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Speaker 1: welcome to Hoo's Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: I hope all of you guys are having a good
Speaker 1: week so far. I wanted to take some time here
Speaker 1: to touch on the three rumors that came out on
Speaker 1: the NBA trade front in the last twenty four hours
Speaker 1: that involved Lebron James and the Lakers. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: a lot of Lakers here at the beginning, as well
Speaker 1: as something from Ian Bagley, who specifically mentioned that Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant has a new preferred trade destination that I wanted
Speaker 1: to get into a little bit. But we're gonna start
Speaker 1: with Chris Haynes and his article Forgot Who's Sports, which
Speaker 1: touched on a meeting between Lebron James, Clutch Sports, and
Speaker 1: the Lakers front office. And what I'm gonna do is
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna kind of go through some quotes that
Speaker 1: I thought were interesting, and I'll give you guys my
Speaker 1: two cents on those quotes. So first, Haynes said, quote
Speaker 1: James sources said drilled home the importance of consistent competitiveness
Speaker 1: and cohesion, noting that last season's team didn't give themselves
Speaker 1: a chance on many nights. Thought this was very interesting
Speaker 1: for a couple of different reasons. First of all, the
Speaker 1: Lakers had a boatload of issues. We've gone into detail
Speaker 1: on this before. But you don't get to miss the
Speaker 1: playoffs in a league that allows twenty of the thirty
Speaker 1: teams to make the playoffs when you have Lebron James
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis on your roster unless a whole lot
Speaker 1: of things go wrong. Now, I've said that the biggest
Speaker 1: thing is the Russ's trade, not Russ, but the Russ's
Speaker 1: trade in all of the ramifications that followed that, But
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of other issues. Frank Vogel had
Speaker 1: a bad season coached away from the team strengths, they
Speaker 1: obviously had a bunch of issues with injuries, there was
Speaker 1: kind of a bad mix, and just with the players
Speaker 1: in the locker room, they had kind of a weird energy.
Speaker 1: There were a bunch of reasons. I could go on
Speaker 1: and on and on, but again, it takes all of
Speaker 1: those things happening for the team to go to perform
Speaker 1: as poorly as they did in that season. But I
Speaker 1: did think this was interesting at a couple of different levels,
Speaker 1: because it was a significant problem this year that the
Speaker 1: Lakers could not bring consistent effort and honestly made my
Speaker 1: job very difficult because I'm here trying to talk about
Speaker 1: the basketball right, trying to talk about xs and ohs,
Speaker 1: trying to talk about skill sets, trying to talk about
Speaker 1: strategy and what may or may not be working for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. But on most nights. They just weren't trying hard.
Speaker 1: And I don't give a damn how good your scheme is.
Speaker 1: I don't care how good your personnel is or bad
Speaker 1: your personnel is. If you go out there and you
Speaker 1: mail it in, you're gonna get your butt kicked, especially
Speaker 1: in the NBA, especially with how talented the league is now.
Speaker 1: All you gotta do is look at the guys who
Speaker 1: did not make my top twenty five list and how
Speaker 1: good they are, and you'll see how insanely talented the
Speaker 1: league is now. You can't get away with not playing hard.
Speaker 1: So it's good that the Lakers and Lebron have identified
Speaker 1: that that was a major issue for them last year
Speaker 1: and that needs to be a point of focus us
Speaker 1: in priority as we as they established this coming season. However,
Speaker 1: I look, Lebron James is my favorite player. You guys
Speaker 1: know that, but this is another opportunity where we have
Speaker 1: to be honest about what happened. Lebron James did not
Speaker 1: bring consistent effort last year. It was it was a
Speaker 1: large I thought it was one of the things that
Speaker 1: was the driving force behind that culture that existed in
Speaker 1: the locker room in Lebron James was their most consistent
Speaker 1: effort guy, at least among the stars. Obviously you've got
Speaker 1: guys like Alex Cruser who are working their bought off
Speaker 1: every every single night, Kyle Kuzmas, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: But Lebron James set a great example with his night
Speaker 1: tonight effort for two full seasons there. That was gone
Speaker 1: this year. And I don't know if it was over
Speaker 1: confidence in the roster. I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: him counting on Russ to kind of bring that energy.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what it was, but his effort wasn't
Speaker 1: good enough, particularly on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: I frequently have people to me, Lebron is not a
Speaker 1: good defensive player anymore. Yes he is. He's absolutely he's
Speaker 1: a great defensive player. He just doesn't care a lot
Speaker 1: enough to do it anymore, at least not in this
Speaker 1: past season. And it was weird. You'd see him have
Speaker 1: a night like there's a night without Anthony Davis. I
Speaker 1: believe it was in Indiana against the Pacers where he
Speaker 1: decides he wants to play defense and he kind of
Speaker 1: plays back line, you know, quarterback for the entire game
Speaker 1: and locks down and gets a bunch of Key stops
Speaker 1: against Indiana and gets a win, and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: that dude is still so good defensively, and then he'd
Speaker 1: mail it in on the next night that that that's
Speaker 1: just the reality of what happened that year. So I'm
Speaker 1: happy that Lebron is identified that problem. I'm glad the
Speaker 1: Lakers are aware of it and they want to deal
Speaker 1: with it. But there's blood on your hands to their Lebron,
Speaker 1: do you have an issue with trying hard night and
Speaker 1: night out. Don't blame you. You've played more NBA basketball games,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure than just about anybody in NBA history.
