Speaker 1: M all right. Welcome to the State of the Lakers
Speaker 1: as Ny by dask Raandio. Happy Tuesday, everybody, Thanks for
Speaker 1: coming to hang out. Reinvigorated is the word that I
Speaker 1: would use to describe tonight. By the way, No Roj tonight.
Speaker 1: He's still out of town on a work trip, although
Speaker 1: he should be back for the back to back on
Speaker 1: Thursday and Friday this week. Um so Ryan solo tonight,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate you guys coming to hang out. Um.
Speaker 1: Like I said, reinvigorated. This is a team that has
Speaker 1: struggled with belief and a willingness to do the job
Speaker 1: all season. Now. To be clear, a lot of that
Speaker 1: struggle happened with Anthony Davis on the court. But I'm
Speaker 1: hopeful that with the combination of that infusion of talent
Speaker 1: with Anthony Davis and just the reality of the situation,
Speaker 1: the predicament, and the urgency that is presented by their
Speaker 1: place and the standings, I'm hopeful that effort will be
Speaker 1: less of a problem moving forward, at least as long
Speaker 1: as guys to help you and Frank continues to play
Speaker 1: the right guys, which I liked most of the groups
Speaker 1: that he went with tonight, he started Stanley Johnson, which
Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting. Trevor Reason has really been
Speaker 1: struggling of late on both ends of the floor, and
Speaker 1: there's a certain, you know, balance that has to be
Speaker 1: taken there because you wonder if if Trevor Reason can
Speaker 1: be useful in the long run, and the only way
Speaker 1: to find out is to give him a long runway,
Speaker 1: a long distance, and a lot of time for him
Speaker 1: to figure out if, if, if his body is going
Speaker 1: to be up to the task. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: tonight was the end of that rope and ended up
Speaker 1: being Stanley Johnson. But one of my concerns coming into
Speaker 1: this game was gonna be Bowl trouble and because just
Speaker 1: typically when you've got a guy like Stanley is super aggressive,
Speaker 1: tons of ball pressure draped all over James Harden like that,
Speaker 1: and you've got a guy like James Harden, who's probably
Speaker 1: the most gifted, you know, a foul grifter in the
Speaker 1: history of the NBA. Those two things, it was inevitable
Speaker 1: that Stanley would get in trouble, which you did, but
Speaker 1: it didn't matter because the Lakers played a really good
Speaker 1: basketball team in one now to be to be clear,
Speaker 1: because of injuries, uh and the Kyrie Irvan situation that
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Nets team is not very good right now. A
Speaker 1: lot of that is, you know, I would have picked
Speaker 1: them the Lakers. I would have picked the Lakers to
Speaker 1: win tonight even if Um Anthony Davis had not played,
Speaker 1: just because this is a this is a team that
Speaker 1: is beatabule right now. They're going through a similar stretch
Speaker 1: to what the Lakers were going to going through about
Speaker 1: a month and a half ago. They just don't have
Speaker 1: a ton of talent. They're playing a lot of basketball
Speaker 1: lineups that are not functional. Um that said, it was
Speaker 1: a good win. Like Bras always says, we can't be
Speaker 1: picking with the team like this that has struggled to
Speaker 1: win as often as they have now. Looking at the
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis thing, what what is so interesting is that
Speaker 1: when you plug him into the line up, the entire
Speaker 1: team just becomes that much more functional because he can
Speaker 1: actually do the job of a starting NBA center in
Speaker 1: this league. You know, we talked a lot about how
Speaker 1: Lebron is. He is a center in the sense that
Speaker 1: he can be in that position and you won't get
Speaker 1: absolutely destroyed. But he's not a traditional center in any
Speaker 1: sense of the other word, and then Dwight Howard is
Speaker 1: a backup NBA center, so plugging someone in there that
Speaker 1: is functional already just makes everything work so much. I
Speaker 1: thought it was super interesting that they didn't just force
Speaker 1: feed him in the post. They kind of used him
Speaker 1: the way that they've been using Lebron in these small
Speaker 1: ball lineups, where they're using him as a screener and
Speaker 1: rolling to the basket. And yeah, he got a handful of,
Speaker 1: you know, face up touches on the wing. I think
Speaker 1: he made a pull up jumper on one of them
Speaker 1: and drove to the baseline on the other. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't as we were hoping, they didn't spam that the
Speaker 1: way they did at the beginning of the year. Things
Speaker 1: stayed free flowing and it just worked. And one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons for that is Anthony Davis is the
Speaker 1: best defense player in basketball. And I know that's a
Speaker 1: complicated topic because there are guys that play better defense
Speaker 1: in the NBA throughout the day in, day out grind
Speaker 1: of the NBA regular season, but they're not capable of
Speaker 1: the defensive ceiling that Anthony Davis is capable of. This
Speaker 1: is something that I talked about a lot with Lebron
Speaker 1: James like, if I'm if we're ranking basketball players and
Speaker 1: who the best players in the world are, I don't
Speaker 1: think I'd take anybody over Nice for a regular season
Speaker 1: because the guy just has the motor and the youthful
Speaker 1: exuberance to be what he is at his very best
Speaker 1: night in and night out in the regular season. In
Speaker 1: a way that someone like Lebron who can go through
Speaker 1: the lethargy of just he's been in the league forever
Speaker 1: and he's concerned about saving his legs and he's not
Speaker 1: hyped up by big crowds anymore. Like it's you're not
Speaker 1: going to get that same you know, effort out of
Speaker 1: Lebron night in and night out in the regular season.
