Speaker 1: M m all right, welcome to the state of Lake
Speaker 1: because on Dad's ready. How thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for coming to hang out on Christmas Day. I hope
Speaker 1: if you celebrate that you enjoyed celebrating. If you don't celebrate,
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the day off from work. If
Speaker 1: you did have to work for whatever reason, I hope
Speaker 1: you had a good day. But first of all, Rods,
Speaker 1: how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing well, doing well? Man,
Speaker 1: had a nice holiday. Uh, Merry Christmas to you and
Speaker 1: everyone in here, and again, like if you celebrate obviously,
Speaker 1: and happy holidays to everyone. That was a rough one.
Speaker 1: We did have some good basketball though today before that,
Speaker 1: so there was some good NBA um and today was
Speaker 1: a fun game at the end. But yeah, how are you, man?
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas to you and your your family, and happy
Speaker 1: Holidays to you and your family. Good basketball earlier the day.
Speaker 1: That's that is a I should say, a fun end
Speaker 1: to the game. That's an interesting way to characterize it
Speaker 1: because from my perspective, it was like we were already
Speaker 1: deeply irritated by a deep irritating basketball game, and then
Speaker 1: the basketball gods were like, why don't we top it
Speaker 1: off by making it seem like there's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: win before it blows up in your face. Um, I
Speaker 1: think we have to start with Russ And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: Ross Raj Beary with me here for a second, because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get something off my chest, something that I've
Speaker 1: I've been complaining about a lot this season coming into
Speaker 1: the season, and that my biggest spear with Russell Westbrook.
Speaker 1: My biggest spear with Russell Westbrook from the beginning had
Speaker 1: very little to do with fit. I had a feeling
Speaker 1: that you know, over the course of a playoff series
Speaker 1: and over the course of the regular season, he would
Speaker 1: be mostly a net positive in terms of what he
Speaker 1: brings to the team with his athleticism and his energy
Speaker 1: and his good leadership and just the sheer force will
Speaker 1: that is Russell Westbrook, and there's obviously so much good
Speaker 1: that comes with that. But he is his own worst
Speaker 1: enemy because he can't see one inch in front of
Speaker 1: his face with his decision making on both ends of
Speaker 1: the floor. And as I told you during the summer,
Speaker 1: my biggest fear with Russell Westbrook wasn't you know what
Speaker 1: would happen in the meat and potatoes, but rather a
Speaker 1: handful of crucial possessions at the end of a playoff game. Now,
Speaker 1: this was not a playoff game. We thought the Lakers
Speaker 1: were probably gonna lose tonight. You know, it looked like
Speaker 1: they were going to get absolutely destroyed tonight if you
Speaker 1: paid attention there in the third quarter. So obviously this,
Speaker 1: this in and of itself, isn't a crisis right now.
Speaker 1: But what you saw tonight is what I'm so scared of.
Speaker 1: Crucial game. Team is fighting. You're playing against the contender.
Speaker 1: Everything's on the line. Two completely bone headed, critical mistakes
Speaker 1: that cost her team of basketball game. On a possession
Speaker 1: where the Lakers do a bunch of switching, Russ ends
Speaker 1: up getting switched on Patty Mills he's guarding him at
Speaker 1: the top of the key. He immediately turns his back
Speaker 1: to Patty Mills and just starts drifting listlessly over to
Speaker 1: the elbow, paying no attention to where Patty is. Patty,
Speaker 1: because he's a smart basketball player, just relocates to the
Speaker 1: weak side corner, easy driving kick. Russ is nowhere to
Speaker 1: be found. Patty Mills is going to make that shot
Speaker 1: nine times out of ten. That's a huge huge catastrophic mistake,
Speaker 1: and then I think it was two possessions. Later on
Speaker 1: the offensive end, Lebron drives into the lane, throws a pass,
Speaker 1: gets deflected and it lands into Russ's hands. But there's
Speaker 1: plenty time on the shot clock. There's no need to
Speaker 1: rush anything. Russ sees a driving lane, gets into the lane,
Speaker 1: has an opportunity to lay the ball up with his
Speaker 1: left hand, especially since the shot blocker was on the
Speaker 1: right side of the rim, so he could have used
Speaker 1: the rim to protect his own shot. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: even though I think he's dunked on one person this season,
Speaker 1: and that one crazy run that he had, I can't
Speaker 1: even remember what team it was against, but against the Celtics,
Speaker 1: but he's missed more dunks than he's made this year.
Speaker 1: He's very clearly not had the same lift that he's
Speaker 1: had in years past. And he tried to left hand
Speaker 1: dunk the ball and he was probably four or five
Speaker 1: inches short of ever being able to make that attempt,
Speaker 1: launched it into the rim, and just like that, the
Speaker 1: game was over. And again, like you can live with
Speaker 1: the four or seventeen or whatever he started the game,
Speaker 1: You can live with any of that stuff because he's
Speaker 1: getting offensive rebounds. He gets a loose ball here and there,
Speaker 1: he gets a tie up, forces a jump ball. He
Speaker 1: brings a lot of good to the table. But it's
Speaker 1: those catastrophic decisions at the end of these games that
Speaker 1: will cost you. It will cost you a loss in
Speaker 1: a playoff series. Literally watched him do it to Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: No ca See, that's my biggest fear. So talk me
Speaker 1: off the led rage, tell me how it's all gonna
Speaker 1: be okay. Yeah, I'll try to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more more measured with it. I don't know about talking
Speaker 1: to you off the ledg. It feels like we've been
Speaker 1: standing right at the ledge for a while now. Every
Speaker 1: other game is rock bottom and then they all of
Speaker 1: a sudden dig another bottom. Right, So we just keep
Speaker 1: on falling through and just keep finding more rock bottoms. No,
Speaker 1: Russ was bad throughout this whole night. I mean, you said,
Speaker 1: you know, critical possession in the game. I think the
Speaker 1: you know, the late run is a little fool's gold.
Speaker 1: I thought Brooklyn really took their foot off the gas.
Speaker 1: James Harden, who also has questionable decision making right in
Speaker 1: in big pressure moments, I thought you saw that as well.
Speaker 1: When the game got tied. He saw him kind of
Speaker 1: take tough shots, make bad passes, and that end of
Speaker 1: the run was kind of fools gold we were down
Speaker 1: twenty or something with the fourth quarter. RUSS was just
Speaker 1: bad tonight, And just putting this into context, this is
Speaker 1: probably the worst RUSS you're gonna get. And you said
Speaker 1: we can live with the four for twenty. We can't
Speaker 1: live with the four for twenty, not with the way
Speaker 1: that we're shorthanded right now, not without Anthony Davis and
Speaker 1: the shots he's missing, like he's missing layups at the rim.
Speaker 1: I thought the turnovers were just awful tonight and him,
Speaker 1: him and Lebron had a nice little two man game.
Speaker 1: Lebron was fronted in the post by the Nets a lot,
Speaker 1: and he found him on the back doors when they
Speaker 1: did high low action. But a lot of his turnovers
Speaker 1: tonight he tried to push off makes, which is really
Speaker 1: tough with this team. We're really slow to start the game.
Speaker 1: We had Dwight Howard obviously starting, and he tried to
Speaker 1: run and we just weren't with him. And he would
Speaker 1: drive in and do a lot of high risk, low
Speaker 1: reward passes. It was just a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: was just really bad for him, and it was a
Speaker 1: rough start and I thought that carried through the whole game.
Speaker 1: He was just really bad. There's nothing to say, and
Speaker 1: the late game decision making, man, are our best offense
Speaker 1: tonight was Lebron Malik Monk screen roll right, like, that's
Speaker 1: to me where we got our best offense? And Lebron
Speaker 1: would dry kick it out to us and he would
Speaker 1: drive or take these awful shots. He took a bunch
Speaker 1: of job step three tonight, which made no sense. And
Speaker 1: again not to pin everything on him, because the loss
Speaker 1: is kind of you know, convoluted with a bunch of factors,
Speaker 1: but no, he was really bad. We went on and
Speaker 1: again these numbers aren't fair to him as well, because
Speaker 1: I think there's stuff that this lineup did that are
Speaker 1: productive just to the skill sets of the roster. But
Speaker 1: we went on a seventeen because your run without him tonight, Jason,
Speaker 1: that turned the fourth quarter around, and people are asking,
Speaker 1: I saw our friend dom and saying, how the hell
Speaker 1: could you put us back in? It's a bigger story
Speaker 1: if you don't put us back inside, and I don't,
Speaker 1: and I don't think they want that right now, and
Speaker 1: I get that you have to find ways to have
Speaker 1: Rus be you know, impactful in these minutes, and he
Speaker 1: just wasn't. And I tweeted cruel after he missed that dunk,
Speaker 1: because that's what it was. Right two thousand eight or
Speaker 1: two thousand nine or even two thousand twelve of us
Speaker 1: probably is still hanging on the rim right in that
Speaker 1: kind of uh, in that kind of play, but he's
Speaker 1: just not there, could not lift. And I think the
Speaker 1: mislayups are part of that. We discussed his finesse. I
Speaker 1: think he's lost a finesse part of his game, which
Speaker 1: is just so fascinating to me. I know you say
Speaker 1: he's never really had it, but I disagree just in
Speaker 1: terms of I've seen the way he finished in the past.
