Speaker 1: Welcome to the State of the Lakers on Dash Radio.
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday, everybody. I am out of town, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to get something out to you guys over the
Speaker 1: course of the next couple of days while I was traveling,
Speaker 1: so I took the time to do some letter grades
Speaker 1: for the Lakers players. Here. We're about a third of
Speaker 1: the way through the season at this point. Obviously we're
Speaker 1: trending up, but I want to take a look at
Speaker 1: kind of the total picture of what the team has
Speaker 1: looked like to this point. UM tonight at midnight, I
Speaker 1: guess this will be Tuesday morning for you guys. The
Speaker 1: I will have Lebron, a d and Russ up, and
Speaker 1: then the rest of the role players will post at
Speaker 1: midnight on Tuesday for you guys to listen to on
Speaker 1: Wednesday before the game. UM, a couple of little rules.
Speaker 1: I'm basing these letter grades based on what I and
Speaker 1: what we expected coming into the season, you know, relative
Speaker 1: to their expectations. It's obviously not fair to grade Molik
Speaker 1: Monk on a veteran minimum contract on the same scale
Speaker 1: that we grade Lebron James or Anthony Davis or Russell Westbrook.
Speaker 1: It's just not the way that we should evaluate them,
Speaker 1: So keep that in mind as as I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: But these are both gonna be pretty short. Like I said,
Speaker 1: obviously everyone seems to be trending in the right direction,
Speaker 1: but just wanted to take kind of like take a minute,
Speaker 1: take a deep breath, and just kinda take a look
Speaker 1: back at how things have gone so far and how
Speaker 1: guys are looking as we move forward for the rest
Speaker 1: of the season. So starting with Lebron, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be especially hard on Lebron and a D here, And
Speaker 1: the main reason why is because you know, I think
Speaker 1: I think Lebron and a D made a calculation that
Speaker 1: was you know, shortsighted and didn't take into a how
Speaker 1: the factors that led to their situation. Right, So Lebron
Speaker 1: and a D completely dominate to start the season, you know,
Speaker 1: from the opening tip in the first preseason game, totally
Speaker 1: different vibe than this year's preseason. They attacked it, especially
Speaker 1: on the defensive end, and even though they lost that
Speaker 1: opening night game against the Clippers, they really were rolling
Speaker 1: everybody all season long. They started twenty four and three
Speaker 1: and we're truly dominant. Then they're mostly dominant throughout the postseason.
Speaker 1: So this is where I think they got some made
Speaker 1: a made a bad read on the rest of the league.
Speaker 1: So coming into the following season, which starts if we
Speaker 1: remember early, because they were planning on waiting until Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Day, but they didn't. Instead they went ahead
Speaker 1: and started, uh right before Christmas. So I caught a
Speaker 1: lot of people off garden, A lot of people showed
Speaker 1: up into camp out of shape, and a lot of
Speaker 1: teams got off to slow starts or poor starts. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Lakers, even though Anthony David was significantly beneath his
Speaker 1: output from the previous season, the Lakers were literally twenty
Speaker 1: one and six, and obviously the fall the rest of
Speaker 1: the season was derailed by injuries. So as far as
Speaker 1: Lron and a D were concerned, a D was coasting.