Speaker 1: That's set when things get really important, when the basketball
Speaker 1: games become more meaningful, when the stakes get higher, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Lebron can tap into something that Janice can't.
Speaker 1: He is an unbelievable defensive player. He can be like
Speaker 1: Draymond Green when he's dialed in on that end, and
Speaker 1: then on the offensive end. He has that unique combination
Speaker 1: of extreme high end, elite offensive creation on the ball
Speaker 1: as a score mixed with that elite high end playmaking
Speaker 1: which only a few men of only a few players
Speaker 1: in the league are capable of, and so Lebron can
Speaker 1: hit this ceiling that Janice just can't hit. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of like that with the Anthony Davis in the
Speaker 1: regular season. It's unfortunate and it's kind of an indictment
Speaker 1: of his motor that, for whatever reason, he hasn't been
Speaker 1: able to win a Defensive Player of the Year award
Speaker 1: or consistently be in the top of that conversation because
Speaker 1: he struggles with that. But man, when Anthony Davis dials
Speaker 1: it up, there's just nobody that can stay with him there.
Speaker 1: In that first quarter, I think he had three blocks
Speaker 1: in his first seven minute shift and was actively disrupting
Speaker 1: everything Brooklyn was trying to do. And there was an
Speaker 1: isolation possession there at the end of eighties first shift
Speaker 1: or try to shoot a step back over the top
Speaker 1: and eight partially blocked it. I think he got another
Speaker 1: block there in the fourth quarter on Patty Mills. He's
Speaker 1: just a devastating defensive weapon. And if they can combine
Speaker 1: some of the you know, new influx of athletic talent
Speaker 1: with guys like Austin Reeves and Stanley Johnson with a
Speaker 1: more consistent motor, with a more engaged Lebron, and with
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis being back on the floor, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a good basketball team here, and I
Speaker 1: think that is something to get excited about. The most
Speaker 1: important part about bringing Anthony Davis back has to do
Speaker 1: with slotting. This idea is is all. It's when you
Speaker 1: send a group of guys out onto the floor to
Speaker 1: play basketball. Each of them has a job list of
Speaker 1: responsibilities that they have to fill, and any five man unit,
Speaker 1: in order to succeed, has to be able to check
Speaker 1: a bunch of boxes on the court. But because Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis checks so many boxes, it shrinks what everybody else
Speaker 1: has to do, even Lebron, And by virtue of that,
Speaker 1: you get everybody back into a more natural position. Now,
Speaker 1: instead of Malik Monk doing a ton of isolating, he's
Speaker 1: attacking closeouts. Now. Instead of a ton of Carmelo Anthony
Speaker 1: post ups, it's Carmelo Anthony spotting up. You know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into Russell Westbrook in a minute and how
Speaker 1: that all works. But the point is is everyone just
Speaker 1: kind of slots in properly now, Lebron James can not
Speaker 1: have to be the back line defender all the time.
Speaker 1: You can play passing lanes more. And you saw that
Speaker 1: there in that fourth quarter where he got back to
Speaker 1: back steals for for run out dunks. That's just all
Speaker 1: part of the process of adding Anthony Davis to the
Speaker 1: equation to make everyone else's job so much easier. And
Speaker 1: I think that will hopefully lead to a lot of
Speaker 1: guys who have struck gold in their specific role to
Speaker 1: playing better. And as far as that slotting concept goes,
Speaker 1: that goes to an even greater extent when you add
Speaker 1: in whoever it is that the Lakers bring in at
Speaker 1: the trade deadline. Now we're gonna talk more about the
Speaker 1: trade deadline later. There's a bunch of you know, reporting
Speaker 1: that has been done from various sources over the course
Speaker 1: of the last week that are ranging from the Lakers
Speaker 1: have a chance to get everybody to the Lakers aren't
Speaker 1: going to make any moves, and we'll see what ends
Speaker 1: up happening. But if you can bring in someone like
Speaker 1: Eric Gordon, if you can bring in someone like Harrison Barnes,
Speaker 1: and those are just two random names, but if you
Speaker 1: can bring somebody like that in that helps the slotting
Speaker 1: even more because guys like that are just capable of
Speaker 1: accomplishing so much more on the court than a very
Speaker 1: young Taylor Horton Tucker, very young Stanley Johnson or Austin Reeves.