Speaker 1: But he was bad tonight, man, There's no there's no
Speaker 1: sugarcoating it. He was. He was al He was I
Speaker 1: think a minus twin six in the game we lost
Speaker 1: by like four or five like that, just and plus
Speaker 1: minus isn't always to tell all. Yeah, it matches the
Speaker 1: eye test, man. And again if you probably you if
Speaker 1: you don't put Russ back in this game, you probably
Speaker 1: have a better shot at winning. But that's not how
Speaker 1: a team works, right, That's not how construction, locker room chemistry, politics,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. You just can't bench
Speaker 1: Russ in this type of game right now. It's it's
Speaker 1: just not gonna happen. So it was bad, man, and
Speaker 1: the fit was bad. I thought him. I thought Taylan
Speaker 1: played well when he was off the bench. I like
Speaker 1: the tailor Lebron monk with Melow lineups, but Russ was bad.
Speaker 1: There's no sugar coning in for sure. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: you said yourself, You're like, we can't, we can't live
Speaker 1: with the four twenty games. And I agree with you
Speaker 1: in the sense that if Russ is gonna have like
Speaker 1: just absolutely disastrous offensive games, that it's going to have
Speaker 1: a massive negative impact on the team. That goes without saying.
Speaker 1: The problem is is Russ is just as likely to
Speaker 1: make those types of mistakes when he's having a great game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll even expanded out to the to the
Speaker 1: to the larger scheme of the season. To start this season,
Speaker 1: Russ was very reserved and crunch time and deferred to
Speaker 1: Lebron almost exclusively and was avoiding those kinds of mistakes
Speaker 1: but then suddenly tonight he lost his mind. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing. You could be in a playoff series like that,
Speaker 1: and he could be really good in the crunch time
Speaker 1: a game one, and really good in the crunch time
Speaker 1: a game too, but maybe the road team, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's too too after five games, just because of
Speaker 1: the way the series shakes out, and he loses his
Speaker 1: mind in game five and bam, you're down three two
Speaker 1: going on the road or whatever. It is, the circumstances
Speaker 1: that the series provide. But that's the thing with Russ,
Speaker 1: it's there's a difference between you can depend on me
Speaker 1: to consistently make the right decision, and it's a con
Speaker 1: total coin flip. One night, I'm reserved and I'm playing
Speaker 1: the game measured and I'm slow down and I'm making
Speaker 1: the right decisions. And then the next night it's like
Speaker 1: you might as well just shot me like a baby
Speaker 1: in a tiny room and I'm just bouncing off the
Speaker 1: walls and no one knows what I'm doing. Like that's
Speaker 1: that is the Russell Westbrook experience in a nutshell. Again,
Speaker 1: it's like a couple of plays before the two horrible
Speaker 1: plays that I'm talking about that post up play where
Speaker 1: he's posting at Patty Mills. It's like, dude, you haven't
Speaker 1: been able to make a layup all game long, So
Speaker 1: if you're going to any sort of complicated layup, I
Speaker 1: should say so, if you're gonna post up Patty Mills,
Speaker 1: you need to be thinking I am above the rim
Speaker 1: by myself, or I'm kicking it out any sort of
Speaker 1: below the rim finesse type of hook anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's like, man, you just don't have it tonight. That
Speaker 1: has to be moved around. But that that that's my
Speaker 1: that's my thing. He could go twelve or twenty in
Speaker 1: a pivotal playoff game and make two completely bone headed mistakes,
Speaker 1: one on defense and one on offense, and it can
Speaker 1: cost you a playoff series. And that's the problem. It's
Speaker 1: like the example that I always uses that two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen series against the Spurs. In Game six, they're inside
Speaker 1: there in Oklahoma City, okay see, it is actually down
Speaker 1: pretty big late in Russ. Russ goes on an amazing
Speaker 1: run in the middle late fourth quarter to get okay
Speaker 1: see back in the game, and you're like, man, great Russ.
Speaker 1: Two completely awful pivotal mistakes at the end of that
Speaker 1: game that costs Okay, see the game. And that's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing I'm talking about. It's good good, good
Speaker 1: bad dad, you know, or it's good bad good bad
Speaker 1: good bad, or nights like tonight where it's all bad.
Speaker 1: But he cannot control his decision making at the end
Speaker 1: of high leveled situations. And that is a potentially lethal flaw.
Speaker 1: And I don't again, like he could play amazingly well
Speaker 1: and amazingly reserved for the rest of the regular season.
Speaker 1: He could do it for the entire first round, he
Speaker 1: could do it for the entire second round, and we
Speaker 1: could be sitting in Golden State and I would be
Speaker 1: sitting on my couch terrified that he's going to do
Speaker 1: that again, because that's that's the Russell Westgroup experience. And
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I don't know how. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you prepare for that. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you do, because it's like it's like tonight, just one second,
Speaker 1: you have all the momentum and it feels like you're
Speaker 1: gonna win the game, and then the next second is
Speaker 1: gone like that that that it's it's over. But when
Speaker 1: when those mistakes happen at the end of a game
Speaker 1: like that, there you cannot recover from them. And so again,
Speaker 1: it's just it's very discouraging. And I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: lot more to take from this game, guys. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into we're gonna talk about their start, We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about Stanley Johnson, We're gonna talk about all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But I think the story of this game
Speaker 1: at the beginning here is Russell Westbrook. This is this
Speaker 1: is part of the Russell Westbrook experience. He can almost
Speaker 1: single handedly derail a game and that and that's that's problematic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the you know, the experience is a roller coaster, right,
Speaker 1: and you talked about that playoff game. You know, he
Speaker 1: brought us back, and he does this a lot in
Speaker 1: every game, right. It seems like every game that he starts,
Speaker 1: he really walks into it, right, He tries to feel
Speaker 1: it out, and he makes his impact later on. And
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes that's fine, you'll have a huge third quarter,
Speaker 1: but you don't get the good without the bad with
Speaker 1: him and right, and a lot of and this season,
Speaker 1: like to give him a little bit of credit, like
Speaker 1: he has kind of pushed the pace. He has kind
Speaker 1: of try to keep our energy up when the when
Speaker 1: the body language has been bad. So I don't want
Speaker 1: to make this, you know, like he's been awful this season,
Speaker 1: but you're right in crunchtime situations like it is a question.
Speaker 1: It's why you know, a lot of late game situations
Speaker 1: he has, you know, questionable plays, questionable shot selection. Even
Speaker 1: in the Dallas game, Right, that three went in, But
Speaker 1: Jason has probably be an awful shot, right to be honest,
Speaker 1: Like we're like down three, uh and he hits three
Speaker 1: to time, but that's probably a bad shot. This isn't
Speaker 1: the first time it's happened either, right, I believe against
Speaker 1: the Bulls, we were on our way to a comeback
Speaker 1: and he like drove and tried to make like a
Speaker 1: left hand lay up. I forgot who's at the rim.
Speaker 1: I think it was Ruchevich or someone, and he just
Speaker 1: missed that right at the basket's shot that I thought
Speaker 1: that I was. I remember that right, right, And here's
Speaker 1: the only like silver lining. I guess like that I
Speaker 1: can go because we have this. We have seen a
Speaker 1: few games of this team fully healthy, and we've seen
Speaker 1: close games. And what has it been. It's been Lebron
Speaker 1: with the basketball and Russ either as the screener or
Speaker 1: in the dunker spot where Lebron's using another guard to
Speaker 1: set the screen, or using Russ as a screener and
Speaker 1: he can play four on three. We haven't really seen
Speaker 1: very many times this season where Russ has the basketball
Speaker 1: in like in late game situations where he's the kind
Speaker 1: of main creator. And I thought tonight he got a
Speaker 1: few of those possessions. And again, that's not how basketball works.