Speaker 1: Lebron was playing really well, but you know, a D
Speaker 1: was coasting, and it was enough for them to win
Speaker 1: regular season games, and I think they tricked themselves into
Speaker 1: thinking that's the way it would always be. But a
Speaker 1: lot of that had to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: all of the other teams in the league that season,
Speaker 1: because of the quick turnaround, we're also struggling to get
Speaker 1: their legs underneath them. Meanwhile, so the Lakers kind of
Speaker 1: had that advantage and the quick turnaround. They were most
Speaker 1: recently attached to quality basketball, and a lot of that
Speaker 1: just lingered for them. So moving forward and going into
Speaker 1: this season, I think they thought they could take that
Speaker 1: same approach, and that just wasn't the case. Given the
Speaker 1: fact that it was a normal off season, and given
Speaker 1: the fact that there were a lot of teams coming
Speaker 1: back to full strength teams like Golden State, teams like Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: in addition to some established teams from previous years like Phoenix,
Speaker 1: like Utah, and like Milwaukee. The Lakers were gonna have
Speaker 1: to attack this season. They were gonna have to bring
Speaker 1: a lot of energy, and their stars were gonna have
Speaker 1: to be great. And I think you saw that right
Speaker 1: away in preseason, I thought, I think you saw that
Speaker 1: lack of intensity and just the Lakers operating at a
Speaker 1: level beneath that of the rest of the league, which
Speaker 1: even with their talent there, even their talent was not
Speaker 1: enough to overcome that. And so that's kind of like
Speaker 1: the bigger picture thing when I'm looking at Lebron and
Speaker 1: a d here, but we can dive into two each
Speaker 1: of them individually. So you know, Lebron has had a
Speaker 1: lot of good this season. He shot the ball really well,
Speaker 1: um when when they've been good quality shots, he's fifty
Speaker 1: on wide open threes, obviously not shooting well when he's
Speaker 1: taking contested threes. He does have the highest true shooting
Speaker 1: percentage of the on in a d ERA and there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of different reasons for that. I think this
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why. UM. I think this
Speaker 1: is one of the ways that Russ has really helped.
Speaker 1: For instance, Lebron is attempting two point six wide open
Speaker 1: threes per game, which is the highest since he came
Speaker 1: to l A. I think that has a lot to
Speaker 1: do with Russ and having another guy who pressures the
Speaker 1: rim and kicks the ball out to him. Lebron having
Speaker 1: that capability of being a really, really deadly off ball
Speaker 1: threat is part of what makes the Russell Westbrook experiment work.
Speaker 1: The when Lebron has when Russ has the ball, Lebron
Speaker 1: is still so effective, and that has made things easier
Speaker 1: for Russ now. Obviously, for the first chunk of the season,
Speaker 1: Lebron struggled with availability, so I want to cut him
Speaker 1: some slack there. Obviously, both of those injuries were injuries
Speaker 1: that if they happen now, I think he might try
Speaker 1: to play throom. But at the beginning of the season,
Speaker 1: the Lakers thought, given their easy schedule, they'd be able
Speaker 1: to rack up wins, and they just weren't able to.
Speaker 1: And so Lebron took that as an opportunity to try
Speaker 1: to just keep as close to a physically as he could.
Speaker 1: And and I want to cut him some slack for that.
Speaker 1: But even when he was available, like outside of that
Speaker 1: Golden State game, which I thought Lebron was one of
Speaker 1: Lebron's better two A performances this season, you know, up
Speaker 1: until this recent stretch, Lebron was really inconsistent. When he
Speaker 1: was healthy, You'd see him dominate the Cleveland Cavaliers at
Speaker 1: the end of the game, but kind of bs his
Speaker 1: way through the first three quarters, or dominate the Houston
Speaker 1: Rockets at the end of the game, but kind of
Speaker 1: coast and leak out and get his dunks and stuff,
Speaker 1: but not really be that engaged, dominant to a player
Speaker 1: that you've seen in recent weeks. And then finally, as
Speaker 1: I was preaching in the NonStop in the pod Urgency
Speaker 1: had to kick in Eventually. You can't sit there as
Speaker 1: a competitor and continue to get kicked upside the head
Speaker 1: and not eventually fight back. And I think after that
Speaker 1: triple overtime lost a Sacramento, Lebron finally understood the gravity
Speaker 1: of the situation and finally started to engage in the season,
Speaker 1: and from there he's completely taken off. I have him
Speaker 1: in a B minus um and a D at a
Speaker 1: C plus. They both have had similar seasons in terms
Speaker 1: of their ebbing and flowing engagement. The reason why I
Speaker 1: gave Lebron just a slightly better grade than a D
Speaker 1: is he does have this dominant stretch here, this last
Speaker 1: seven game stretch, or Lebron has looked like the best
Speaker 1: player in the world, or at least in that conversation.