Speaker 1: And it just slots everybody even further into a better
Speaker 1: position on the floor for them to succeed, for them
Speaker 1: to play that their best, to have fewer bad nights,
Speaker 1: and for this team to getting a real rhythm. Now
Speaker 1: as far as slotting goes, this is where it gets
Speaker 1: really interesting with Russell Westbrook because with Anthony Davis out
Speaker 1: there was a different kind of slotting that took place.
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook was forced to do more, and it exposed
Speaker 1: him as somebody who wasn't capable of doing it anymore
Speaker 1: at this level. This is something I talked about a
Speaker 1: ton on the show as a blate, This idea that
Speaker 1: you know, Russell Westbrook because he can't shoot, and because
Speaker 1: he's not a fantastic ball handler, and because he doesn't
Speaker 1: have great finishing moves around the rim. There short finishing
Speaker 1: moves you know, as far as floaters and scoop shots
Speaker 1: and stuff like that before he gets to the rim,
Speaker 1: and because as a playmaker, he's kind of more just
Speaker 1: a drive into the chaos and kick it out to
Speaker 1: the corner and hope for the best kind of guy.
Speaker 1: It was only a matter of time as his athleticism
Speaker 1: declined that he would struggle with this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And you saw that to a significant extent, you know,
Speaker 1: in this stretch without Anthony Davis. But now what you're
Speaker 1: seeing now and Anthony Davis's back is Russ kind of
Speaker 1: seems useless. The metaphora uses like it's like if you know,
Speaker 1: some random trumpet player hopped on stage for a rock concert,
Speaker 1: like he's just kind of out of place. It's not
Speaker 1: that he's bad necessarily, but it's like, when you look
Speaker 1: at all those responsibilities that I'm talking about, the stuff
Speaker 1: that the team needs to do, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Russ doesn't make a ton of sense. You know, they
Speaker 1: don't need him to create off the dribble anymore because
Speaker 1: in this five out system, they're just getting tons of
Speaker 1: rim pressure just from all these guys that can put
Speaker 1: the ball on the floor. Stanley Johnson can put the
Speaker 1: ball on the floor and go to the rim. Austin
Speaker 1: Reaves can put the ball on the floor, a very
Speaker 1: Bradley actually is in a pretty good offensive rhythm as
Speaker 1: of right now. There's there's just there's no need to
Speaker 1: have this other guy that can stand at the top
Speaker 1: of the key and and create offense. They don't need
Speaker 1: that anymore. So now he's being relegated off the ball,
Speaker 1: and when you relegate him off the ball, you're seeing
Speaker 1: teams just completely and utterly ignored. And it didn't hurt
Speaker 1: the Lakers tonight, but Brooklyn was basically not paying any
Speaker 1: attention to him even when he had the ball in
Speaker 1: his hands. There was a sequence of post up touches
Speaker 1: in that second half where Lebron is turning and catching
Speaker 1: on the wing and turning and facing and Russ has
Speaker 1: the like kick out. Russ has the ball and James
Speaker 1: is just like James Harden's like, I'm not going out there.
Speaker 1: And James knows best. He literally went through this in
Speaker 1: the Bubble Payoffs. He was on the floor getting doubled
Speaker 1: out at half court while Russell Westbrook was standing on
Speaker 1: the quarter in the corner and the Lakers were completely
Speaker 1: ignoring him. James Harden knows this very well, so of
Speaker 1: course he was willing to implement that same strategy against
Speaker 1: the Lakers. We haven't seen it a ton this year
Speaker 1: because it's the regular season and you're not going to
Speaker 1: see some super high level, you know, uh, crazy adventurous
Speaker 1: scheming in a regular season, But you saw it tonight
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn, and what you saw there is something you're
Speaker 1: gonna see in a large dose when we get to
Speaker 1: the postseason. You're going to see every good defensive team
Speaker 1: put a big, physical forward, just like the Lakers did
Speaker 1: with Anthony Davis on Russell Westbrook. They're gonna like Phoenix,
Speaker 1: for instance. Phoenix is probably gonna put someone like you know,
Speaker 1: Jay Crowder on Lebron and then they're gonna put McHale
Speaker 1: Bridges on Russell Westbrook and sit his ass in the paint,
Speaker 1: having jump passing lanes, double team post ups, double team
Speaker 1: guys drive into the basket, and it's gonna look a
Speaker 1: heck of a lot worse than this version where the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Nets for doing it with Patty Mills James Harden
Speaker 1: at a bunch of JE League guys. That it's only
Speaker 1: going to get harder and harder to try to make
Speaker 1: this work as we get further along and as better
Speaker 1: teams are involved and I don't understand, you know, how
Speaker 1: you can make this work with Russ on the floor
Speaker 1: knowing that that's going to happen. Now what you saw,
Speaker 1: there was a counter that the Lakers used when when
Speaker 1: Russ was getting north like that, they put him in
Speaker 1: the dunker spot and he actually got an and one
Speaker 1: out of it. Here's the issue with that, though. That's
Speaker 1: what Bruce Brown is doing for the Brooklyn Nets. He's basically, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like a Swiss army knife type
Speaker 1: of basketball player who's not super big, not super athletic,
Speaker 1: but he just plays super super hard and does all
Speaker 1: this dirty work for the Nets, right, and they use
Speaker 1: him as a guy who sets ball screens and you know,
Speaker 1: short rolls to the basket to make reads and crashes
Speaker 1: the glass and he'll sit in the dunker spot. But
Speaker 1: the differences is Bruce Brown doesn't take defensive possessions off.