Speaker 1: You can't just tell someone to never touch the ball late.
Speaker 1: And there's players where Lebron, you know, it's gonna have
Speaker 1: the ball, he's gonna have to kick to Russ and
Speaker 1: he has to make high levels decisions. But I think
Speaker 1: for the most part, and we are so far away
Speaker 1: from that. I guess where we have to, you know,
Speaker 1: worry about late game situations. I watched the Phoenix and
Speaker 1: Golden State game today, and my goodness, we are so
Speaker 1: far away from executing or compete, like competing or even
Speaker 1: being at that level to a basketball that those teams
Speaker 1: are playing at. We're on a ladder trying to climb
Speaker 1: up there. And there's still time to you know, get
Speaker 1: up those steps. There's process that we can do. Um,
Speaker 1: and again that I feel like there's stuff that doesn't
Speaker 1: help us out either. I think the starting lineup is
Speaker 1: a big part of it. We can get into that
Speaker 1: next as well, all the lineup stuff and all the
Speaker 1: shifting that we're doing. But yeah, man, Russ was bad
Speaker 1: and this was another tough one, just bad decision making late.
Speaker 1: And hopefully he's not in those positions when eight is healthy,
Speaker 1: when Lebron, you know, is there controlling the decisions in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. I just don't think he'll be put in
Speaker 1: those situations for the most part. But tonight's just a
Speaker 1: really bad rest game. And we talked about over the
Speaker 1: summer these are gonna happen. He's gonna have four for
Speaker 1: twenty games. It's gonna be loud, and it was loud tonight.
Speaker 1: And his mistakes are very much like what were you
Speaker 1: thinking there? You know, or like what was the what's
Speaker 1: the reward there of getting that passed through? Like a
Speaker 1: lot of times it's like a screen roll and he
Speaker 1: throws that pocket pass with like zero finesse. It's just hard,
Speaker 1: it's down, there's no like if it gets through, it's
Speaker 1: by luck, you know what I mean. So a lot
Speaker 1: of players like that happened. But yeah, Russ was just
Speaker 1: bad man and that was it was tough to watch,
Speaker 1: and it's don't want to blame everything on him because
Speaker 1: that's not fair because there's lineup stuff that we can
Speaker 1: kind of go into next. But he was it was
Speaker 1: bad man, and that's and there's no sugarcoating that tonight.
Speaker 1: That's why I used the expression he can't see one
Speaker 1: inch in front of his face, you know, like a
Speaker 1: good game manager always sees the big picture. That's what
Speaker 1: Lebron is so good at. He sees the big picture
Speaker 1: of the possession right Like he sees, Okay, if I
Speaker 1: beat this man at the point of attack, this rotation
Speaker 1: is probably coming to take away the point, the pocket
Speaker 1: pass or the week side corner or whatever. He's always
Speaker 1: seeing several steps ahead. But at the same time he
Speaker 1: also sees behind. He's like, okay, is this guy in
Speaker 1: a rhythm? Knows this guy in a rhythm? Yes? Like,
Speaker 1: is they haven't gotten a shot for so and so
Speaker 1: in a while? You know, what's the what's the flow
Speaker 1: of this game? Is this game flowing in a way
Speaker 1: where they need me to be more aggressive offensively? Or
Speaker 1: is this a great time to try to get other
Speaker 1: guys involved. Like Lebron always sees the bigger picture, and
Speaker 1: he also sees the bigger picture of the regular season.
Speaker 1: That's why he can be such a good leader in
Speaker 1: these types of environments with a team that has championship aspirations.
Speaker 1: But with Russ, there's none of that. There's nothing outside
Speaker 1: of what's one inch in front of his face. Think
Speaker 1: about that last session where he missed the dunk. It's
Speaker 1: a ricochet pass from Lebron that lands in his hands. Okay,
Speaker 1: a couple of possessions earlier, Stanley Johnson catches the ball
Speaker 1: on the wing wide open in transition, but he sees
Speaker 1: the bigger picture of the possession and goes, I could
Speaker 1: shoot this, but actually a better option is to go
Speaker 1: to Lebron. Here swings it to Lebron. Lebron bullyballs is
Speaker 1: way in the basket and gets a layup. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: In that moment, Russ saw Lane and you know what,
Speaker 1: he thought, it would be cool if I dunked this here,
Speaker 1: Like if I if I dunked this one man, I'll
Speaker 1: be all over the House of highlights. And he saw
Speaker 1: that in that like that tiny little fraction of time,
Speaker 1: he made a calculated decision that it was worth it
Speaker 1: to go for the highlight, whereas if he was seeing
Speaker 1: anything outside of that tiny, little fraction of moment, he
Speaker 1: might have thought, actually, this this ball I need. We
Speaker 1: happened to gain control of a loose ball. This is
Speaker 1: a great time to get the ball back to Lebron
Speaker 1: so we can make a real basketball decision. Or if
Speaker 1: you see a lane, okay, I see e lane here,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get into his body and try to
Speaker 1: either get a foul or lay up. You know not,
Speaker 1: Here's a low percentage play that even if i'm you
Speaker 1: know all season long, I've been missing, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go for it. You know what I mean? Like that
Speaker 1: kind of decision making? Is that That's what I mean
Speaker 1: when I say he can't see more than one inch
Speaker 1: in front of his face. Now moving on to the
Speaker 1: start of the game, because I thought this was really
Speaker 1: interesting because you and I we were we had planned
Speaker 1: on talking to start this game about their lackluster effort
Speaker 1: and uh and body language in the with the starters.
Speaker 1: And I think there's two elements to it. One is
Speaker 1: that that basketball character thing that we that we keep
Speaker 1: talking about all season having to do with guys just
Speaker 1: not being willing to do the dirty work. But a
Speaker 1: big part of it is just a foundational structure of
Speaker 1: the lineup. We have talked. We talked a while back
Speaker 1: about basic lineup rules, so you remember that it was
Speaker 1: actually something that our guy Anthony Irwin from Silver Screen
Speaker 1: and Roll kind of conceptualized. And one of the rules
Speaker 1: was you cannot play Russ and th httgether or or
Speaker 1: with the big was the big one. Basically, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna play t h T and Russ, you need to
Speaker 1: take Dwight off the floor. The idea being let's try
Speaker 1: to limit it to two nonshooters, and anything over two
Speaker 1: nonshooters it just gets way too clunky and it's impossible
Speaker 1: to get anything going. And those two problems compound each other. Right,
Speaker 1: because we get Russ, t h T and Dwight in
Speaker 1: the lineup, there's no shooting. Everything becomes stagnant. You get
Speaker 1: a lineup like what or you get a defensive scheme
Speaker 1: like what Brooklyn does where they're just kind of switching
Speaker 1: everything and floating around. It becomes like, Okay, somebody's got
Speaker 1: to take a jump shot because there's just someone in
Speaker 1: the paint. We even had a clip if you remember,
Speaker 1: James Harden miked up going up to Claxton saying, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: you're living in the paint. You don't pay attention to
Speaker 1: anybody live in the paint. That's a side effect of
Speaker 1: that lineup. But those two things speed off each other, right,
Speaker 1: line up and structure and basketball character. If you are
Speaker 1: a lazy team, then it's gonna be exacerbated by lineup
Speaker 1: shortcomings that are gonna make you even lazier, you know.
Speaker 1: And it all like the eads off of each other,
Speaker 1: and it's like it just waterfalls into this. Now we're
Speaker 1: getting rolled with Lebron James and Russell Westbrook on the floor,
Speaker 1: which should never happen, right, And so that that that
Speaker 1: kind of is what frustrated me about that is I'd
Speaker 1: like for them to play harder, but I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that they will until you start putting functional lineups together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's fair. I just don't think like that
Speaker 1: should be the reason that they played hard, like they
Speaker 1: were so disengaged to start this game. And it reminded
Speaker 1: me a lot of the Spurs game actually, because the
Speaker 1: nets just came down simple James Harden pick and roll right.
