Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the State of the Lakers on
Speaker 1: DASH Radio. Thank you guys for coming to hang out
Speaker 1: on a Monday. I hope you had a good holiday weekend.
Speaker 1: I hope you got to spend some time with your
Speaker 1: loved ones. I hope if you did have to work
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I hope it was a nice, easy weekend. Uh.
Speaker 1: We're gonna hit a couple of mail back questions today,
Speaker 1: and I also want to talk briefly about Russell Westbrooks
Speaker 1: press conference today. UM, you know, we have a bunch
Speaker 1: of games coming up over the next week. I think
Speaker 1: we play four times in the next six nights if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, because I think we played Tuesday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Thursday off, play Friday, Saturday off, and then play Sunday.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of Laker basketball over the
Speaker 1: course of the next week, a lot of postgame shows.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to take a second today to hit
Speaker 1: some of your guys questions, and you guys ask some
Speaker 1: really good questions and I appreciate that. Um, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk a lot of Russell westbrook We're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: lot about the trade deadline and what this roster specifically
Speaker 1: is going to be looking like moving forward. But let's
Speaker 1: start with Russ. So uh, Basically, in the press conference today,
Speaker 1: he seemed defiant would be the word that I would
Speaker 1: use to describe the way he was acting in the
Speaker 1: press conference, talking about how he's tired of people, you know,
Speaker 1: tired of paying attention to what people think he should
Speaker 1: be and just try to be himself, and pointing out
Speaker 1: that he's not gonna be able to put up the
Speaker 1: same statistical numbers that he used to put up in
Speaker 1: years past, which I think is interesting for a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons, because I think it's kind of lack of
Speaker 1: situational awareness. It doesn't seem like he understands what this
Speaker 1: team needs from him, and they do. The team needs
Speaker 1: Russ to be Russ. That goes without saying I think
Speaker 1: there's a there's a ton of positivity that comes with
Speaker 1: his brand of chaos. The amount of rim pressure that
Speaker 1: he generates is always good for a basketball team in
Speaker 1: one shape or the other, whether it's him finishing, or
Speaker 1: whether it's guys coming in behind for offensive rebounds off
Speaker 1: of the attention he draws, or him kicking out the
Speaker 1: three point shooters, or just a general effect he can
Speaker 1: have when a guy is putting his head down and
Speaker 1: getting to the rim all the time, and what it
Speaker 1: does to collapse defenses and the types of openings that
Speaker 1: it creates for everyone else that goes without saying, and
Speaker 1: that to me is Russ being Russ. Yes, we need
Speaker 1: Russ to be Russ in the sense that we need
Speaker 1: him to continue to be that relentless basket attacker that
Speaker 1: goes without saying. However, there's another side to Russ being
Speaker 1: Russ that he absolutely has to try to rein in
Speaker 1: and it will forever be the thing that will rear
Speaker 1: its ugly head for us in big moments until he
Speaker 1: learns that lesson, And that, to me is what frustrates
Speaker 1: me about that lack of situation situational awareness. Again, Rus,
Speaker 1: we want you to do all of those things that
Speaker 1: you do so well. It's just a matter of taking
Speaker 1: the extra effort necessary to fight against your own weaknesses.
Speaker 1: You have a weakness that manifests in a desire to
Speaker 1: ball watch when you're off the ball, whether it's because
Speaker 1: you want rebounds or whether it's because you're saving your legs. There,
Speaker 1: I understand the motivation behind you doing that, but it
Speaker 1: hurts your team, specifically at the end of close games,
Speaker 1: So you have to fight your own human nature to
Speaker 1: put in effort that goes against what your natural instincts are.
Speaker 1: You have to pay attention to a shooter off the
Speaker 1: ball when he's made seven threes in an NBA basketball game.
Speaker 1: That is your job on any given play. When you
Speaker 1: get un focused and start focusing on things that are
Speaker 1: outside of the team concept, like your own individual rebounding numbers,
Speaker 1: or I want to take a rest possession here, when
Speaker 1: you do that, especially at the end of games, it
Speaker 1: hurts the team. That's what we're talking about us. We
Speaker 1: don't care about your style of play. I from the
Speaker 1: very beginning, from the moment this trade took place, I
Speaker 1: never cared about his style of play in the way
Speaker 1: that would fit with what the Lakers were trying to do.
