Speaker 1: Mmmmm, all right. Welcome to the State of the Lakers,
Speaker 1: presented by DASH Radio. Thank you guys for coming to
Speaker 1: hang out on a Wednesday, easily, in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: most frustrating loss of the season when you factor in,
Speaker 1: you know, the the last few days and everything that's happened.
Speaker 1: But before we get too far into it, rog how
Speaker 1: you doing, buddy, I've been better. You know, this was
Speaker 1: one that, uh definitely kills your spirit. And I should
Speaker 1: have known. It's a pretty bad omen when you get
Speaker 1: your best win of the year, right, even on the
Speaker 1: basketball courts, there were things you see that's positive. And
Speaker 1: the next day, none of the conversation was about basketball, right,
Speaker 1: it was about Frank Vogel. And you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: he's the he might be even more of the star
Speaker 1: quote unquote star of the nine in terms of who's
Speaker 1: the main character of this game. But yeah, man, that
Speaker 1: was a frustrating one. Definitely one that will uh that's
Speaker 1: gonna haunt the team. And I'm curious where we go
Speaker 1: from here. Uh, this is a bad Indiana team. Man.
Speaker 1: I think they're like fifteen games under five or something
Speaker 1: that we'll get into it. But yeah, it's a spirit
Speaker 1: killing one. Man, I feel like we had something to
Speaker 1: build on. I kept tweeting, keep building, man, and we didn't.
Speaker 1: We stopped building in that third quarter. How are you?
Speaker 1: How are you doing though? Man? How are you? I'm
Speaker 1: doing good? Good. I My high school team lost at
Speaker 1: the Buzzer last night. Was pretty frustrating. But it's a
Speaker 1: couple of rough losses in a row. But anyway, our
Speaker 1: friend Jason Maples tweeted out that, uh that Indiana hasn't
Speaker 1: won a road game since before Thanksgiving, So you're absolutely
Speaker 1: right that it's a bad loss. They're missing their starting
Speaker 1: center start Miles Turner. Man, it's a bad team. I
Speaker 1: So I came into tonight with the goal for you
Speaker 1: and me before we watched the game, you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, well, I think the Lakers are gonna
Speaker 1: beat the Pacers, and we'll talk a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: but it's not a super interesting games, so we'll probably
Speaker 1: spend the last half of the show talking about this
Speaker 1: athletic article. Yeah, and everything centering around the flip Frank Vogel, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, potential firing that was allegedly in the works,
Speaker 1: and and you know, I defended Frank because I said
Speaker 1: you know, he hasn't been perfect. I don't agree with
Speaker 1: everything that he's done this year, But that said, in
Speaker 1: recent months, he's done a little bit of a better
Speaker 1: job of kind of adapting to some of the better
Speaker 1: elements of his roster. And most importantly, you know, I
Speaker 1: was more concerned about buying than anything else. That's something
Speaker 1: I've consistently said here, like, no matter what, if, even
Speaker 1: if Frank has all of the best ideas, if the
Speaker 1: guys in the locker room don't listen to him, then
Speaker 1: it's worthless, right, you know, like even if it's just
Speaker 1: it's just it's just just untenable in those circumstances. But
Speaker 1: tonight was I thought Frank's worst game of the season
Speaker 1: in terms of rotation decision making, which is absolutely inexcusable
Speaker 1: under the circumstances. So let's just let's just put it.
Speaker 1: Let's just make it real simple for everybody. If you
Speaker 1: didn't watch the Utah Jazz game, the Utah Jazz actually
Speaker 1: beat the ship out of us, with the exception of
Speaker 1: a fifteen minute stretch. In In this fifteen minute stretch,
Speaker 1: Russ was on the bench, Avery Bradley was on the bench,
Speaker 1: Carmelo Anthony wasn't even playing. Dwight Howard was on the bench.
Speaker 1: It was Lebron James, an undrafted free agent rookie in
Speaker 1: Austin Reaves a failed lottery pick, and Stanley Johnson that
Speaker 1: was out of the league, another failed lottery pick. And
Speaker 1: Malik Monk who would have been out of the league
Speaker 1: had the Lakers not offered him a contract and Taylor
Speaker 1: Horton Tucker, a second round pick. But there was something
Speaker 1: unique about those four guys. They played their ass off
Speaker 1: and then big and they're big and athletic. Yeah with
Speaker 1: the you know, Malik isn't necessarily big, but he is
Speaker 1: a very good athlete. And that group of five guys
Speaker 1: switched every screen completely. He shut down every one of
Speaker 1: Utah's actions, forced them to isolate. And on the other end,
Speaker 1: they ran a really smart, really hard to guard five
Speaker 1: out attack. Utah couldn't guard them. They were plus eighteen
Speaker 1: and fifteen minutes and the rest of the game, the
Speaker 1: Lakers are minus twelve. And everyone talks so much about,
Speaker 1: you know, how good the Lakers looked in that game
Speaker 1: now for how they save Frank's john But you know,
Speaker 1: I was actually chatting privately with my buddy Sam from
Speaker 1: Laker Film Room or excuse me from Light Years with
Speaker 1: the Warriors guys, and I was talking to him about
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, hey, just you know, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you watched that game, but there
Speaker 1: was a lot of bad mixed in there. And it's
Speaker 1: just the reality of this roster. There are good players,
Speaker 1: and they're bad players on this roster. And even the
Speaker 1: good players may not be good by the rest of
Speaker 1: the NBA standards, but they're a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: better than some of these other guys. And we came
Speaker 1: into this game once again starting three of our worst players,
Speaker 1: Dwight Howard, Trevor Reason, Avery Bradley. They're NBA players, but
Speaker 1: their fringe NBA players, and we're starting them. So you're
Speaker 1: putting fringe NBA players next to your two best players
Speaker 1: and hoping for the best. And then, after everything good
Speaker 1: that happened in that Utah Jazz game with that lineup,
Speaker 1: Frank didn't even use it tonight. That's inexcusable. That is
Speaker 1: absolutely inexcusable to go into the fourth quarter with the
Speaker 1: lineup that won you the damn game two days ago,
Speaker 1: bringing a guy who's been out with a back injury,
Speaker 1: who can't guard, and who obviously isn't gonna shoot well.