Speaker 1: Bruce Brown doesn't have inconsistent and volatile decision making. So
Speaker 1: what's the point of using Russ as Bruce Brown when
Speaker 1: he doesn't do Bruce Brown stuff well enough for it
Speaker 1: to be worth it in the tradeoff. You know, there
Speaker 1: were several plays today where you have a sloppy turnover
Speaker 1: and he jogged back on defense and not really pay
Speaker 1: attention and get burned. And that's not stuff that Bruce
Speaker 1: Brown does. There's Bruce Brown can be functional in the
Speaker 1: offense as a guy who hangs around, hangs out around
Speaker 1: the dunker spot, but he is on the floor because
Speaker 1: of all the dirty work he does and Russ just
Speaker 1: doesn't do that stuff. And so because of that, the
Speaker 1: Lakers are actually better off going with another wing. Take
Speaker 1: whatever you're thirty two minutes or whatever it is you're
Speaker 1: getting from Russ, and distribute them among guys who, rather
Speaker 1: than sitting in the dunker spot, will be on the wing,
Speaker 1: attacking close outs, be a threat from the three point line,
Speaker 1: be a threat to put the ball on the floor,
Speaker 1: and also fulfill their defensive responsibilities every single possession, do
Speaker 1: their job. That is a more tenable option. Now, again,
Speaker 1: it's complicated because of the situation surrounding RUSS. We saw
Speaker 1: this article come out today from Ramona Shelburn. It's absolutely wild,
Speaker 1: basically talking about how the Lakers have kind of made
Speaker 1: their bed and there's not a whole lot they can do.
Speaker 1: But there were some interesting bits of information in there.
Speaker 1: For instance, apparently Russ doesn't take very kindly to you
Speaker 1: criticizing him in a film session, which was a wild
Speaker 1: thing to read. I mean, as someone I've sat in
Speaker 1: these film sessions when I was playing in college, and
Speaker 1: I mean, you're in front of your whole team, you're
Speaker 1: in front of your coaching staff, there's video footage on
Speaker 1: the wall of what you did wrong. I can't even
Speaker 1: imagine standing up and being like, no, I didn't do
Speaker 1: anything wrong there. That's just like one of the most
Speaker 1: outrageous displays of ego that I can even imagine. And again,
Speaker 1: that's not entirely uncommon in the NBA. Guys have big egos.
Speaker 1: Lebron has a history of you know, Shaquille O'Neil said
Speaker 1: once that in two thousand ten Lebron wasn't super responsive
Speaker 1: in film sessions. But a couple of differents there. One,
Speaker 1: Lebron is a kid, he's still like four years old too.
Speaker 1: He was Lebron James, he was the MVP of the league.
Speaker 1: There's a certain amount of leeway or willingness to put
Speaker 1: up with b s because it was Lebron James at
Speaker 1: the peak of his powers defending m v P and
Speaker 1: so you you just kind of went with it. And
Speaker 1: but again, at the same time, Lebron over the course
Speaker 1: of his career has become more mature and cable of
Speaker 1: handling that stuff because he grew up. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: with Russ, you're getting that type of attitude, You're getting
Speaker 1: that top of the league, top of the world type
Speaker 1: of ego without any of the on court production. And
Speaker 1: this is why I think it's so important to do
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to try to get him off the
Speaker 1: roster before the deadline, because the general manager and the
Speaker 1: ownership group has given Frank Vogal the right to mention
Speaker 1: as we saw last week in that fourth quarter. But
Speaker 1: one of the problems is is he didn't handle it well.
Speaker 1: Made a scene, left the floor, left the arena, didn't
Speaker 1: even hang out for the Lakers postgame meeting. So the
Speaker 1: thing is, if he's not taking to this whole concert,
Speaker 1: this whole city situation very well, then you run into
Speaker 1: the dangerous situation where you might have to do this
Speaker 1: again in a postseason series. And now you've got Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook still on the roster, and however that reaction goes
Speaker 1: surrounding that and it could get ugly and so my
Speaker 1: thing is like, get ahead of it. If you know
Speaker 1: Russ is going to be a problem from a matchup
Speaker 1: perspective in a playoff series, and if you know he's
Speaker 1: not going to handle it well when you have to
Speaker 1: take him out of the lineup, then what's the point.