Speaker 1: That never mattered to me, you know, because they're smart
Speaker 1: basketball players. Lebron is arguably the smartest basketball player to
Speaker 1: ever play the game. So I never worried about them
Speaker 1: figuring out a way to make Russ useful. Over the
Speaker 1: course of a hundred possessions or a thousand possessions or
Speaker 1: ten thousand possessions. What I've always worried about is the possession.
Speaker 1: What I've always worried about is the key moment at
Speaker 1: the end of a big game, at end of a
Speaker 1: playoff series, where he his worst attributes rear their ugly head.
Speaker 1: Like I said, losing focus on a shooter off the ball,
Speaker 1: or making a poor read in half court offense or
Speaker 1: in transition offense that wastes a possession, that hemorrhages an
Speaker 1: opportunity for your team. That's always been my biggest worry.
Speaker 1: That the that that's the part that he has to
Speaker 1: focus on. We want you to be Russ, We want
Speaker 1: you to be all of the things that make you great,
Speaker 1: But in the key moments of the biggest games, you
Speaker 1: have to find a way to stay mentally aware of
Speaker 1: what your job is. And on defense, if that's on
Speaker 1: the ball, there's a responsibility that comes with it. If
Speaker 1: it's off the ball, there's a responsibility that comes with
Speaker 1: it depending on who you're guarding. Do the job. And
Speaker 1: on offense, understand that if you're on a team with
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis and Lebron, unless specifically in the flow of
Speaker 1: the game, Lebron is asking you to make a play,
Speaker 1: you need to make high percentage basketball plays. If it's
Speaker 1: not there, kick it out if it's if you catch
Speaker 1: the ball like on that deflection from Lebron, take a beat,
Speaker 1: take a minute to pull it out and reset the offense.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a bull in a china
Speaker 1: shop all the time. Those are the specific moments where
Speaker 1: Russ has to fight against his own nature, and that's
Speaker 1: been my biggest fear with this the whole time. It
Speaker 1: remains to be seen whether or not he'll ever be
Speaker 1: able to conquer that, and I honestly, I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1: That's like I said in the pod the other day.
Speaker 1: He could look amazing for the rest of the season,
Speaker 1: he could look amazing in the first round of the playoffs,
Speaker 1: he could look amazing in the second round, and I
Speaker 1: would still be terrified that he would lose sight of
Speaker 1: that in the biggest moment. Why because we've just seen
Speaker 1: him do that too many times in his career, and
Speaker 1: so that's kind of where I'm at with us. He
Speaker 1: his personality, he tends to kind of turn himself into
Speaker 1: a little bit of a victim and kind of batting
Speaker 1: up the hatches and be like, it's just me against
Speaker 1: the world type of attitude. And again, like the Laker
Speaker 1: fan base can be a lot, and not because they're
Speaker 1: any worse than any fan base, just because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of them in terms of their sheer numbers. But
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is is what they're asking
Speaker 1: for you is not for you to stop being yourself.
Speaker 1: They're just asking you, in the big moments of big
Speaker 1: games two, not be our your own worst enemy, to
Speaker 1: understand what your job is as the third most important
Speaker 1: player on the team. All right, let's get to some
Speaker 1: of these mail bad questions. So first question from Byron,
Speaker 1: has th h t s trade value diminished? We actually
Speaker 1: got a couple of th ht related questions in the
Speaker 1: mail bag. There's that specific one, and then another one
Speaker 1: asking does th ht need to be traded? And then
Speaker 1: another one saying what gettable guys do the Lakers need
Speaker 1: to trade for to capitalize on this window. So I
Speaker 1: want to I want to hit on all of them
Speaker 1: at at the same time. So, first of all, has
Speaker 1: th ht s trade value diminished? I don't think so. Um.