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis hasn't really had that stretch yet. I believe
Speaker 1: he will. I believe he will soon, but he hasn't
Speaker 1: had that stretch yet. That's why I'm giving Lebron that
Speaker 1: little edge there. He's trending towards becoming in that conversation
Speaker 1: of the best players in the league. Specifically changes the
Speaker 1: ceiling of this team. He just was too relaxed to
Speaker 1: start the season because he made a bad read on
Speaker 1: the situation league wide. Um, but moving in the right direction.
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I hold Lebron too high standards,
Speaker 1: so I'm not I'm not gonna cut him, you know,
Speaker 1: so much slack when his peers, the guys that we're
Speaker 1: trying to say he's better than, have attacked to the season,
Speaker 1: like Hadie and Steph have alright, moving on to Anthony Davis. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, no dominant stretch yet that's been the
Speaker 1: big differentiator between him and in Lebron this season. But
Speaker 1: similar idea came into the season taking a lot of
Speaker 1: really really tough off the dribble jump shots, the same
Speaker 1: kind of shots he was taking and making in the bubble,
Speaker 1: and as he was missing him and missing him and
Speaker 1: missing him, he just wasn't making the adjustment. He wasn't
Speaker 1: leaning into his identity as a rim attacker. And yes,
Speaker 1: the you know, the big lineups played a role in that,
Speaker 1: especially with Lebron, you know, as a guy who likes
Speaker 1: to drive the basketball from the perimeter. But both of
Speaker 1: those guys have played with two bigs a lot in
Speaker 1: this era and gotten the hell of a lot more
Speaker 1: rim pressure than they got over this stretch, and I
Speaker 1: think that has a lot to do with just trying
Speaker 1: to save their legs, trying to coast, thinking they might
Speaker 1: be able to be a dominant team without having to
Speaker 1: put that stress on their bodies, when the reality was
Speaker 1: they were always going to have to do that. But
Speaker 1: what I'll give a D credit for is similar to
Speaker 1: Lebron right around the time of that Sacramento game, He's
Speaker 1: been a lot more engaged on both ends of the floor,
Speaker 1: specifically in those post up situations. He's shooting a lot
Speaker 1: fewer of these turnaround jump shots over both shoulders that
Speaker 1: he's shooting at an extremely low percentage, and he's taking
Speaker 1: more interior jump shots, like trying to generate a little
Speaker 1: bit more separation to get a little bit closer to
Speaker 1: the rim and shooting that little fade away from seven
Speaker 1: to ten feet instead of seventeen to twenty feet. And
Speaker 1: in there he's just a lot more accurate as a shooter,
Speaker 1: and in there he's allowed he's able to use his
Speaker 1: physical tools more to turn it into a higher percentage shot.
Speaker 1: A shot you know, the A D stuff is tricky.
Speaker 1: It's not really fair to him because he's so incredibly
Speaker 1: talented that he can be, you know, inconsistent with his
Speaker 1: engagement and with his effort, but still put up monster numbers.
Speaker 1: So many people have pointed out, you know, leading the
Speaker 1: league in points in the pain. Yeah, that's awesome. You know,
Speaker 1: he has a very very difficult job. That's true. Um
Speaker 1: that said, as a superstar talent, it is expected that
Speaker 1: you have a difficult job, and there's no excuse for
Speaker 1: after three consecutive days off where you get to rest
Speaker 1: your body to come into a game like he did
Speaker 1: against Boston and coast through half before you really engage.