Speaker 1: And that's where, you know, kind of like when I
Speaker 1: start to look at potential trades, it's not just about
Speaker 1: what you might get back, It's about the concept of
Speaker 1: dealing with what could go down with Russ, you know,
Speaker 1: and essentially, you know, is there a is there a
Speaker 1: absolute perfect outcome where maybe Russ has some sort of
Speaker 1: dramatic wake up call and he embraces the dirty work,
Speaker 1: He changes his attitude, he becomes what I wanted him
Speaker 1: to be, which was this team's Drew Holiday. You know,
Speaker 1: the guy that plays off of two superior offensive players,
Speaker 1: primarily focuses on being a power guard on offense, trying
Speaker 1: to get to the rim, but on the defensive and
Speaker 1: takes that responsibility personally understands that that's his biggest contribution
Speaker 1: to the team. That's what you're getting from ju Holiday.
Speaker 1: That's what I was hoping for in terms of my
Speaker 1: attempt to rationalize how this could work before the season,
Speaker 1: but Russ has never embraced that. Now, is there a
Speaker 1: small chance, like I said, that he might embrace that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But if you're trying to project forward with this team
Speaker 1: and you're trying to make decisions around the deadline, what's
Speaker 1: more likely to happen? Guys? Is it more likely that
Speaker 1: Russ continues to be this guy or is it more
Speaker 1: likely that he becomes an issue down the line? And
Speaker 1: that That's why I stand where I stand with the
Speaker 1: concept of of getting him off the roster. It's about
Speaker 1: getting ahead of the potential problem, get ahead of the
Speaker 1: idea that teams won't be able to you know that
Speaker 1: teams will ignore him and you won't be able to
Speaker 1: functionally run your offense in a playoff series, and get
Speaker 1: ahead of the potential attitude problem that can come with it.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a problem, and I'm hopeful that the
Speaker 1: Lakers will do something about it as far as that
Speaker 1: trade goes. I wanted to talk about this John waltrade
Speaker 1: a little bit more because I kind of laughed it
Speaker 1: off last week when I initially heard of it in
Speaker 1: the mark Stein report. But it's kind of picking up steam.
Speaker 1: There are a bunch of factors at play here that
Speaker 1: make it a little bit more realistic than people think.
Speaker 1: For starters, John Wallas with clutch and clutches really trying
Speaker 1: hard to get John out of Houston. Um, the guys
Speaker 1: on the Hoop Collective did a big thing today talking
Speaker 1: about how he's a much better catching shoot shooter. He's
Speaker 1: over thirty seven percent on catching shoot threes in his
Speaker 1: last two seasons that he actually played, and that he
Speaker 1: in theory, is a less volatile, a little bit more
Speaker 1: controlled playing. And most importantly, he is actually amenable to
Speaker 1: the idea of not being used or being taken out
Speaker 1: of the rotation as we've seen in Houston. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that I would make that move. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying it's something that Laker fans need to at least
Speaker 1: start to mentally prepare themselves for, because there are a
Speaker 1: few things working in favor of that that make it
Speaker 1: a possibility. Now, so much has to go right, like
Speaker 1: Russ would have to continue to struggle the way he
Speaker 1: has been, the Rockets would have to be amenable to
Speaker 1: taking second round picks instead of a first round pick,
Speaker 1: because that would be like ditching the first round pick.
Speaker 1: To get off a rust for John Wall would be
Speaker 1: an absolute travesty. I think Laker fans need to be
Speaker 1: more open to spending that pick, but certainly not on
Speaker 1: someone like John Wall. But like I said, the Lakers,
Speaker 1: just Laker fans just need to be prepared for the
Speaker 1: fact that that is a realistic outcome. And should John
Speaker 1: Wall come back, you know it could it certainly couldn't
Speaker 1: be any war than what we're getting from Ross. I
Speaker 1: think Russ is a much better athlete than John at
Speaker 1: this point in his career, but I think John is
Speaker 1: a potentially a little bit more capable of of fitting in. Again,
Speaker 1: don't want to see that, but it's just something like
Speaker 1: your fans have to potentially be prepared for now as
Speaker 1: far as this first round pick goes, because I've seen this.
Speaker 1: This was reported by Eric pinkus Uh in the last
Speaker 1: couple of days, this idea that the Lakers are hesitant
Speaker 1: to throw this first round pick into anything, and that
Speaker 1: to me is completely ridiculous because everything we know about
Speaker 1: you know, rebuilds, tells us that, hey, guess what, you
Speaker 1: can get first round picks anytime you're having a bad season.
Speaker 1: Why because you can call teams and telling hey, we'll
Speaker 1: take that overpaid guy you have, and we'll take that
Speaker 1: overpaid guy and we'll eat his salary for a year
Speaker 1: or two, but you're giving us the first round pick
Speaker 1: in exchange. We've seen this so many times in recent years.