Speaker 1: The reason why it's pretty simple. If you look at
Speaker 1: the way NBA g M s are valuing young prospects,
Speaker 1: They're not looking for the same things that we're looking
Speaker 1: for as a contending team, trying to decide where he
Speaker 1: fits in our rotation. THHD is not playing well for
Speaker 1: the Lakers right now. That goes without saying. However, if
Speaker 1: you're looking at him from the outside, he's not in
Speaker 1: a role right now that is beneficial to him on
Speaker 1: a bunch of different levels. For for starters, he's a baby,
Speaker 1: he's young, and he's playing with veterans that have a
Speaker 1: championship expectation That in and of itself makes it so
Speaker 1: that the timelines don't match up. That inherently is going
Speaker 1: to put him in a situation where he looks over
Speaker 1: his skis a lot of the time. Secondly, he is
Speaker 1: a downhill driving guard and the Lakers have struggled with
Speaker 1: establishing spacing this entire season. That We've talked a lot
Speaker 1: over the course of the year about how Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: Lebron and Russell Westbrook are three of the best rim
Speaker 1: pressure players at their position of all time, and they've
Speaker 1: struggled on offense to make things look easy in the
Speaker 1: system that we have a lot of that has to
Speaker 1: do with Russ. By the way Russ makes it harder
Speaker 1: for the other stars, and obviously, with Anthony Davis is
Speaker 1: poor shooting, and then him playing alongside th HT a lot,
Speaker 1: Russ has had it harder with his own spacing. This
Speaker 1: team is kind of its own worst enemy in that regard.
Speaker 1: As we've talked about a lot in terms of the
Speaker 1: way that the direction that this team should be heading,
Speaker 1: what that looks like. We've always said that with Russ,
Speaker 1: if he's going to be a big part of your team,
Speaker 1: you have to make some concessions. You probably can't play
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis anywhere except for at the five. If he's
Speaker 1: gonna be with Russ. You probably can't play another limited
Speaker 1: shooting guard like th HT next to him because of
Speaker 1: Russ and his limitations. Accepting the fact that Russ is
Speaker 1: gonna be here in the long term, accepts the fact
Speaker 1: that you have some lineup constraints and what you can
Speaker 1: do with your guys. So I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: big shock that th HT has struggled now if you're
Speaker 1: looking at him from the outside looking in. Of course,
Speaker 1: if he guys, if he was killing it for us,
Speaker 1: then he'd be valued like a star because he's already
Speaker 1: in all defense caliber type of player with what he
Speaker 1: can do to disrupt guys on the ball. So if
Speaker 1: you're a d M and you're watching th h T
Speaker 1: and he's killing it, now we're talking about a guy
Speaker 1: that has massive, massive trade value and probably would be
Speaker 1: untouchable even for the Lakers. With him struggling, guys are
Speaker 1: almost exclusively looking at his potential. They're looking at what
Speaker 1: what kind of plays is he making every night that
Speaker 1: demonstrates what his ceiling could be. You know, does he
Speaker 1: project to be a good defensive player? Does he project
Speaker 1: to be a good shooter? And I think in both
Speaker 1: of those cases he does. Even though he has struggled
Speaker 1: like hell to shoot the ball this year, he shoots
Speaker 1: the ball really well from the free throw line, and
Speaker 1: he's got great touch around the rim. Those are two
Speaker 1: things that specifically portend to a player eventually becoming a
Speaker 1: good shooter. And then defensively, it's off ball mistakes and
Speaker 1: things like that. Those are things that naturally happen with
Speaker 1: young players. But there's just this mountain of on ball
Speaker 1: potential that already has a positive impact on games. So
Speaker 1: if you're a team like the Detroit Pistons or like
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Timber rules are like the Sacramento Kings of
Speaker 1: your team that is limited right now and is looking
Speaker 1: towards the future. When you're evaluating players, you don't care
Speaker 1: that th HD is necessarily struggling right now. You're thinking
Speaker 1: about what he can be. So I don't think his
Speaker 1: potential has necessary or excuse me, his value has taken
Speaker 1: any sort of dip around the league now looking at
Speaker 1: them whether or not he should be traded. When we're
Speaker 1: talking when we originally came up with this concept, when
Speaker 1: the Jeremy Grant trade was originally floated around this is
Speaker 1: about a month ago. I told you guys that it
Speaker 1: should be kind of like the trade version of a
Speaker 1: game time decision. As we get close to the deadline,
Speaker 1: you make a read on the situation. If the season
Speaker 1: is a total loss, and you know, let's say Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis had suffered a serious injury that kept him out
Speaker 1: for the season, then yeah, you hang onto th h T.