Speaker 1: There was nothing fast, there was nothing complicated. You knew
Speaker 1: this was coming to start the game, Like, there's no
Speaker 1: way you didn't know. The nets were going high ball, screen,
Speaker 1: screen and roll every time, and it was literally just
Speaker 1: no one tags, No one tags a roll man. It
Speaker 1: was a layup or wide open corner three. And again
Speaker 1: I need to go back and watch the tabe and
Speaker 1: see if that's Lebron just deciding not to tag, if
Speaker 1: that's th Ht not knowing where to go. Those are
Speaker 1: stuff that I feel like they need to clean up,
Speaker 1: no matter what the lineup is. And that's identity. That's
Speaker 1: you know, your called your basketball culle ture. I've been
Speaker 1: saying like for a long time, and after this Stirs game,
Speaker 1: you were kind of more positive writing or saying, this
Speaker 1: is a lot. You know, we're playing a lot of
Speaker 1: lineups that aren't real right, and I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1: I still think there's an identity to this team that's
Speaker 1: just not fitting with our circumstance. We're two games under
Speaker 1: five now, like there's no reason to come out tonight,
Speaker 1: super disengage, awful defense to start it right, and the
Speaker 1: stuff that just easy to fix. Our friend Darius Soriano
Speaker 1: said it was a clown show to start the game,
Speaker 1: and I agree with that. We were walking up and
Speaker 1: down the court and the lineups are bad. Look, you
Speaker 1: can't start why th HT and Russ together and Russ
Speaker 1: is not going anywhere, So the other two are the
Speaker 1: one where you kind of have to fill out where
Speaker 1: to go with it. And th HT we'll see if
Speaker 1: he continues to start. He still looks absolutely lost in
Speaker 1: the offense. I thought it looked better when he was
Speaker 1: in for us. I think, uh, in that big run
Speaker 1: we went on, I think he was on the floor.
Speaker 1: But we just can't start games this way. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of really unfortunate that we have two centers that
Speaker 1: are just kind of unplayable right now. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: Dwight Howard's better than DeAndre Jordan's, but he didn't look
Speaker 1: great tonight either against the Nets. I thought he played
Speaker 1: hard in his minutes, but he just was not functional
Speaker 1: um to do anything defensively. So we had to go
Speaker 1: Lebron at the center and then obviously our favorite Carmelo
Speaker 1: at the five, And we went Carmelo at the five
Speaker 1: with four guards, which really just put the game away.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, they put the nets up twenty, but
Speaker 1: that starting lineman is is just so rough, and I
Speaker 1: think we just go so rigid with our decisions. Like
Speaker 1: in the second half, we didn't start Dwight Howard, which
Speaker 1: is fine, like I totally agree with that assessment, but
Speaker 1: then we just decided not to plan the whole half,
Speaker 1: which again led to those off the line up. But
Speaker 1: that start, we need to clean that up. Jason, did
Speaker 1: you see this as well, because I put in my
Speaker 1: my notes here as well. Our body language picked up
Speaker 1: when Lebron went to the five, Like it's just everything
Speaker 1: kind of picked up. It seemed like, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was just stubbing Malik Monk in for
Speaker 1: us at the six minute mark, but it seemed our
Speaker 1: whole energy kind of switched when that happened. And Malik
Speaker 1: Monk's probably too small to be start. Although his defense
Speaker 1: was fine tonight, uh Wayne Allington was kind of getting
Speaker 1: picked on. I didn't think he was the problem. Expecting
Speaker 1: him to guard James Harden isn't it. But it's just
Speaker 1: stuff that we started these games so slow. It's a
Speaker 1: first quarter league to me as much as it is
Speaker 1: a fourth quarter League, we were down like double jiu JITs.
Speaker 1: We were down fifteen of like four minutes left. That stuff,
Speaker 1: to me, has nothing to do with a d being out,
Speaker 1: with the reasoning out, Kendrick now being out, Austin Reads
Speaker 1: being out, that's just We're gonna get to Stanley Johnson later.
Speaker 1: But a guy who just plays hard jumps off the
Speaker 1: damn page on this team. Like Stanley Johnson is a
Speaker 1: good defender, he hasn't skills as a defender. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, defensive skills go underrated when we talk about
Speaker 1: basketball kind of uh in a total sense. But he
Speaker 1: just played his ass off and I jumped off the page.
Speaker 1: But these starting lineups are just are just so rough,
Speaker 1: and we're starting these games out so lethargic, so against
Speaker 1: what I think our identity of the team is. And
Speaker 1: we went all into Russ and I think these are interconnected.
Speaker 1: I think Russ not starting well also is a part
Speaker 1: of this. But yeah, these line ups are rough, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know where we Hopefully we get some guys back,
Speaker 1: hopefully get a reason back. But I think just starting
Speaker 1: Kaylin and Dwight next to us makes Lebron's life a
Speaker 1: lot harder as well. Where do you think we go
Speaker 1: with this news? Because I think I think that's where
Speaker 1: we kind of fixed. Lebron's played super Wealth the last
Speaker 1: few games and he still lost. He's playing his ass
Speaker 1: off at least in the second half of these games,
Speaker 1: and we're still losing. Where would you where would you
Speaker 1: kind of go with this? I guess going into the
Speaker 1: Rockets game next year? Well, you and you and I
Speaker 1: have been on this already, this idea that Lebron and
Speaker 1: Dwight should stagger the center. Tick a pick a center
Speaker 1: you're gonna play, which obviously should be Dwight, and stagger
Speaker 1: him in Lebron. It's that simple, Like Lebron plays thirty
Speaker 1: five minutes a game, he's going to be the center,
Speaker 1: and then when uh, let Dwight check in for that
Speaker 1: to six minute shifts to seven minute shifts, whatever, and
Speaker 1: let him play his butt off allays out there and
Speaker 1: he will be effective. That that was it made absolutely
Speaker 1: no sense to go to that lineup with Carmelo Anthony
Speaker 1: and the four guards. That's just that's just nonsensical. Like,
Speaker 1: as I always say, there are jobs that need to
Speaker 1: be done on the basketball court, and the jobs won't
Speaker 1: be completed unless you have guys that can fill those roles, Like, yes, Lebron,
Speaker 1: you want to know why Lebron works at center because
Speaker 1: he could do stuff that centers do. It's it's not
Speaker 1: any more complicated than that. But this brings me back
Speaker 1: to the frustrating part of the of of like roster construction,
Speaker 1: right because you know, we just watched the Warriors play
Speaker 1: and the Warriors were down. You know, the Warriors were
Speaker 1: down five of their best wings, right, Like, they're down
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins, they're down Jordan's Pool, They're down Clay Thompson,
Speaker 1: They're down uh andre A Guadala, they were down a
Speaker 1: Damian Lee. But it's like they still have all of
Speaker 1: these guys that can guard up and down several positions,
Speaker 1: Gary Payton Jr. And Raymond Green obviously in the starters,
Speaker 1: but then beyond it, it's like, yeah, Jonathan cominga, Jonathan Wantaskano,
Speaker 1: Anderson and Otto Porter. They had like five additional wings
Speaker 1: they could play because foundationally, the Warriors organization understands that
Speaker 1: in the future of basketball, it's a lot of switching
Speaker 1: and in a lot of running up and down at
Speaker 1: higher pay So like having size and athleticism and guys
Speaker 1: that can guard multiple positions is directly what relates to
Speaker 1: your abilities succeed on the basketball court, which is something
Speaker 1: that I preached all year last year in the playoffs
Speaker 1: in in respect to the l A Clippers, who lost
Speaker 1: their best player and came within two wins of an
Speaker 1: NBA uh N NBA Finals appearance, because they thoroughly embraced
Speaker 1: that concept, and meanwhile, the Lakers have just been kind
Speaker 1: of allergic to going after that kind of guy. I
Speaker 1: told you guys that I had heard through the grape
Speaker 1: vine that they had an opportunity to sign Ruddy Gay,
Speaker 1: but they were unwilling to pay him more than the
Speaker 1: veteran minimum. So clearly they valued a guy like Kendrick
Speaker 1: Nunne for five and a half million more than they
Speaker 1: valued a guy like Rudy Gay for five and a
Speaker 1: half million. That's a that's a basketball philosophy that I
Speaker 1: just can't understand. You know, Stanley Johnson looked really good
Speaker 1: tonight for two reasons, and one of them is effort.
Speaker 1: I've been talking about this with you on this podcast
Speaker 1: for a while, Like the the urgency of of lying
Speaker 1: and fighting for your spot in the n b A
Speaker 1: breeds effort naturally, and that's something that this team desperately
Speaker 1: needs because it's missing down the roster. So voila. Put
Speaker 1: a guy in there who's fighting for his NBA life,
Speaker 1: who has some size and athleticism. It's gonna reap some rewards.
Speaker 1: But the second half of that is the fact that
Speaker 1: functional basketball lineups in the modern NBA require guys between
Speaker 1: six four and six eight that can move and that
Speaker 1: can guard multiple positions, run up and down the floor.