Speaker 1: If you if things go off the rails, you can
Speaker 1: accumulate picks quickly. So let's say Lebron ages out of
Speaker 1: the league, and let's say Anthony Davis just isn't good
Speaker 1: enough to be a franchise cornerstone and the team is
Speaker 1: massively underachieving and comes around and it's just not working
Speaker 1: in those seasons. Even if you spent the first round
Speaker 1: pick on a player this year, pretty quickly you can
Speaker 1: make calls around the league, take back salary, take back picks,
Speaker 1: and do a rebuilding. There is a playbook out there now.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City is showing us where you can pretty quickly
Speaker 1: a mass picks just by being bad for a season
Speaker 1: or two. Now, you obviously don't want to get stuck
Speaker 1: in that. But my point is is, like, there's no
Speaker 1: scenario where clinging to that first round pick is if
Speaker 1: as though it's the most important thing in the world,
Speaker 1: will pay off for the Lakers. If they're good over
Speaker 1: the course of the next half decade, then that pick
Speaker 1: is very carries very little value because it's a late
Speaker 1: first round pick, and if they're bad and they use
Speaker 1: the pick, you know, to to get something in the
Speaker 1: UH in this season, it'd be easy enough for them
Speaker 1: to recoup it just simply by doing what every other
Speaker 1: bad team does this time of year. So I think,
Speaker 1: I think that that pick needs to be in the
Speaker 1: conversation for any deal in order to get it done,
Speaker 1: especially when you realize what's at stake. What's at steak
Speaker 1: is Lebron James in his age thirty seven season playing
Speaker 1: some of the best basketball of his career and Anthony
Speaker 1: freaking Davis coming back from an injury looking good, and
Speaker 1: there's a core here that could potentially make a run
Speaker 1: to win a championship. Meanwhile, Golden State has Draymond Green
Speaker 1: with a back issue that could may or may not
Speaker 1: be serious. The Phoenix Suns don't have anywhere near the
Speaker 1: top end talent that the Lakers have. There is an
Speaker 1: opportunity here, there's a slight crack in the door, there's
Speaker 1: a window. You need to try to capitalize on that,
Speaker 1: and the only way to do so is to push
Speaker 1: your chips into the middle of the table. And so
Speaker 1: I hope that the Lakers are willing to do that.
Speaker 1: All right, to two last quick things I wanted to hit,
Speaker 1: and then we'll get out of here. So this Jeremy
Speaker 1: Grant thing, which I think is is really funny for
Speaker 1: a bunch of reasons. So basically the report comes out
Speaker 1: saying that Jeremy Grant has decided his his representation is
Speaker 1: basically telling Detroit like, hey, these are the teams we
Speaker 1: want to go to, and telling the rest of the
Speaker 1: league like, don't pick up our guy unless you plan
Speaker 1: on using him as a primary option and paying him
Speaker 1: all sorts of money. And basically it's cooling the market
Speaker 1: and that's part of the reason why Detroit hasn't been
Speaker 1: getting great offers. Now again, Jeremy Grant's mind is made up.
Speaker 1: He's gonna do what he wants to do. And look
Speaker 1: like a lot of this my theories it has to
Speaker 1: do with pressure. I mean, it's not just about the money,
Speaker 1: it's not just about the touches. It's the fact that, hey,
Speaker 1: look at Russell Westbrook. When you're on a team that
Speaker 1: has championship aspirations and you don't play well, it doesn't
Speaker 1: go well for you with the fan base. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure that comes with that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure that comes with expectation, whereas when you're with
Speaker 1: Detroit or when you're somewhere else in the league, there's
Speaker 1: no pressure that comes with that expectation when there is
Speaker 1: no expectation. So from that standpoint, like I think, from
Speaker 1: I think Jeremy Grant just looks at it like I'm
Speaker 1: having fun in Detroit, making lots of money, and guess
Speaker 1: what if I shoot poorly? No one cares. His percentages
Speaker 1: have tanked this year. Most of you don't even know
Speaker 1: except for the fact that you looked it up because
Speaker 1: he thought he might be a Laker. That's the reality
Speaker 1: of his situation in Detroit. He is in a very
Speaker 1: cush situation in terms of pressure. So that's my theory.
Speaker 1: But what's silly about it to me is Jeremy Grant
Speaker 1: is a very good basketball player and he's not going
Speaker 1: to struggle the way that Russell Westbrook will. Chances are,
Speaker 1: because he's that skilled, he's going to thrive. When he
Speaker 1: was in Denver with Jamal mur A, with Nicola Yoki's
Speaker 1: before he put in that summer of work to prep
Speaker 1: for being a primary ball handler. He did a great
Speaker 1: job in the possessions that were thrown his way. And
Speaker 1: that team was spamming the Jamal Murray Nicola Yokers pick
Speaker 1: and roll. They were not getting other people involved as
Speaker 1: often in terms of initiating actions. This Laker team and
Speaker 1: a lot of these teams like the Clippers, a lot
Speaker 1: of these teams that are running this modern five out attack.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of other teams that are linked to Utah.