Speaker 1: There's just no reason to flip him at that point,
Speaker 1: certainly not for this season, so you might as well
Speaker 1: give him another year to develop and make that call
Speaker 1: again next season. If the team is just massively struggling,
Speaker 1: if it looked so horrible and all the guys were healthy,
Speaker 1: Like if Lebron and a D were all playing, if
Speaker 1: all the role players were playing and they were still
Speaker 1: hovering around five hundred and couldn't beat anybody, then you
Speaker 1: might be like, hey, this is a lost cause. Let's
Speaker 1: hang onto th HT. But if the team is trending
Speaker 1: in the right direction, or if the potential is still
Speaker 1: there and th HD isn't an integral part of that,
Speaker 1: I think you have to trade him. If th h
Speaker 1: T was playing extremely well and filling a much needed
Speaker 1: role on the team, and the team was trending in
Speaker 1: the right direction all as part of that, then you
Speaker 1: keep th HT because why would you trade th HT
Speaker 1: for another player that's more or less going to be
Speaker 1: doing the same thing that he's doing. But I think
Speaker 1: we're trending towards the fourth option, which is the team
Speaker 1: is still trending in the right direction. Obviously it's hard
Speaker 1: to see right now with the five game losing streak,
Speaker 1: but the team was playing well before the injuries. COVID
Speaker 1: plays a huge part of that. I think in the
Speaker 1: locker room there still is belief that this team can
Speaker 1: make a run, and I personally believe that as well,
Speaker 1: especially if Anthony Davis can come back and come back
Speaker 1: healthy and come back mobile. But we are now in
Speaker 1: the situation where th h T is clearly not a fit.
Speaker 1: Regardless of how you feel about the potential for this season,
Speaker 1: th HD doesn't factor much into that. He he's bringing
Speaker 1: something defensively, but he still has some of those young
Speaker 1: guy mistakes, and offensively, he just flat out isn't a fit.
Speaker 1: He's not a good enough stationary shooter, and as a
Speaker 1: guy who attacks the rim, we just have a redundancy
Speaker 1: in that specific role. We have so many guys who
Speaker 1: already do that for us that his value there isn't
Speaker 1: as significant as it would be elsewhere. So I think
Speaker 1: we are heavily trending towards th HT being traded. Now.
Speaker 1: He can't be traded until January, so we still have
Speaker 1: a little bit of time for that to change. He
Speaker 1: could suddenly start shooting the laces off the basketball and
Speaker 1: start playing great on both ends of the floor. Now
Speaker 1: suddenly it's like you upgraded that position anyway, and then
Speaker 1: you make a call at the time. But as as
Speaker 1: the way things are trending right now, I think we're
Speaker 1: trending towards trading him. Now to that last question about
Speaker 1: who you trade him for, I think there's two directions
Speaker 1: to go, and that again is something we're gonna learn
Speaker 1: a lot about over the course of the next three weeks.
Speaker 1: If we are trending as a team that seems to
Speaker 1: be massively succeeding with small ball, So if Lebron at
Speaker 1: center lineups as we get to January, if Lebron at
Speaker 1: center lineups are still killing it, then at that point
Speaker 1: I think we got to look back to the wing market.
Speaker 1: That's where that Jeremy Grant trade makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 1: If we're at January and Anthony Dave this is still
Speaker 1: at least a month out from returning, and our Lebron
Speaker 1: at center lineups are struggling, then we have to go
Speaker 1: after a big At that point, that's where we look
Speaker 1: more in the direction of Miles Turner. So again we
Speaker 1: make the read when we get to that point in
Speaker 1: the season. If we're trending as a small ball team,
Speaker 1: we lean heavily into another wing. If we're struggling as
Speaker 1: a small ball team, then we need to go back
Speaker 1: to looking at the center market. A big part of
Speaker 1: that is everybody getting healthy. I don't think we'll truly
Speaker 1: see what the small ball Lakers are capable of until
Speaker 1: Trevor Reason gets back in the lineup consistently. Until you
Speaker 1: see lineups that are Trevor Reads, A Lebron, James Stanley Johnson,
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves, Russell Westbrook, where you can switch all five
Speaker 1: positions and you're athletic at all five positions, you can
Speaker 1: run up and down the floor, everybody can put the
Speaker 1: ball on the floor and attack a close out. That's
Speaker 1: when you're really going to see that peak l A
Speaker 1: crip l A Clipper, Ellie Crippers, Ellie Clippers style uh offense.
Speaker 1: That's when we're gonna get to see that um and
Speaker 1: really make an evaluation of what this team can do
Speaker 1: in terms of a small ball team. Alright, moving on, Okay,
Speaker 1: our next question right now, who do you guys want
Speaker 1: out of the starting lineup? This is from our friend
Speaker 1: George's th h t Or Dwight and who would you
Speaker 1: replace him with? So this kind of goes back to
Speaker 1: the basic set of lineup rules that I've been kind
Speaker 1: of harping out all season, and I can't take credit
Speaker 1: for the idea originally because this idea was conceptualized by
Speaker 1: our friend Anthony Irwin over at Silver Screen and Roll.
