the reality is is their most successful lineups in the
Speaker 1: championship season involved for a forward, usually either someone like
Speaker 1: Alex Cruzo or someone like Kyle Kuzma. You know, Alex
Speaker 1: Cruzo isn't traditionally viewed as a forward, as viewed as
Speaker 1: a guard, but he could guard forwards and he played
Speaker 1: like before, he rebounded like a forward. He had a
Speaker 1: physical presence on the floor like a forward. So you're right,
Speaker 1: it's hard to draw too much. But this is the
Speaker 1: other thing, like fundamentally let's let's pretend they come back
Speaker 1: and they have Trevor Ariza and it looks and it
Speaker 1: looks good. Do you feel comfortable going on a playoff
Speaker 1: run where you're gonna have to play games of high, high,
Speaker 1: high intensity intensity basketball with the only forward you can
Speaker 1: play being Lebron, Trevor Ariza and whatever you can get
Speaker 1: out of Carmelo Anthony Or would you feel more comfortable
Speaker 1: if that was a reason and then someone like Jeremy
Speaker 1: Grant and Lebron and Carmelo Anthony. To me, that just
Speaker 1: change it. It gives you margin for in that regard,
Speaker 1: you know. And and because like this is there's a
Speaker 1: reason why the Lakers have been so incredibly shorthanded. It's
Speaker 1: because dropping a reason was enough to put them behind
Speaker 1: the eight ball. Then when you lose Lebron for half
Speaker 1: the season, now you have nobody that's that's the lack
Speaker 1: of death rearing its ugly head. Sure, and also Reeves
Speaker 1: being out I think is big shockingly with it with
Speaker 1: the team that's that's playing Reeves. And I think even
Speaker 1: Bogo mentioned that he's trying to just find defensive lineups
Speaker 1: until Trevor Reason gets back, So obviously he believes the
Speaker 1: reason is a big part of this defense, and maybe
Speaker 1: that's you know, not that's not the smart, smart thing
Speaker 1: to hope for from a thirty six year old. But
Speaker 1: we'll see when when a reason gets back that they
Speaker 1: need a power for Carmelo still playing way too many
Speaker 1: minutes and God bless Carmelo, who has been has been great.
Speaker 1: I think it was like three for fourteen tonight, but
Speaker 1: hit some big threes. I just can't defend enough. To me,
Speaker 1: we can't find like you talked about, the team he's
Speaker 1: to need. The team needs to find a defensive identity.
Speaker 1: Like to me, there's not enough defensive minded players to
Speaker 1: get to that until we get a whole here, and
Speaker 1: maybe they won't get there when they're even hold, but
Speaker 1: like we need to at least see that Kendrick Nunn,
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves, Trevor Risa Lebron has to play at a
Speaker 1: defensive label for this team to to raise above water
Speaker 1: because I just I think they're gonna be a five
Speaker 1: hundred team until we get those guys butt. Yeah, alright, guys,
Speaker 1: we're gonna call it tonight. So the tomorrow is a
Speaker 1: little funky because it's a tail into the back to back.
Speaker 1: I have my season opener for the high school team
Speaker 1: that I'm coaching, so I will not be able to
Speaker 1: watch the game live. But Raj is still going to
Speaker 1: watch the game and he's going to host the post
Speaker 1: game spaces. We plan on taking a lot of colors
Speaker 1: tomorrow night, and then I'll be able to join about
Speaker 1: halfway through the show. Obviously, I'm not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to offer much because I didn't I will not have
Speaker 1: watched the game at that point, but I'll come hang
Speaker 1: out with you guys. Bring your questions, bring your rants.
Speaker 1: Rog is gonna be holding the space right after the
Speaker 1: game ends. I think it tips all at uh four
Speaker 1: o'clock to Civic Standard time, so it's a good early start.
Speaker 1: I should be joining, you know, towards the end of
Speaker 1: the show. But again, from the bottom of my heart,
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate all of you guys for supporting us
Speaker 1: and coming to hang out. We sincerely appreciate. This is
Speaker 1: gonna air on Dash Radio tomorrow morning at seven am,
Speaker 1: and it will be on our podcast feed here in
Speaker 1: about a half hour. That's under State of the Lakers.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much, and have a good