Speaker 1: Jazz are a great example there. You know, a full out,
Speaker 1: one end team, but they let all four of those
Speaker 1: guys initiate. Boston Celtics have been mentioned their team that
Speaker 1: lets everybody from the perimeter initiate. When you're in these
Speaker 1: modern systems, when you have all these guys on the
Speaker 1: floor that can pass, shoot, and dribble, everybody gets touches.
Speaker 1: It's really about just who's in the rhythm. Like on
Speaker 1: any given possession, you're probably gonna get two or three
Speaker 1: opportunities to drive and kick. So the idea that like
Speaker 1: you need to have this guy this is something I've
Speaker 1: been pushing back for on the Russ thing NonStop as
Speaker 1: it pertains to Lebron wanting rust. I just don't understand
Speaker 1: this idea that like this this one ball thing was
Speaker 1: proven wrong all the way back with the Lebron and
Speaker 1: Dwayne Waite stuff, and that was in a completely different era.
Speaker 1: It was proven wrong with Chris Paul and James Harden,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be proven more and more wrong as
Speaker 1: time goes on, because basketball is evolving in a way
Speaker 1: to where everybody has the ball in their hands, everybody
Speaker 1: puts it on the floor, everybody creates, and everybody kind
Speaker 1: of feeds off of that, and you're seeing it. You're
Speaker 1: seeing that in Detroit anyway. And the other thing too,
Speaker 1: is he's gonna go to some other team. He's gonna
Speaker 1: go to some team where they're going to give him
Speaker 1: the ball more, but they're also going to be rebuilding
Speaker 1: and trying to put other guys who can dribble around him.
Speaker 1: Like if he goes to Washington, you don't think Kyle
Speaker 1: Kuzma is gonna want his possessions. You don't think, you know,
Speaker 1: Bradley Beale or Spencer DINWITTI are gonna want their possessions.
Speaker 1: Like it's like every everywhere you go it's the same issue.
Speaker 1: It's just it was really nonsensical to me from the start,
Speaker 1: and that's why I think it primarily has to do
Speaker 1: with just the pressure and him just wanting to play basketball,
Speaker 1: collect his paycheck and go home. I respect it, but
Speaker 1: let's just call it what it is, all right. Lastly,
Speaker 1: before we get out here, you guys, I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about James Harden because we saw something tonight that
Speaker 1: we saw in the Bubble that I think is very interesting.
Speaker 1: In Bubble, James Harden put up monster numbers against the
Speaker 1: Lakers on good percentages, but they pretty much rendered him
Speaker 1: ineffective in terms of controlling the outcome of the game.
Speaker 1: And you saw that again tonight. James Harden put up
Speaker 1: big numbers, had monster rebounding Game two, Shop chucked the
Speaker 1: ball well but generally well not not you know, over
Speaker 1: or anything. We shot reasonably well for James Harden game,
Speaker 1: but it just didn't seem to have much impact. You
Speaker 1: never really felt like James was controlling the game. You
Speaker 1: never really felt like James had a real chance to win.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of like a recurring theme in
Speaker 1: the James Hardened world, this idea that his repetitiveness is
Speaker 1: what undercuts in You know, the announcers on T and
Speaker 1: T actually did a really nice job describing this to
Speaker 1: those of you who are listening. The difference between dealing
Speaker 1: with James Harden in a set defense and the half
Speaker 1: court versus dealing with him in the full court. The
Speaker 1: difference between isolating one on one or beating a guy
Speaker 1: off the dribble when things are kind of fluid and
Speaker 1: in motion versus all five Lakers staring at you and
Speaker 1: you have to make a decision or make a read
Speaker 1: or make a play. Things get complicated when the game
Speaker 1: slows down, and the Lakers did a nice job, especially
Speaker 1: when they were in the half court tonight, of just
Speaker 1: making things difficult. But most importantly, they were able to
Speaker 1: use that same kind of bracketing trap thing that they
Speaker 1: used in the bubble. They would just as Bruce Brown
Speaker 1: or whoever it was Claxton was set in the ball screen,
Speaker 1: they would basically just send him to the ball screen
Speaker 1: and have the guy guarding the screen or just bracket
Speaker 1: on the other side, and James would kind of take
Speaker 1: a couple of dribbles and he wouldn't want to keep
Speaker 1: going because he knew if he kept going, then the
Speaker 1: trap would come hard, so he kind of like stay
Speaker 1: with the dribble and then he'd swing the ball away
Speaker 1: and when they swing it, the Lakers could easily rotate
Speaker 1: out of it. Because James hasn't created an advantage. He
Speaker 1: needs to actually pull the double team away in order
Speaker 1: to get some sort of real advantage. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: surprising to me at all that it worked again because
Speaker 1: this is something that James Harden has struggled with throughout
Speaker 1: his whole career. Every possession with James Harden begins on
Speaker 1: the wing extended, either on the right side of the
Speaker 1: left side him with a live dribble, either isolation or
Speaker 1: pick and roll. If you see that exact same play
Speaker 1: sixty times in a game, you're just gonna get good
Speaker 1: at Guardian. He might have his possessions where he gets
Speaker 1: a bucket, usually when things are disheveled or when you
Speaker 1: make a mistake, but generally speaking, he's going to eventually
Speaker 1: struggle or run out of gas. This is why he
Speaker 1: struggles a lot in fourth quarters or in playoff series
Speaker 1: is as the series Dragon. He's just so repetitive and
Speaker 1: the way he attacks then let's juxtapose that with Lebron.