Speaker 1: But essentially rule number one is you can't play Russ
Speaker 1: with the traditional center that inherently crosses a threshold of
Speaker 1: minimum spacing that the team can no longer function when
Speaker 1: we go that route. So what that tells us is immediately,
Speaker 1: if you had to choose between benching th h T
Speaker 1: or Dwight, you have to bench Dwhite. And not only
Speaker 1: at we're leaning heavily into this small ball in our
Speaker 1: Lebron at center lineups are working. It's our Carmelo Anthony
Speaker 1: at center lineups that are getting absolutely destroyed. So the
Speaker 1: only way to avoid that is to stagger Lebron and Dwight.
Speaker 1: And the only way to do that is to bring
Speaker 1: Dwight off the bench, So I would start Lebron at center,
Speaker 1: in which case you have to go with wings. So
Speaker 1: when healthy, the way that I'd like to see the
Speaker 1: starters break out if you insist on starting th HT,
Speaker 1: that's one thing I tend to think he should be
Speaker 1: staggered in a similar way to the Dwight concept. Try
Speaker 1: to keep him and Russ off the floor as much
Speaker 1: as possible with each other. There's gonna be some overlap
Speaker 1: because they're athletic and young. Excuse me, t h T
Speaker 1: s young. They're both gonna play thirty something minutes. There's
Speaker 1: gonna be some overlap. But preferably if you could have
Speaker 1: those guys staggered, you would. But assuming that they're going
Speaker 1: to start th HT because I just think that seems
Speaker 1: to be the direction the team wants to go. You
Speaker 1: got Russ at point guard, you got t h T
Speaker 1: at the two, you have Lebron at the five. If
Speaker 1: you have a reason at the four, now we need
Speaker 1: someone to plug into that spot. To me, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: with the limited shooting with that lineup, I think you
Speaker 1: have to go with a guy like Wayne Ellington. Now,
Speaker 1: if you pull th h T out and you get
Speaker 1: Ellington at the two, now we can bring another wing
Speaker 1: in there. Go with someone like Austin Reeves or Stanley Johnson.
Speaker 1: Now we can kind of keep that baseline athleticism while
Speaker 1: also having the shooting there. But most importantly, you have
Speaker 1: to take Dwight out of the starting lineup. It's the
Speaker 1: only way to properly get our center rotation down to
Speaker 1: where we always have a passable defensive center on the floor.
Speaker 1: Lebron for thirty thirty four minutes of the game. Dwight
Speaker 1: for you know, fifteen twenty minutes of the game with
Speaker 1: a little bit of overlap. That's the only way to
Speaker 1: make this small ball thing work. If you lean into
Speaker 1: that for three weeks with Lebron and Dwight playing center,
Speaker 1: we can get a really good read on whether or
Speaker 1: not the small ball thing works. And then at January
Speaker 1: go we're good on small ball, let's go get another
Speaker 1: wing or Okay, this isn't working, a d is going
Speaker 1: to be out awhile, let's go get another center. That's
Speaker 1: the easiest way for us to discover that is to
Speaker 1: lean heavily into our best small ball rotation right now
Speaker 1: and try to see what we can get out of it. Alright,
Speaker 1: let's see, do you think we trade Russ or this
Speaker 1: is our team come playoff times. So this has been
Speaker 1: the most common thing that's been thrown around over the
Speaker 1: course of the last couple of days. So I would
Speaker 1: not trade Russ, And I think it's a lot sillier
Speaker 1: than people think to even consider that route for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. First of all, if you try to
Speaker 1: trade Russ. All you're getting back is salary filler. Nobody
Speaker 1: out there in the league is going to give up
Speaker 1: anything of real value for Russ because Russ has no
Speaker 1: true value. The reason why is because even with all
Speaker 1: of the good that he brings to the table at
Speaker 1: his contract number, he is absolutely a negative asset that
Speaker 1: goes without saying. It was kind of prizing in in
Speaker 1: my opinion, that we even had to give up a
Speaker 1: first round pick to get Russ in the trade to
Speaker 1: begin with. That was confusing to me. But bottom line,
Speaker 1: Russ doesn't bring a lot of trade value, if at all,
Speaker 1: So you're you're just hoping for some sort of partner
Speaker 1: out there to throw salary filler at you. At that point,
Speaker 1: there's a massive there's a massive diminishing return. So let's
Speaker 1: say we got three salaries a twenty million dollar guy,
Speaker 1: a ten million dollar guy, and a seven million dollar guy.