Speaker 1: They don't even have to be able to knock down
Speaker 1: a three necessarily, preferably you want them to be able to.
Speaker 1: But Stanley Johnson's spacing did not hurt the team tonight
Speaker 1: because of how much other good he brought to the table. Now,
Speaker 1: the Lakers have two really good defensive forwards right now
Speaker 1: and help and safety protocols in Austin Reeves and Trevor Resa.
Speaker 1: So do they have as many forwards as I would
Speaker 1: hope for them to have the way Golden State does? Know.
Speaker 1: But in theory, again, if you're looking for some optimism here,
Speaker 1: this is where you hope to God that Jennie us
Speaker 1: is not going to pinch pennies on Stanley Johnson. The
Speaker 1: obvious move here is to cut DeAndre Jordan or somebody
Speaker 1: like that at the end of the bench and make
Speaker 1: room for this guy. I know it's just one game,
Speaker 1: but it's a it is a structural problem with this roster.
Speaker 1: He fits a specific need and at the at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, even if you keep him on
Speaker 1: a non guaranteed deal, at least then you have the
Speaker 1: flexibility to have him until a better option comes up.
Speaker 1: But Stanley Johnson is the type of the archetype of
Speaker 1: player that this team desperately needs in order to run
Speaker 1: functional basketball lineups. And then, like I tweeted out earlier,
Speaker 1: and this last thing I'll say about it, when you
Speaker 1: there's there's one thing that is one thousand percent under control,
Speaker 1: under your control in a basketball game, a bunch of
Speaker 1: things that are out of your control knocking down shots.
Speaker 1: That's that's the game, the game sort of thing. I mean, Heck,
Speaker 1: we just watched against the Spurs the other night. We
Speaker 1: watched Mellow and Wayne Ellington go to for eleven from three.
Speaker 1: That's gonna happen sometimes. Those are two guys that have
Speaker 1: been shooting of lights out when they're open this year,
Speaker 1: and they didn't make shots. That that happens from time
Speaker 1: to time. Layups sometimes lamps don't go in. We literally
Speaker 1: watched the Lakers smoke like six layups tonight that rolled
Speaker 1: in and out of the rim. That's unfortunate like that
Speaker 1: that that I can't you can't necessarily control that, but
Speaker 1: you can control your effort and attention to detail. That
Speaker 1: is one thousand percent under your control. And when you
Speaker 1: put in effort and attention to detail in combination with
Speaker 1: size and athleticism, it is a guaranteed impact on a
Speaker 1: basketball game. And you saw that with Stanley Johnson tonight
Speaker 1: played his butt off, has great physical tools, automatic impact,
Speaker 1: And so that that's the kind of thing that the
Speaker 1: Lakers need to lean into more over the course of
Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks. More Austin Reeves, more, drev Reason,
Speaker 1: more Stanley Johnson. Those guys play hard. Those guys have
Speaker 1: great physical tools, as Series doesn't even have great physical tools,
Speaker 1: and it's still impacts the game because of how already tries.
Speaker 1: So those that's the direction that the Lakers need to
Speaker 1: lean into more. Yeah, and I want to start like
Speaker 1: kind of macro here and then kind of go onto
Speaker 1: the basketball court I feel like there's like a market
Speaker 1: in efficiency, a little bit of like defensive minded players
Speaker 1: who can't score right or who aren't offensive options or
Speaker 1: even liabilities offensively, and I think we're kind of seeing
Speaker 1: that around the league. GP two, right, is one guy
Speaker 1: watching that Warrior Sons game, just seeing him impact the
Speaker 1: game without really having a jump shot right at the
Speaker 1: guard positions can guard one through five. Alex CRUs obviously
Speaker 1: is kind of the face of that. Although he's gotten
Speaker 1: better offensively, and not to give Stanley Johnson because it's
Speaker 1: been one game, I think it's easier, easiest for us,
Speaker 1: and he played really well tonight, and I think he
Speaker 1: has defensive skills that kind of can translate what this
Speaker 1: team needs. We have to see it a little bit
Speaker 1: more consistently. Right, Let's see if he can keep that
Speaker 1: up going forward. But again, just guys who are He's
Speaker 1: not going to be an offensive threat. And I don't
Speaker 1: even think he has to have a jumper Jason for
Speaker 1: this for him to be successful on this team. We
Speaker 1: have enough scoring options on this team, and it was
Speaker 1: nice just to have a guy who's defensive minded, right,
Speaker 1: who's defensive for who's that's what he puts his money
Speaker 1: into right, that's what his heart had kind of goes to.
Speaker 1: It's onto defense and watching him in the isolation defense
Speaker 1: against James Harden, that got me excited and reminded me
Speaker 1: of the twenty nine team, and we continue to latch
Speaker 1: onto that because that was kind of our last positive.
Speaker 1: I guess, look at this team after a d got
Speaker 1: hurt um in February last year. But just going back
Speaker 1: to that, defensive minded guys watching him mirror James Harden, right,
Speaker 1: James Harden trying to cross him over and him matching. Uh,
Speaker 1: you call it mirroring when you're guarding a guy defensively.
Speaker 1: Just watching him do that fight on the rebound, fight
Speaker 1: on the boards, man, and I thought he looked good.
Speaker 1: And you're right, six eight physical wing. We're hoping Johnny
Speaker 1: Brown could kind of be that, but I don't think
Speaker 1: his body is ready or he's not NBA ready. Stanley
Speaker 1: Johnson has been around the league enough where he's kind
Speaker 1: of card his niche as a defensive player. Now, the
Speaker 1: offensive limitations are why he's on the team, But I
Speaker 1: think he is a good defensive player. I think he
Speaker 1: can fit right in. And again, it's not like Stanley
Speaker 1: Johnson's this great players just on this team. It stands
Speaker 1: the hell out when you have all these small guards
Speaker 1: that we're playing. We'll talk about Darren Collinson next. Who
Speaker 1: he's actually listed at. Darren Collinson is listed at six ft.
Speaker 1: Isaiah Tomas step five nine, so it's not like you're
Speaker 1: getting so much more of a height advantage, and he
Speaker 1: had some rough foul snipe. But man, Stanley Johnson, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping he can kind of fit in. And it just
Speaker 1: works when you have a guy who's defensive minded. You
Speaker 1: could throw on James Harden where Lebron didn't have to
Speaker 1: be that guy th HD with him being young, you
Speaker 1: don't have to have him being the full guy defensively.
Speaker 1: I thought it fit. I thought he was a big part.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to look at his plus minus night.
Speaker 1: I think it was pretty good. I thought he was
Speaker 1: a part of all the runs we went on. He
Speaker 1: just fits the archetype that this team needed. He's on
Speaker 1: a two way. I think he's gonna stay on the
Speaker 1: two way. I think Isaiah Thomas is probably done who
Speaker 1: didn't play tonight, but yeah, his archetype just fits hard
Speaker 1: working player and if he can if he can stick
Speaker 1: him Reeves and Areza. And again, that's such a tough
Speaker 1: thing to throw on a guy who wasn't in the
Speaker 1: league a couple of weeks ago and an undrafted kid.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of where at we're at right now.
Speaker 1: We need guys who need to who need to play hard,
Speaker 1: to go along with our young guards. But that's where
Speaker 1: I think it is. I think there's a marketing efficiency
Speaker 1: if we can kind of tap into that a little
Speaker 1: bit um and tap into a few defensive minded players around,
Speaker 1: you know, going small, because it feels like that's where
Speaker 1: we're gonna go to. We're gonna go to Lebron at
Speaker 1: the five a lot we went to Mellow at the
Speaker 1: five with guys who just can't defend. You need some leading,
Speaker 1: a little blend, a better blend of both, and I
Speaker 1: think Stanley Johnson can fit in that. He was in
Speaker 1: the league a couple of weeks ago. But this team
Speaker 1: just is begging for an archetype like that, and hopefully
Speaker 1: he sticks man. Ye I mean, you know, the coaching
Speaker 1: staff is into under a tough predicament here. You know,
Speaker 1: It's it's really easy for us from our couch to
Speaker 1: say that we have better solutions, and I like to
Speaker 1: think that we're right about some of the stuff. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, like they were tossed
Speaker 1: a uh like basically the residue of of a basketball
Speaker 1: roster and then forced to add a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: off the street into it and then try to win
Speaker 1: basketball games. But now again, a lot of other teams
Speaker 1: around the league are dealing with it similarly, but functionally
Speaker 1: they have to come up with a better strategy than
Speaker 1: what they've been coming up with. So, like we said,
Speaker 1: Stagger Lebron and and Dwight, that Dwight, there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of slander directed towards Dwight as a light the
Speaker 1: dude was in COVID protocols and then came, you know,
Speaker 1: just straight off the street to try to play against
Speaker 1: san Antonio, excuse me, straight up more or less the
Speaker 1: same because he was locked in the hotel room for
Speaker 1: for ten days. So Dwight, after he gets back in
Speaker 1: the lineup consistently, he's going to get back to what
Speaker 1: he is, which is a perfectly fine backup center. Dwight
Speaker 1: is a perfectly fine backup center. That's that is not
Speaker 1: a weak point on the roster for us, But when
Speaker 1: we start him, if we decided to start him and
Speaker 1: then do a poor job of staggering him in Lebron
Speaker 1: and now play Carmelo as center, Carmelo Anthony is a
Speaker 1: terrible backup center, So that's where functionally make mistakes there.