Speaker 1: I watched Lebron, and he can do those wing extended
Speaker 1: possessions he's running in isolation. He can do those wing
Speaker 1: extended possessions where he's running the pick and roll. But
Speaker 1: he can also come off of a down screen and
Speaker 1: should have pull up. He can also go to the
Speaker 1: low block and punish a mismatch there. He can also
Speaker 1: turn and face. You saw in the third quarter he
Speaker 1: just was like, Hey, I'm just gonna catch the ball
Speaker 1: seventeen ft from the basket on this left wing. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna turn and face, do a couple of jab steps
Speaker 1: and knockdown a three. And then once you guys start doubling,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start passing out of that. That's a whole
Speaker 1: other element to his game. Off the basketball. He's devastating
Speaker 1: as a cutter. And then you just just in general,
Speaker 1: Lebron can attack you in you know, a half dozen
Speaker 1: different ways, a half dozen different places on the floor.
Speaker 1: So the predicted, the predictability element is out of the picture.
Speaker 1: He can if for whatever reason, there's a action that
Speaker 1: he's trying that isn't working, he'll just go somewhere else
Speaker 1: on the floor and try it until he finds that
Speaker 1: crack in your armor and he can break through. That
Speaker 1: lack of versity, that lack of variety from James Harden
Speaker 1: will always be what holds him back in my opinion,
Speaker 1: and it's really unfortunate because he's one of the best
Speaker 1: two guards of all time. And when I'm looking at
Speaker 1: two guards and you look at the guys who came
Speaker 1: before him, Guys like Dwyane Wade, guys like Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 1: guys like Michael Jordan's, every single one of them was
Speaker 1: a dominant low low post player. The mind he used,
Speaker 1: Dwyane Wade NonStop attacking mismatches down on the block with
Speaker 1: his little with his arsenal of floaters and hook shots.
Speaker 1: They all had a versatility element that James has never
Speaker 1: added to his game. Now, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: entirely his fault or if it's a product of that
Speaker 1: and the Houston system, which I think leaned heavily on
Speaker 1: analytics and the idea like, hey, when you run this
Speaker 1: high pick and roller, when you run this extended isolation,
Speaker 1: we're averaging one point to six per possessions when you
Speaker 1: shoot or when you make one pass and so it
Speaker 1: pushed him to leaning further into that stuff instead of
Speaker 1: understanding that there were It was really easy to scheme
Speaker 1: against it in the playoff series and basically render it useless.
Speaker 1: And most importantly, when you get to a tiny number
Speaker 1: of possessions in a pivotal game, no one's given you
Speaker 1: one point to six points per possession anymore. It's like
Speaker 1: you either score or you don't in that smaller sample size.
Speaker 1: And we saw that limitation throughout his career in those moments,
Speaker 1: and I just thought it was interesting because, like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of talk about James Harden since
Speaker 1: he went to Brooklyn, this idea that he's evolved, he's
Speaker 1: become a playmaker now he's no longer doing the things
Speaker 1: that he used to do. And you know, that might
Speaker 1: all work if Brooklyn is healthy, just simply because they
Speaker 1: have so much talent, and you know, James might get
Speaker 1: a trophy anyway. But you know, just watching him again tonight,
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting there watching and I'm like, man, you know,
Speaker 1: I wrote an article back when I was writing ages ago.
Speaker 1: I wrote an article about James after he lost I
Speaker 1: believe in two thousand eighteen or two thousand nineteen, so
Speaker 1: the year he won the m d P. And I
Speaker 1: wrote all the same stuff that I'm telling to you guys,
Speaker 1: And it's just so interesting to me because here we
Speaker 1: are four years later, same guy hasn't added a damn
Speaker 1: thing to his game. And I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: coincidence that we see like what we saw tonight. You know,
Speaker 1: a guy who can be rendered somewhat ineffective with simple,
Speaker 1: basic strategies as soon as things get slowed down or repetitive. Alright, guys,
Speaker 1: that's all I have for tonight. ROJ is going to
Speaker 1: be back for hour back to back on Thursday and Friday.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be on Dash Radio tomorrow morning at
Speaker 1: seven a m. Pacific Standard times, and we'll be on
Speaker 1: our podcast feed here in about an hour or so. Thanks,
Speaker 1: as always for you guys to support, and we will
Speaker 1: see you on Thursday.