Speaker 1: Chances are those guys coming back are all considered overpaid,
Speaker 1: otherwise that team wouldn't be giving them up. So then
Speaker 1: you ask yourself, what really is the difference between a
Speaker 1: Stanley Johnson, a Kendrick Nunn, and a Trevor Reza and
Speaker 1: this random twenty million guy, this random ten million guy,
Speaker 1: in this random seven million guy, that some team is
Speaker 1: offloading and bringing back Russ, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: that's what you gotta tell yourself, Like you're probably not
Speaker 1: getting high quality role play years back for Russ. So
Speaker 1: then what you have to tell yourself is Russ is
Speaker 1: what he is at this point, and he certainly is
Speaker 1: going to be around for the rest of this season.
Speaker 1: When you accept that, the only the only proposed Russell
Speaker 1: West Pork trade that I actually even considered to be
Speaker 1: viable is if, for whatever reason, Joe l embad is
Speaker 1: a huge fan of us, and Joel Embiad is going
Speaker 1: up to Darryl Morey's office and knocking on the door
Speaker 1: every day and saying, please give me Russ, Please give
Speaker 1: me Russ, Please give me Russ. Then you can talk
Speaker 1: about that Ben Simmons trade, and now we're talking about
Speaker 1: upgrading Russ into a significantly better player. But that's a
Speaker 1: pie in the sky dream. It's not it's it's extremely
Speaker 1: unlikely to happen. Darryl Morey would probably still do everything
Speaker 1: in his power to tell Joel to just shut up
Speaker 1: and leave him alone. So the reality is that's not happening.
Speaker 1: So once you accept the fact that Russ is around,
Speaker 1: understand that kind of what we've been doing in the
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks is our best option. Try to
Speaker 1: find guys like Stanley Johnson fringe NBA players that bring
Speaker 1: an elite skill to the table. In this case, Stanley
Speaker 1: Johnson's elite skills his size and athleticism on the wing.
Speaker 1: You know, Darren Collison is could potentially and we'll see
Speaker 1: over the course of the next week, he could potentially
Speaker 1: be an upgrade over what we're getting out of the
Speaker 1: rondo position. So what you do is on the margins,
Speaker 1: try to find the best quality minimum players we can
Speaker 1: find to bolster the roster. Get rid of the dead weight,
Speaker 1: drop the DeAndre Jordan's types, drop the region rondo types.
Speaker 1: If Genie wants to save some money, drop Avery Bradley,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine that, but he doesn't have a
Speaker 1: contract guarantee. He might be the best opportunity to swap
Speaker 1: out for one of these guys off the street while
Speaker 1: not killing your cap sheet. That would or your tax bill.
Speaker 1: That would be an interesting direction to go. But bottom
Speaker 1: line is you have to build on the margins. In
Speaker 1: the trade deadline. Th HD obviously doesn't fit with this group.
Speaker 1: As of right now, we have a decent sample size
Speaker 1: this year. His value is much higher elsewhere in the
Speaker 1: league than it is on our roster. Trying to flip
Speaker 1: him for a high level wing like a Jeremy Grant
Speaker 1: that could significantly upgrade the roster. But the bottom line
Speaker 1: is they have to find a way to upgrade around
Speaker 1: the Russ, A D and Lebron corps. There isn't any
Speaker 1: real option to try to move Russ that wouldn't essentially
Speaker 1: just be an addition by subtraction. The only way it
Speaker 1: could potentially help the team that that at that point
Speaker 1: is if you truly believe Rus is hurting the team,
Speaker 1: which I don't necessarily think is the case. Russ isn't
Speaker 1: hurting the team. Russ brings a lot of good with
Speaker 1: his bad. You could just make a case that what
Speaker 1: he does to impact winning is significantly beneath what his
Speaker 1: statistical output is. That I think kind of goes without saying, um,
Speaker 1: the last thing I wanted to hit at, And this
Speaker 1: is something that uh uh Pete from like a Film
Speaker 1: Room did a really good job of explaining today and
Speaker 1: It's something that I was pointing out this entire summer
Speaker 1: and something that I think is an important detail that
Speaker 1: gets lost in the Russ conversation. Russ has had a
Speaker 1: great deal of struggles ever since Kevin Durant left, and
Speaker 1: had some struggles and pivotal moments with Kevin Durant in
Speaker 1: Okay see, But there was a huge difference between those
Speaker 1: situations and what this situation was supposed to be. This
Speaker 1: situation was supposed to be the first time in Russ's
Speaker 1: entire career where he would be the third best player
Speaker 1: on the team. The the perfect scenario for him to
Speaker 1: pull back on all of the overdoing it stuff that
Speaker 1: Russ has been famous for and try to be more
Speaker 1: selective with the way that he puts his imprint on
Speaker 1: the game. That was what this was supposed to work like.