Speaker 1: And then you know, that concept of going with four
Speaker 1: guards has to go away as we get our forwards
Speaker 1: back right now, you know, I get it, you know,
Speaker 1: like even though I personally wouldn't go with some of
Speaker 1: those pairings, like I, I I get under the circumstances why
Speaker 1: it at least was tried. But moving forward, if you
Speaker 1: look at our roster build as now in the time
Speaker 1: without Anthony Davis, if you look at it as a
Speaker 1: simple breakdown of Lebron and Dwight our our centers, then
Speaker 1: the rest of those minutes we have to put as
Speaker 1: many of our wing players on the floor at any
Speaker 1: given time, I mean those switchable, multiple position wings. So
Speaker 1: Austin reeves th h T. I know THD continues to
Speaker 1: struggle offensively, offensively, his fit makes absolutely no sense on
Speaker 1: this team that it is what it is at this point.
Speaker 1: But we can't trade until January. But he can guard
Speaker 1: up and down a position. He still is a very
Speaker 1: good defensive player. So him, Austin Reeves, Trevor Reasus, Stanley Johnson.
Speaker 1: We have four completely functional, defensive, defensively versatile forwards. Those
Speaker 1: guys have to take all the minutes at the three
Speaker 1: and the four. Right now. There should never be a
Speaker 1: lineup once Reeves gets out of protocols, once a Reason
Speaker 1: gets out of protocols. There should never be a lineup
Speaker 1: while Anthony Davis is injured where we don't have two
Speaker 1: of those guys on the floor. That just ha, that's
Speaker 1: how we can run functional basketball lineups. We have to
Speaker 1: get away from this three guard lineup, four guard lineup stuff.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't function without Anthony Davis. When Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: is back, maybe you can go back to trying some
Speaker 1: of that stuff. But even then I don't like it that.
Speaker 1: The point is is we we have something here. Um,
Speaker 1: we have enough when co when when the COVID protocol
Speaker 1: losses are behind us, we have enough here to be
Speaker 1: competitive with what we have even without Anthony Davis. We
Speaker 1: just have to lean into those strengths. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: be really frustrating for me and for you as well.
Speaker 1: Rogers for all of us Laker fans is two weeks
Speaker 1: from now, everyone's out of COVID protocols. Were in a
Speaker 1: game against a good team and it's d White at
Speaker 1: center with four guards, or it's Lebron and center with
Speaker 1: four guards. That is not leaning into your strengths. At
Speaker 1: that point, that is where we have to start having
Speaker 1: questions about the coaching staff in doing their job, because
Speaker 1: we're watching too many teams around the league succeed because
Speaker 1: they lean into those things. The Sun's lean heavily into
Speaker 1: Jay Crowder mcail bridges, Cam John's, the guys that are
Speaker 1: big and can guard multiple positions. The Warriors are like
Speaker 1: almost entirely made up of that type of player. That
Speaker 1: has to be the direction we lean into and we
Speaker 1: we we actually is as long as they keep Stanley,
Speaker 1: which I'm hoping they will, we have enough. I prefer
Speaker 1: more depth, but we have enough there to to try
Speaker 1: to run some functional modern basketball here for a month
Speaker 1: without a D. Yeah, and you talked about the tough
Speaker 1: decisions that the coaching staff has, and it is kind
Speaker 1: of a push and pull right because you can't just
Speaker 1: play all defensive lionps around them. That's the reason these
Speaker 1: small guard lineups play because we need to score as
Speaker 1: well when we're out there, right, and when Lebron's at
Speaker 1: the five, you're kind of leaning into your offense. You're
Speaker 1: trying to run and it's hard to do that. Off
Speaker 1: makes obviously, but that's the push and pull that the
Speaker 1: coaching staff is going to have to play. I think
Speaker 1: it's tough when we're playing all these different lineups as
Speaker 1: well to try to be cohesive. Like like like tonight,
Speaker 1: our game plan was to trap James Harden, right, trap,
Speaker 1: trap James Harden at the top and then try to
Speaker 1: rotate out of that, and you have to be in
Speaker 1: somewhat in sync to do that, and we were lost
Speaker 1: all over the place. The effort kind of uh, the
Speaker 1: effort double down on that made that a lot tougher.
Speaker 1: But we were trying to trap, and even when James
Speaker 1: Harden was out of the game, I tweeted once we
Speaker 1: trapped Patty Mills at the top just because that's what
Speaker 1: we were doing. So we just were trapping. James Harden
Speaker 1: went off the floor and we still decided to trap
Speaker 1: at the top. I think James Johnson drove and got
Speaker 1: to lay up off of it. Or got fouled. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's stuff like that that would like to see cleaned up.
Speaker 1: But it's rough when you're throwing you guys in every
Speaker 1: single day, um, and you're trying to fit these defensive
Speaker 1: guys in now because you realize the roster you have
Speaker 1: isn't good enough, right Deandi Jordan's healthy, Roger and Rondo
Speaker 1: is healthy. Those are guys you you know, put roster
Speaker 1: spots to who just can't play even though we have
Speaker 1: no wings or you know, guards that are able to play.
Speaker 1: We're signing guards off at ten days, we're signing you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like, it's just that means you
Speaker 1: have a roster kind of problem here, and maybe that's
Speaker 1: just solved by getting a d back, getting Reeves back,
Speaker 1: getting a reason bag. Um. That's the tough part about it,
Speaker 1: throwing these guys into it. Stanley Johnson, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you about, you know, Darren Coulinson, because I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting he played a lot with Russ and Lebron tonight,
Speaker 1: which kind of confused me, and it worked a little bit.
Speaker 1: You saw Darren Coulinson able to push the ball right
Speaker 1: and have Russ and Lebron work as wings. So you
Speaker 1: have instead of Russ or Lebron running the break, you
Speaker 1: have Russ and Lebron as the wings on the break
Speaker 1: where Jarn Darren Coulinson is in the middle making decisions.
Speaker 1: He had some bad fouls tonight. I thought some of
Speaker 1: them could have went the other way. You tweeted about
Speaker 1: one of them where the shooter kind of jumps into it.
Speaker 1: Don't have to get into that, but no, no, no,
Speaker 1: until you get that, those are rough calls. Man. You
Speaker 1: have to give a shoot never mind not good at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: some other time, but after the game against like Sacramento
Speaker 1: or something, you can get into the exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I thought Darren Collinson, now it's an interesting player
Speaker 1: because he kind of is building on stuff we already have.
Speaker 1: Right when you have milnk Monk already, when you you know,
Speaker 1: have Kendrick and I coming back, and then you throw
Speaker 1: Darren Collinson into it. You also have t Hd who
Speaker 1: wants to be a ball handler. He's a high basketball
Speaker 1: que guy. That was a very good player. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it's three seasons ago, but two years ago.
Speaker 1: I think that's the correct math if I'm doing that right. Um,
Speaker 1: his last game was in, so I think I'm doing
Speaker 1: that math right. But what do you see from Darren
Speaker 1: Coulson tonight? Because I think it's interesting kind of why
Speaker 1: they signed him, right, and they went after him. They've
Speaker 1: been courting for a while, but you already had Isadiah Thomas,
Speaker 1: and obviously that that experiment looks like it's over. But
Speaker 1: what do you think of Darren Coulinson's Darren Coulson's played.
Speaker 1: I loved Darren Collinson's game, and I've loved him ever
Speaker 1: since the Lakers were initially interested in him in the
Speaker 1: season when he was contemplating returning. The thing. The thing
Speaker 1: with Darren Colson because like what he brings to the
Speaker 1: table is is just grown up, veteran professional point guard basketball,
Speaker 1: like just as perhaps Lute dead eye spot up shooter
Speaker 1: when he was in his prime, and like when he's
Speaker 1: wide open, like he just was a reliable spot up shooter.