Speaker 1: So I get it. But let's call it what it is.
Speaker 1: You were part of the reason why you had bad
Speaker 1: effort issues. Another quote from Hayes in the piece um
Speaker 1: the focus for the future Hall of Famers competing every
Speaker 1: night in order to give themselves a chance to complete
Speaker 1: compete for a championship. Furthermore, the first year head coach
Speaker 1: said one wrinkle he will implement and stick with is
Speaker 1: having the offense run through Anthony Davis and James concurred.
Speaker 1: Sources set the team has been encouraged with Davis's offseason
Speaker 1: progression and believe he'll be an optimum shape to avoid
Speaker 1: serious injuries and carry a heavier load. Two interesting things there.
Speaker 1: First of all, the Anthony Davis coming into camp in
Speaker 1: shape thing. I get a lot of criticism from Lakers
Speaker 1: apologists who are hard on me for how hard I've
Speaker 1: been on Anthony Davis because they claim, hey, he just
Speaker 1: got hurt. I don't have to go into too much
Speaker 1: detail on this because all you have to do is
Speaker 1: watch our video. I think it was in the sixteen
Speaker 1: video because he's in I believe I had him eighteen
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly. But I I do believe that
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis has had some bad injury luck. I just
Speaker 1: also believe that he showed up into up out of
Speaker 1: shape and did it again this year, and so those
Speaker 1: things played a direct role in the in some of
Speaker 1: the injuries that he experienced. If you're Achilles has a
Speaker 1: wear and tear, tendon, tendonosis, or whatever it was that
Speaker 1: he had, that might be associated to the fact that
Speaker 1: you stepped into an eight two game NBA season out
Speaker 1: of shape. Obviously he has he always is getting like
Speaker 1: tailbone bruises and sprain wrists and things like that. That
Speaker 1: a lot of that has to do with the way
Speaker 1: that he flops all over the floor all the time
Speaker 1: falling down. There are things under Anthony Davis's control that
Speaker 1: led to some of his injuries, but then there are
Speaker 1: also some bad luck things. So I do believe that
Speaker 1: it's interesting that we now have more reporting that acknowledges
Speaker 1: that the Lakers are pleased that Anthony Davis appears to
Speaker 1: finally be having a good offseason and taking care of
Speaker 1: his body. Hopefully, like I said in the list, that
Speaker 1: makes makes it so that he's poised to have a
Speaker 1: dominant season where he cracks back into the top ten
Speaker 1: players in the league. That's good. The second thing in
Speaker 1: that quote that was interesting is the idea of running
Speaker 1: the offense or Anthony Davis. Now, this has been talking
Speaker 1: point on and off over the the entire Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: Lakers era. You Lakers fans probably remember a season opening
Speaker 1: game in twenty nine, his first game as a Laker,
Speaker 1: where against the Los Angeles Clippers, they just threw the
Speaker 1: ball in the post Anthony Davis almost every time down
Speaker 1: the floor to the point where it was kind of
Speaker 1: like bogging down their offense. And just this whole idea
Speaker 1: of like, who is the offense running through. To me,
Speaker 1: it's just not actually a real basketball thing. Like I
Speaker 1: always talk about how you have these roles that have
Speaker 1: to be filled on a basketball court, and I actually
Speaker 1: think Lebron James and Anthony Davis compliment each other so
Speaker 1: well that the offense is always running through both of them.