Speaker 1: That was where the optimism was supposed to come from.
Speaker 1: But because of the Lebron injury and injuries plural and
Speaker 1: because of the Anthony Davis injury, for the most part
Speaker 1: this season, he's been our second best player, which has
Speaker 1: fallen more in line with what he had and okay see,
Speaker 1: with he had in Washington, with what he had in
Speaker 1: Houston with what he had with Paul George too after
Speaker 1: KD was gone. The point being, he has been in
Speaker 1: a situation where we've needed Russ to just let it
Speaker 1: all out on the floor and see what happens. And
Speaker 1: a lot of the bat has come with that. And again,
Speaker 1: this is the last stat that I keep hammering home,
Speaker 1: and it's the reason for optimism here. It's the silver lining.
Speaker 1: When Russ Lebron and Anthony Davis are on the floor
Speaker 1: without a center this season, they are outscoring teams by
Speaker 1: almost eleven points per one possessions. That is what it's
Speaker 1: supposed to look like. Russ in the tertiary role, massively
Speaker 1: cutting back on his shot attempts, focusing more energy on
Speaker 1: the defensive end of the floor, being the third best
Speaker 1: player on the floor. That's what it was supposed to
Speaker 1: look like. We haven't seen much of that yet. We
Speaker 1: need to see a lot more to see if it's viable.
Speaker 1: But that's where the optimism comes from. The optimism stems
Speaker 1: from the fact Russ can be more selective with his chaos,
Speaker 1: his brand of chaos if he's in a tertiary role
Speaker 1: rather than in a secondary role. And I'm hopeful that
Speaker 1: will get a good thirty forty game stretch after Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis gets back with all of those guys healthy. Also
Speaker 1: huge silver lining after the struggles to start this year,
Speaker 1: it's forced the team to lean more into shooting in
Speaker 1: small ball. We didn't do much of that to start
Speaker 1: the year. A lot of those Lebron russ A D
Speaker 1: minutes looked ugly when he was playing with DJ and
Speaker 1: when they were playing with Dwight. So getting them in
Speaker 1: this sort of situation where they're actually leaning into their strengths,
Speaker 1: it could work. I just got to build on the margins.
Speaker 1: Gotta flip THHD and Kendrick Nunn for something of value
Speaker 1: on the wing. Got to make the obvious decisions like
Speaker 1: keep Stanley Johnson, drop guys like DeAndre Jordan's. If Darren
Speaker 1: Hollisin manifest into a quality point guards, swap him out
Speaker 1: for Rondo. We have to make improvements on the margins
Speaker 1: because we're not as good as we need to be.
Speaker 1: But that's where the silver lining comes from. The optimism
Speaker 1: stems entirely from the fact that Russ in a tertiary
Speaker 1: role can have a more positive impact on winning than
Speaker 1: he has had in previous seasons. Al Right, guys, gonna
Speaker 1: keep it short today, That's all I have. This is
Speaker 1: gonna be on dash Radi out tomorrow morning at seven
Speaker 1: am Pacific Standard time, and it will also be on
Speaker 1: our podcast feed here shortly. I appreciate your support, as
Speaker 1: always have been blown away by how many of you
Speaker 1: guys have come to hang out with us in our
Speaker 1: post game spaces. We're gonna have a bunch of postgame
Speaker 1: shows the rest of this week Tuesday night, Wednesday night,
Speaker 1: Friday night, and Sunday. All Right, you guys, enjoy the
Speaker 1: rest of your night and have a good rest of
Speaker 1: your week, and we'll talk to you tomorrow