Speaker 1: He can get your team into the sets, he doesn't
Speaker 1: make mistakes, he runs just grown up basketball offense, and
Speaker 1: then he can defend his position. Fine. Um. The problem
Speaker 1: with Isaiah Thomas is like I'd love for them to
Speaker 1: swap him out for Rondo just because I think he's
Speaker 1: a better basketball option. But the truth of the matter
Speaker 1: is he just doesn't offer anything to this team when
Speaker 1: their whole the The only way you could talk me
Speaker 1: into that potentially be making a lot of sense, as
Speaker 1: if they you know, we had we had that Sham's
Speaker 1: clip when um, you know, shortly after the Anthony Davis's injury,
Speaker 1: when there was some stupid rumors going around that Lebron
Speaker 1: was eyeing going to Cleveland or some stupid crap like that,
Speaker 1: when which which I originally like, immediately was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not happening because we all just know Lebron's kids
Speaker 1: are all going to see your Kane and he he
Speaker 1: just Lebron just loves it in l a that was
Speaker 1: never was, never wherever gonna happen. He's he's way too
Speaker 1: happy where he is. I'd be shocked if he ever
Speaker 1: wants to play for anybody else. But that's it. In
Speaker 1: that report from Shams, he comes out and says they're
Speaker 1: extremely active in the trade market, and he explicitly brought
Speaker 1: up Jeremy Grant, which is somebody that you and I
Speaker 1: have talked about a million times this year. If you
Speaker 1: think that you're like if Rob Polinka is in his
Speaker 1: in in his office going, we are for sure going
Speaker 1: to trade Kendrick Nunn and t HD for Jeremy Grant
Speaker 1: and you're dropping two guards and bringing back and forward.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, Darren Collison fits into that picture at that point,
Speaker 1: at least as a good backup guard, depth option. It's
Speaker 1: just hard to imagine the Genie Bus shedding a guaranteed
Speaker 1: contract like Gray Jean Rondo uh In in his role
Speaker 1: to pay for a guy like Darren Collison and stick
Speaker 1: around the rest of the season. But I love his fit.
Speaker 1: He's also a guy to Darren's Stanley Johnson because he's
Speaker 1: young and so athletic. He can come off the street
Speaker 1: and have success in a role like what he had tonight.
Speaker 1: Darren Carlson was obviously going to look a little rough
Speaker 1: around the edges. He's he's a small guard who hasn't
Speaker 1: played NBA basketball in almost three years, so that that
Speaker 1: obviously was gonna be a thing with him. My thing
Speaker 1: is like, it only makes sense to bring it back
Speaker 1: if you know you're going to trade a bunch of
Speaker 1: guards for uh for another forward and you think of
Speaker 1: him as debt. I'm with you at that point, But
Speaker 1: Genie's gonna have some tough decisions to make here because
Speaker 1: I think you have to keep Stanley and you just
Speaker 1: can't do I think they have one roster spot left.
Speaker 1: But my guess is they're like the Genie's gonna have
Speaker 1: to make some tough decisions here about what she wants
Speaker 1: to spend, like how much does she feel like spending
Speaker 1: to try to keep this this train on the tracks,
Speaker 1: you know. But I love Darren Carlson's game. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's just if you're the only way it's gonna work
Speaker 1: out for him in l A Is if he stays
Speaker 1: here for more than ten days, because as a small
Speaker 1: guard who hasn't played NBA basketball basketball in a while,
Speaker 1: he's just not gonna he's not gonna just pick it
Speaker 1: up like he's riding a bike, you know, and mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's to me, he's Kendrick Nunn insurance, Like that's kind
Speaker 1: of what I see him as. And he gives another guy.
Speaker 1: And just to go on your point about you know,
Speaker 1: Genie and keeping and I don't want to get into
Speaker 1: all that, but just how just how the rotations are
Speaker 1: kind of going right DeAndre Jordan's we had no centers available,
Speaker 1: DeAndre Dwight Howard couldn't play in the second half, DeAndre
Speaker 1: Jordan couldn't get off the bench. Like, to me, that's
Speaker 1: kind of if you can read through the lines there,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of seeing where this is going. But Jarren
Speaker 1: Collinson again gives us a guy with the midrange kind
Speaker 1: of game, right, he can come off screens and pull
Speaker 1: up and to me, that's something we're missing. And they're
Speaker 1: obviously looking for some guards scoring, right, you don't go
Speaker 1: out and get Isaiah Thomas. And the issue with Isaiah
Speaker 1: Thomas is if he's not scoring, because he's a shoot first, second,
Speaker 1: and third guy, right, and you know that's what he
Speaker 1: should be. He's a five nine guard in the league.
Speaker 1: You have to make your impact offensively. That's just what
Speaker 1: it is. He comes off any kind of screen, he's
Speaker 1: gonna shoot. He's not trying to play make you know,
Speaker 1: he's not really trying to drive and kick and all that.
Speaker 1: He's I'm getting to my spot and pulling up or
Speaker 1: I'm pulling up from three. Darren Collinson is a little
Speaker 1: bit more of you talked about it for general point guard, right,
Speaker 1: he is more of like he can he can create
Speaker 1: and That's why I'd kind of like to see him
Speaker 1: in the second unit. I think him and Malik Monk
Speaker 1: is a kind of fun mix if you can have
Speaker 1: enough defense around him. Him and th Ht I think
Speaker 1: is interesting. Again, I wanted Darren Carlinson when the Lakers
Speaker 1: recording him the twenty nineteen. I think people forget he
Speaker 1: was about to get a big contract that summer. He's
Speaker 1: just a solid guard. You said, growing up basketball. I
Speaker 1: think that fits so well. He reminds me of like
Speaker 1: Wayne Ellington. It's not the same archetype. Ellington is a
Speaker 1: straight shooter, but they're both growing up basketball players. Right.
Speaker 1: They're not high risk. They're very low risk, low reward
Speaker 1: kind of players, right. They just play the right way.
Speaker 1: Jarren Carlson, he's lost a step that's expected for me.
Speaker 1: Um and I want to give him some time as well,
Speaker 1: because they're obviously searching for guard depth. Fear you don't
Speaker 1: go out and get those two guys. But I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I think he's gonna play UM and I
Speaker 1: think he can fit grown up basketball player. He's thirty
Speaker 1: four now, but I mean Carmel's thirty seven, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's not like he's the oldest in the bunch.
Speaker 1: But I like his game too. It's a grown up,
Speaker 1: adult game. It's nice to have a controlled ball hand
Speaker 1: it right. Rust For all the good he brings, he's
Speaker 1: very still a chaotic ball handler. He's a chaotic player.
Speaker 1: It's nice to have a guy you just give it
Speaker 1: Dann Collison. Little ball screen at the top, make the
Speaker 1: simple read, the simple bounce pass, or the simple skip
Speaker 1: pass to the corner, or skips like simple plays, or
Speaker 1: the simple pull up jumper in the mid range if
Speaker 1: it's open. Just stuff that he can read. High basketby
Speaker 1: i Q player and I think, I think it'll be
Speaker 1: fine for for a guy until you know, Kendrick Nunn
Speaker 1: can can come back whenever he does. Yeah with you,
Speaker 1: um I wanted to hit one last thing before we
Speaker 1: get out of your guys, and thank you all for
Speaker 1: hanging out with us on Christmas night like this, um,
Speaker 1: as is usually the case, I want to end on
Speaker 1: just a little positive note and the my one, you know,
Speaker 1: saving grace here. The thing I'm clinging to is the
Speaker 1: fact that Lebron continues to look like he's very firmly
Speaker 1: in the conversation for the best players in the world.
Speaker 1: He continues to look absolutely incredible. That's three, right. I
Speaker 1: think it was immediately after the Patty Mills three that
Speaker 1: put them up five. Lebron comes down in knocks down
Speaker 1: a forty footer when the net spots of switch on
Speaker 1: the perimeter. Did you see that? That was just like,
Speaker 1: that's just like a that's like an f you, I'm
Speaker 1: the best player on the floor type of shot. And
Speaker 1: it was. It was just unbelievable stuff from Lebron. And
Speaker 1: when you pair that with the fact that the Lakers
Speaker 1: do have some flexibility in the sense that like, as
Speaker 1: as bad as THHD looks, I do think that he
Speaker 1: is a trade asset around the league. And I when
Speaker 1: you look at it from the perspective of Lebron, is
Speaker 1: still Lebron. A d has this time to get healthy.