Speaker 1: You guys might have heard me talk about in the
Speaker 1: last episode, uh, the Jason Tatum or the player rankings
Speaker 1: episode where we talked about Jason Tatum. I talked about
Speaker 1: the difference between being the spear or the tip of
Speaker 1: the spear. It's a really really simple way to break
Speaker 1: that down. Is a score a person who job it
Speaker 1: is to score finished plays. And a facilitator like a
Speaker 1: game manager, a a point forward, point guard, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it. The guy who is more in
Speaker 1: charge for more possessions, but it's less offensively aggressive as
Speaker 1: opposed to the guy that's kind of a gunner. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that both roles are very important on a
Speaker 1: basketball team. You know, you guys have heard me talk.
Speaker 1: I like to relate things back to my own personal
Speaker 1: experience when it comes to basketball, and I know it's
Speaker 1: not NBA experience, but there are some parallels like here,
Speaker 1: when I'm running my men's league here in town, I'm
Speaker 1: a score. So I looked for a player that would
Speaker 1: compliment me really well as a playmaker, and I found
Speaker 1: one who played in college, a good big guard who
Speaker 1: loves to get people in their spots and help facilitate
Speaker 1: and run an offense. We complement each other really well.
Speaker 1: The offense is running through both of us. It's not
Speaker 1: his team or my team. We fulfill completely different roles
Speaker 1: and we both do them together to help our team win.
Speaker 1: That's the way I look at the Lebron James and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis partnership. Anthony Davis is not a great ball
Speaker 1: handler from the perimeter, initially eating offense. Anthony Davis is
Speaker 1: not a great passer, so asking him to run the
Speaker 1: team not a good idea. Lebron James at this phase
Speaker 1: in your twenty is not the type of dominant score
Speaker 1: that Anthony Davis is. In all likelihood we'll see Lebron
Speaker 1: of course average thirty last year because he's an alien.
Speaker 1: But the point is is Lebron James is the handle
Speaker 1: of the spear and Anthony Davis is the tip of
Speaker 1: the spear. It's a mutual part it's a mutually beneficial partnership.
Speaker 1: The semantics of who's running the team or what are
Speaker 1: we doing with our offense, to me, that doesn't really
Speaker 1: mean anything, Like to me, Lebron James should have the
Speaker 1: basketball in his hands and he should make a concerted
Speaker 1: effort to get Anthony Davis in spots where he can
Speaker 1: score the basketball easily. All of the other semantics surrounding
Speaker 1: that are meaningless to me. There was more Russ posturing
Speaker 1: in this article, talking about how they want him to
Speaker 1: make more corner threes or to be able to make
Speaker 1: corner three is more effective as a corner three point.
Speaker 1: He literally made fort of his corner threes last year.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you now. He only
Speaker 1: made twenty three over the whole season because he wasn't
Speaker 1: in the position often enough because he was on the
Speaker 1: ball so much. But that just to me is like
Speaker 1: not understanding the reality of how the Russ experiment works.
Speaker 1: Like he's not standing in the corner enough to get
Speaker 1: enough of those shots for him to be effective there,
Speaker 1: And the reality is this is all just posturing. Everything
Speaker 1: I've heard, including more reporting in recent days, is the
Speaker 1: Lakers will never say so for the sake of trade posturing,
Speaker 1: but they won't rust out of there. He's not going
Speaker 1: to be on the team next year. They need It's
Speaker 1: it's almost funny to read things like that because it's
Speaker 1: just it's just so obviously fake. And then the last
Speaker 1: quote from the Chris Haines piece as for roster tinkering.
Speaker 1: Quote quote. As for roster tinkering, Polinka explained, patients will
Speaker 1: be a key in any potential moves the team makes.
Speaker 1: Sources set in a collaborative effort, all parties. All parties
Speaker 1: appear to be aligned on a common vision of seeing
Speaker 1: how the roster plays out before any drastic moves are sought.