Speaker 1: That will always be the thing that it's hard for
Speaker 1: me with a d is. Even with as dominant as
Speaker 1: he is, he should be in the conversation for the
Speaker 1: best player in the world, and I think the only
Speaker 1: thing that separates him from that and being in the
Speaker 1: tier right below that is that consistent engagement, being a
Speaker 1: self starter, finding ways to motivate yourself on a night
Speaker 1: and night out basis, to leave a physical imprint on
Speaker 1: the game on both ends of the floor. The big
Speaker 1: things that I'm looking for him moving forward for the
Speaker 1: rest of the season or one out of area plays
Speaker 1: he's starting to make more of them. But you know, again,
Speaker 1: a d has a job on the floor. But one
Speaker 1: of the beauties about him being so good is that
Speaker 1: he can extend beyond his job and cover for the
Speaker 1: shortcomings of his teammates. And he always has had the
Speaker 1: ability to do that, but he keeps it in reserve,
Speaker 1: specifically when he's trying to avoid getting hurt or when
Speaker 1: he's trying to save his legs for the rest of
Speaker 1: the season. I'd like to see him kind of dip
Speaker 1: into that a little bit more, try to use a
Speaker 1: little bit more of that reserve, just because it's so
Speaker 1: important as this team is establishing its habits to give
Speaker 1: his teammates confidence and to lean into that side of
Speaker 1: things until they really get up to speed with Frank's
Speaker 1: system and what they're asked to do on both ends,
Speaker 1: specifically with their defensive responsibilities and their rebounding responsibilities down
Speaker 1: the line. And this is something I said in the
Speaker 1: pod last night. Down the line, once everyone has good habits, hopefully,
Speaker 1: if you rip off a bunch of wins in a
Speaker 1: row and you establish habits, even with guys who have
Speaker 1: struggled with those same habits in the past, if you
Speaker 1: established those habits then you might have the ability, if
Speaker 1: you're a d and Lebron to take a few plays
Speaker 1: off here and there, maybe not take place off, but
Speaker 1: not have to cover for your teammates as much. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, especially as they're trying to claw out
Speaker 1: the standings, he needs to do more of that. And
Speaker 1: then the last thing is jump shooting. And I'm not
Speaker 1: really talking about his off the dribble jump shooting, his
Speaker 1: post turnarounds or anything like that. I'm primarily talking about
Speaker 1: spot up shooting. I think for the playoffs, ceiling of
Speaker 1: the Lakers down the line, when you're in these dragged
Speaker 1: half court sets at the end of these games, Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis being able to knock down and catch and shoot
Speaker 1: three is so important for the spacing in those environments
Speaker 1: against the top tier defenses. And again, he doesn't need
Speaker 1: to shoot a ton of them, but he needs to
Speaker 1: shoot a few of them. Again in the bubble, having
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis take three and a half threes per game
Speaker 1: and knocking them down at a thirty eight percent clip
Speaker 1: was a huge part of why the Laker offense that
Speaker 1: had struggled most of the regular season had more flow
Speaker 1: and effectiveness in the postseason. That's the thing I'll be tracking.
Speaker 1: I'm not worried about the crazy shots he was making
Speaker 1: in the bubble. To me, that's the different. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if he starts making those and does everything else, well,
Speaker 1: now we're talking about maybe the best player in the world.
Speaker 1: But we all knew that that might have been a
Speaker 1: little bit of a fluke. But he is a good shooter.
Speaker 1: He does have good touch, getting to the point where
Speaker 1: he is a reliable, moderately reliable even just like what
Speaker 1: Russ has been this year. Just being a moderately reliable
Speaker 1: spot up shooter goes a long way towards extending the
Speaker 1: ceiling of this team. So those are the things that
Speaker 1: I'll look for moving forward. Again, Lebron b minus a
Speaker 1: D C plus. I gave Russ a B plus. Russ
Speaker 1: was really and I'm partially responsible for this, but Russ
Speaker 1: came into the season under a mountain of negativity. Not
Speaker 1: only was he perceived by most Laker fans to be
Speaker 1: a bad fit with this group, but we also had
Speaker 1: all mentally prepared ourselves for Buddy Healed. We were under
Speaker 1: the impression that Buddy Healed would be coming in as
Speaker 1: a seamless fit. With Lebron and a D and so
Speaker 1: Russ came in just with a mountain of negativity, and
Speaker 1: again I'm I'm partially responsible for that. And then in
Speaker 1: addition to that, he was set up to fail. Frank
Speaker 1: playing two big lineups and leaving his shooting on the bench,
Speaker 1: primarily with Russell Westbrook in the lineup was not was
Speaker 1: was putting Russ in a position where it would kind
Speaker 1: of make it extremely difficult for him to tap into
Speaker 1: the best areas of his game, which are rim pressure
Speaker 1: and physical mismatch attacking, like having smaller guards on him
Speaker 1: and being able to take them and bully ball them
Speaker 1: into the paint, and being able to use his speed
Speaker 1: to beat guys in semi transition to get all the
Speaker 1: way to the paint. Having our slow footed lineup out there,
Speaker 1: having our non shooting lineups out there, made that extremely
Speaker 1: difficult for us. And so the reason why I gave
Speaker 1: him a B plus is when you really think about
Speaker 1: what the expectation was for him coming into the season
Speaker 1: and how much negativity surrounded him, and when you really
Speaker 1: think about the lineup decisions that set him up to fail,
Speaker 1: he's massively outperformed those expectations. In my opinion, especially in
Speaker 1: recent weeks, he had a really rough start to the
Speaker 1: beginning of the season. But as we know with the Russ,
Speaker 1: as he's trying to learn how to play with a
Speaker 1: new group of guys, he just tends to have a
Speaker 1: lot of live ball turnovers. He tends to struggle identifying
Speaker 1: the right time to drive and when not to drive.