Speaker 1: You have wings, not as many as I'd like, but
Speaker 1: you have wings. And this, the Stanley Johnson experiment, is
Speaker 1: a great example of the fact that even if Stanley
Speaker 1: doesn't stick around, maybe through the buyout market or something
Speaker 1: like that, or just in free agency through one of
Speaker 1: these other teams that signs a replacement player, maybe the
Speaker 1: Laker scouting department can find another somebody like that, there
Speaker 1: is there is enough good in the trash bag here
Speaker 1: that that I think. I think there's still a scenario
Speaker 1: where this all could kind of come together and become
Speaker 1: a legitimate championship contender. It's like, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a big difference between optimism about the future and
Speaker 1: the way I feel about the team right now. You know,
Speaker 1: because I get made fun of a lot by all
Speaker 1: of you guys for being so optimistic all the time.
Speaker 1: I know we sucked. You don't think I know we sucked.
Speaker 1: I have I have eyes, but I literally I played
Speaker 1: I played basketball college, I coach kids now like all
Speaker 1: I do. I live and breathe this game every day
Speaker 1: of my life. And I know what I'm watching. I'm
Speaker 1: watching absolute trash basketball. I get it. But that said,
Speaker 1: there is still in this trash bag a concoction that
Speaker 1: could work and until like, like I said, I will
Speaker 1: give up the faith when Lebron and a d can't
Speaker 1: finish playoff games because I'm still a believer. You can
Speaker 1: plug in a guy off the street like Stanley Johnson
Speaker 1: into a role and it were because Lebron is Lebron
Speaker 1: ng all over the Brooklyn nets, right that that to
Speaker 1: me is is always going to be a working formula.
Speaker 1: So I remain optimistic in the sense that this is
Speaker 1: an achievable thing, but a lot of stuff has to change.
Speaker 1: Just starts with getting everybody back out of COVID protocols.
Speaker 1: Then from their play functional lineups. Stop starting a big
Speaker 1: man with Russ and Pht. It just can't do it.
Speaker 1: And then from there lean into your strengths, play more
Speaker 1: of your wings, and get continuity. With guys getting to
Speaker 1: play together every night, they will start to discover a
Speaker 1: formula that works for them. And then you just plug
Speaker 1: Anthony Davison. Because Anthony Davis is the easiest plug and
Speaker 1: play basketball player ever, because he can defend literally one
Speaker 1: through five. He can attack close outs, he can play
Speaker 1: on the perimeter, he can play from the post. He
Speaker 1: is the easiest plug and play guy. So this is
Speaker 1: the perfect opportunity to build a working identity and just
Speaker 1: get it humming on all cylinders and then just plug
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis back in. Yeah, so I'm gonna kind of
Speaker 1: bring this to the previous game. I was watching so
Speaker 1: the Warriors Sons game, right, and again I said, we're
Speaker 1: playing nowhere near close to this kind of basketball that
Speaker 1: kind of top to your basketball. But I tweeted out,
Speaker 1: I would like to see Lebron and Nadi healthy. You
Speaker 1: get a chance at those two teams, right, And people
Speaker 1: are like, are you crazy? Have you watched the team
Speaker 1: this year? But you know, playoff basketball is different. It
Speaker 1: is very match up hunting. And at the end of
Speaker 1: that game, you know, Chris Paul and Devin Booker had
Speaker 1: a tough time getting shots up right, and we talked
Speaker 1: about shock creation and how important that is, and playoff
Speaker 1: basketball does come down to, you know, what your stars
Speaker 1: can do, what your stars can create when defenses are
Speaker 1: locked in. And I thought that Sons Worriors game where
Speaker 1: it was as close to a playoff game as I've
Speaker 1: seen this year. Both teams were locked in, and I
Speaker 1: think that's still where the hope, I guess is for
Speaker 1: this team. It's easy to lose track now, I mean,
Speaker 1: but you know, the last playoff we've seen, leron Nadye
Speaker 1: were able to kind of take over, and again, we're
Speaker 1: so far from that. It's tough to even watch those
Speaker 1: games because the roster has you know, turned over so much.
Speaker 1: But you're right, that's where the positivity and that's where
Speaker 1: the hope still is. You kind of have to, you know,
Speaker 1: screen your eyes now to see it, just because the
Speaker 1: situations that we've been in. Anthony Davis won't be here
Speaker 1: until February UM and Lebron, Yeah, Lebron looks incredible. I
Speaker 1: think it's disappointing. He's played his ass off for the
Speaker 1: last five games or four games or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: We've lost every single one of them, and I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, that that's rough for him to, you know,
Speaker 1: put effort into that and us losing that way. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where the hope just comes in. Man if Lebron
Speaker 1: and a d can still be themselves, because that's what
Speaker 1: playoff basketball comes down to. It comes down to can
Speaker 1: your worst players switch on my best player? Right, Let's
Speaker 1: basically what playof basketball is. Can your lowest defenders switch
Speaker 1: onto my best player? And can you survive that? Can
Speaker 1: you trap out of that? Can you scheme out of that?
Speaker 1: And when possessions slow down. That's why you know teams
Speaker 1: like the Utah Jazz that win a million games the
Speaker 1: regular season and they're a absolute jugger and I think
Speaker 1: they're serious title contender and all that. But it's why
Speaker 1: the playoffs is a different story. And if we can
Speaker 1: just get there somewhat healthy, going into some kind of rhythm,
Speaker 1: that's the little gleam of hope you can see. But
Speaker 1: right now we are nowhere close to that. We are
Speaker 1: not we haven't built habits that are conductive to getting there. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's still a path to being good.
Speaker 1: Like I agree with that. I just we aren't on
Speaker 1: that train, you know, yet, but there's still time to
Speaker 1: get on it. So hopefully we can. Hopefully it starts
Speaker 1: with Houston on Tuesday, Tuesday or Monday is Tuesday, Tuesday? Okay,
Speaker 1: with Houston on Tuesday, which is great because the Lakers
Speaker 1: are going to get a chance to probably get a
Speaker 1: good day or two of practice in and practice that
Speaker 1: you can keep relatively short and easy on the bodies,
Speaker 1: but give guys a chance to learn the scheme. Good.
Speaker 1: Good time to get Stanley Johnson back into the mix.
Speaker 1: Good time to get all these guys that were walked
Speaker 1: in their hotel rooms because of COVID tons and tons
Speaker 1: of shots up let's say Austin Reeves and uh camp
Speaker 1: Bays more clear protocols. In the next day. You can
Speaker 1: give them lots of time to get their feel for
Speaker 1: the game back. It's it's a good time to have
Speaker 1: that two day break. I'm gonna leave you guys with
Speaker 1: one quote from Lebron Um. He was asked how he
Speaker 1: tries to stay patient with this roster, and he said, quote,
Speaker 1: I'm not a very patient person. But without her head coach,
Speaker 1: just getting guys back, still missing a few, I just
Speaker 1: try to stay even keeled. No one is going to
Speaker 1: feel sorry for us. And it's something that I've appreciated
Speaker 1: from lebron this year. He's been, you know, a little
Speaker 1: bit less dramatic and a little bit more you know,
Speaker 1: in the moment of trying to just do the best
Speaker 1: he can, and the effort that he's put forward in
Speaker 1: this nasty stretch has been amazing. And all I would
Speaker 1: say is, you know, the Lakers just have to keep
Speaker 1: putting one foot in front of the other. It's like
Speaker 1: that quote from Camp Baseball, chopped with carry water. All
Speaker 1: you can do is work hard with what you got.
Speaker 1: Guys are going to continue to come back into the lineup.
Speaker 1: As they come back, they're gonna get their legs underneath
Speaker 1: them and get a rhythm. And then Anthony Davis is
Speaker 1: on the way as well. And when that happens, if
Speaker 1: you put in the work now, it'll all come together
Speaker 1: and it'll all work. Um, guys, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming to hang out with this on Christmas evening
Speaker 1: like this. This is gonna m hm aeron Dash Radio
Speaker 1: on Monday morning at seven am Pacific Standard time. It
Speaker 1: will also be in its entirety on our podcast feed
Speaker 1: here in about thirty minutes. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for supporting Rog and I in the show. We appreciate it,
Speaker 1: and hopefully, if we're lucky, the Lakers will start to
Speaker 1: turn things around against Houston on Tuesday. Merry Christmas, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Hollidays. Thanks for coming.