Speaker 1: End quote. Now this is I really hope that's just posturing,
Speaker 1: because if you want to see what this roster can
Speaker 1: do before you make major moves, you're insane. My friend
Speaker 1: Joe van Buja tweeted out like a potential closing lineup
Speaker 1: for the Lakers, and it was like Austin Reeves, Troy
Speaker 1: Brown Jr. Juantaskano Anderson, Lebron James, and Anthony Davis. I
Speaker 1: don't need to see any basketball to know that's not
Speaker 1: good enough. Neither does Lebron James neither should rob Polinka.
Speaker 1: So I I sure as hell hope that that's not.
Speaker 1: That was in a serious conversation that was taking place
Speaker 1: in that room. Because they need drastic moves. They need
Speaker 1: drastic moves now or this team is going to be
Speaker 1: a play in team. I was looking at Vegas odds
Speaker 1: to win the Western Conference. Did you know that the
Speaker 1: Memphis Grizzlies are picked as this to pick to be
Speaker 1: right now, picked to be the seventh seed, the seventh
Speaker 1: seed there this or I should say, the seventh most
Speaker 1: likely team to win the Western Conference. If memph Is
Speaker 1: is the seventh seat, and they are, they are monumentally
Speaker 1: more talented than the Lakers right now, then guess what.
Speaker 1: You're a playing team. If you're the Lakers, you need
Speaker 1: drastic moves. No, you don't need to see how this
Speaker 1: plays out. You need drastic moves. So um, the reason
Speaker 1: why I put Jovan Buha on here, he there was
Speaker 1: a report from him that was floating around that was
Speaker 1: being misquoted of him talking about how the Lakers are
Speaker 1: ready to give up the second first round draft pick
Speaker 1: for Kyrie. He wanted me to clarify that that that's
Speaker 1: not actually the case, uh, what he what he said
Speaker 1: which is being misquoted, is that as they get closer
Speaker 1: to training camp, they will feel more urgency to include
Speaker 1: that second first round pick, meaning they are still actively
Speaker 1: trying to get this done with one first round pick,
Speaker 1: but if push comes to shove, they will include that
Speaker 1: second round pick. That should be encouraging for Lakers fans
Speaker 1: and that should never have been a point of of
Speaker 1: contention within the Lakers front office at all. And then lastly,
Speaker 1: Ian Bagley reported that Katie prefers Boston, which I thought
Speaker 1: was really interesting because the initial report was that he
Speaker 1: preferred Phoenix or Miami. Right, Phoenix is now off the
Speaker 1: table because the Deandreton thing. Miami always, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: has been off the table because I just never thought
Speaker 1: they had the requisite assets. So to me, it always
Speaker 1: came down to Boston or Toronto, and Toronto wants to
Speaker 1: hold on to Scotty Barnes, so to me, Boston was
Speaker 1: obviously in first place based on the Jalen Brown at
Speaker 1: the proposed Jalen Brown package. But I do think it's
Speaker 1: interesting that Katie has now essentially leaked or somebody in
Speaker 1: Katie's camp has made it clear that he prefers Boston.
Speaker 1: I don't blame him. That would be an awesome place
Speaker 1: for hooped. You've got a general manager who knows his
Speaker 1: ship and cares and cares about his players, and Brad Stevens.
Speaker 1: You gotta coach in email Udoka, who's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite young coaches in the league, a coach that Katie
Speaker 1: has a relationship with from his time playing with the
Speaker 1: the U S national team. And a great roster of
Speaker 1: players that gives him more than he needs to win
Speaker 1: an NBA championship. And a bunch of guys that love
Speaker 1: the game of basketball, where basketball will be first and
Speaker 1: drama will not be an issue. He's not gonna have
Speaker 1: to worry about the kinds of things that he worried
Speaker 1: about with Kyrie. There. The only thing that I thought
Speaker 1: was really strange in that that report was like he
Speaker 1: wants to play with Marcus Smart. I don't know why that,
Speaker 1: of all the players would be the guy that he'd
Speaker 1: be itching to play with. Apparently Brooklyn wants Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: and that deal. I don't know how that would all
Speaker 1: shake out, but I hope that for Katie that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a sticking point. I continue to think that Boston
Speaker 1: is an excellent destination for Katie. I think it's a
Speaker 1: great package for Brooklyn to get back in return, and
Speaker 1: I think just all in all, we're trending in that
Speaker 1: direction because I do not believe Toronto will put Scottie
Speaker 1: Barnes on the table. The volume