Speaker 1: He'll throw the ball out of bounds when he doesn't
Speaker 1: really know where guys are going to be on those
Speaker 1: kickout situations. But as every single person who's watched us
Speaker 1: in the past has told us, he eventually just learned
Speaker 1: where his opportunities were in our offense and he started
Speaker 1: to succeed. And then, honestly, one of the coolest things
Speaker 1: with Russ to see is the way his physical pressure
Speaker 1: on the rim tends to wear on team is over
Speaker 1: the course of a game. At the beginning of the game,
Speaker 1: he might pick up some charging fouls, he might throw
Speaker 1: up some stupid shots and not get foul calls. He
Speaker 1: might try to bullyball guys and it might not look pretty,
Speaker 1: but you know, guys will get in the way of
Speaker 1: him in the first quarter, and then they'll get in
Speaker 1: the way of him in the second quarter, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden in the third quarter, they kind
Speaker 1: of stopped getting in the way, and his endless energy
Speaker 1: source and his motor overcomes the opponent in conjunction with
Speaker 1: his physical tools and now he's living at the rim.
Speaker 1: And that's what we've really seen over the course of
Speaker 1: this last month that's made him look so great. He's
Speaker 1: also shooting thirty seven percent on wide open threes. That
Speaker 1: directly addresses one of the biggest concerns of the fit
Speaker 1: coming into the season. Would Russ be able to knock
Speaker 1: down enough open threes so that if you so that
Speaker 1: if teams completely ignored him, you wouldn't be losing your
Speaker 1: advantage there, And so far he's done a good job
Speaker 1: of that. We've also seen some little tricks him attacking
Speaker 1: when he catches uh when he's open on the wing
Speaker 1: and he catches at the three point line, he'll just
Speaker 1: catch an attack. We've seen him as a screener with
Speaker 1: Lebron catching the ball in the short roll position. We've
Speaker 1: seen him as a cutter. We're seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: good with Russ. The fit issues are no longer a problem.
Speaker 1: The only reason I gave him a B plus instead
Speaker 1: of something closer to an A A plus was he
Speaker 1: struggled to start the season, which like it or not,
Speaker 1: it had an impact on the team. And then in
Speaker 1: this last couple of games he seems to be struggling
Speaker 1: a little bit. He had nineteen I think last night
Speaker 1: against Orlando, but he had single digits or ten or
Speaker 1: fewer in the previous two games. So he seems to
Speaker 1: be trending in the wrong direction right this second. Hopefully
Speaker 1: that's just an anomaly. But again from bottom line, with Russ,
Speaker 1: I think as a Laker fan, under the circumstances, you
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly be happier with the way that he's performed. Alright, guys,
Speaker 1: that's it for part one. This is going to post
Speaker 1: on Monday night at midnight, so be available for you
Speaker 1: guys on Tuesday morning on your way to work, and
Speaker 1: part two will be exactly twenty four hours later. Thank you,
Speaker 1: guys as always for your support, and I'll see you
Speaker 1: in a couple of days. Book