Speaker 1: Why won't we shoot well? Because he hasn't played basketball
Speaker 1: in what a week? Insane? He played thirty minutes tonight
Speaker 1: tonight and Stanley Stanley was the m v P on Monday.
Speaker 1: He was the best player on the floor in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter minutes for Stanley tonight. By the way, I
Speaker 1: can't stand here anymore and defend Frank Vogel when you
Speaker 1: do that yourself apotaging my guy. If you are jobless tomorrow,
Speaker 1: it's your fault. I can't. I can't help you anymore.
Speaker 1: But come on, man, Like that was and that's that.
Speaker 1: That fourth quarter rotation is only a small part of
Speaker 1: the rotation mismanagement. Tonight, I thought it was completely inexcusable.
Speaker 1: And again, like I have absolutely no sympathy, absolutely no
Speaker 1: sympathy for him anymore. So I've kind of been the
Speaker 1: bigger um, not apologist, but trying to, you know, bring
Speaker 1: context into everything Frank Vogel is trying to go through.
Speaker 1: And I guess you can start from the beginning of
Speaker 1: this year, right, and we have a roster that has
Speaker 1: flipped over twice now, right, Frank Vogel has gone into
Speaker 1: three separate training camps with three totally different type of rosters.
Speaker 1: I guess you can say the core came back from
Speaker 1: the title team, but this is a totally different team.
Speaker 1: It's a totally different roster, and he hasn't adjusted in
Speaker 1: the lineup tonight were absolutely unforgivable. I think Carmelo again
Speaker 1: playing thirty minutes, and I think we're just too rigid,
Speaker 1: you know, we're trying to find this new identity of
Speaker 1: playing small ball, playing big. I thought, you know, Dwight
Speaker 1: didn't play as play as much as he should. But
Speaker 1: you're right, man, there's no forgiving this one, Like this
Speaker 1: is what you can't lose at home to an Indiana
Speaker 1: team that's like fifteen games under five hundred. And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, we learned nothing from that Utah game. Like
Speaker 1: I went back and rewatched that one, discarded everything that
Speaker 1: you know, what's crazy about that Jason, Like there's so
Speaker 1: much in there that work, and there was so much like,
Speaker 1: oh this is real, you know what I mean? And again,
Speaker 1: Stanley's on the ten day, but his you know, archetype fits.
Speaker 1: We should be switching everything, and instead we played Carmelo
Speaker 1: Anthony out there. And I always said, you know, you
Speaker 1: can switch. You can cover for one guy defensively, like
Speaker 1: you can cover from from League Monk, Like you could
Speaker 1: do that if you have all the other guys can switch.
Speaker 1: You want to switch to through five, that's fine. But
Speaker 1: you know we had you know, we had lineups out
Speaker 1: there tonight, Malik Monk, Avery Badly and Carmelo Anthony at
Speaker 1: center next to Stanley Johnson, which completely takes away the
Speaker 1: whole reasoning for small ball, right, Like the whole point
Speaker 1: if you're gonna go small, you have to be sized
Speaker 1: at other positions. That's just the main point if you're
Speaker 1: to go small, And they just took it to the rim,
Speaker 1: you know, and again not to blame Carmel and Anthony,
Speaker 1: because this is kind of unfair to depend it on
Speaker 1: one guy. It's unfair as well to Avery Bradley. He's
Speaker 1: not the one telling, you know, the coach to play him.
Speaker 1: But we just he just doesn't fit into a switching scheme.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think what stands out the most tonight,
Speaker 1: and we're both not people who think plus minus is
Speaker 1: the greatest barometer, right, but Lebron James tonight Lebron was
Speaker 1: eleven for twenty two, played thirty seven minutes in this one.
Speaker 1: Uh he had twelve rebounds, five assists, uh is, three turnovers,
Speaker 1: two steals. He was a minus twenty Jason minus twenty.
Speaker 1: It was Lebron tonight in thirty seven minutes, and he
Speaker 1: had a heck of a game to me, and to
Speaker 1: me it is because the line of that we played
Speaker 1: him with, played him with every Bradley, a bunch of carmelo.
Speaker 1: I just don't understand the mellow at five. And you know,
Speaker 1: the sad part all about this is we played an
Speaker 1: okay game in that first half, Like we played a
Speaker 1: pretty good game. We were up I believe fifteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, our youth just jumps out the page, right,
Speaker 1: It just and I don't get why all like all
Speaker 1: our young guys have to play together or all our
Speaker 1: old guys have to play together, right, like we can
Speaker 1: mix we can kind of mix those, uh mix those together.
Speaker 1: And it's so rigid and like the Devil's Advocate obviously
Speaker 1: is Frank Vogel is a guy that's that wants to
Speaker 1: keep lineups together. Right. It's why even if d White
Speaker 1: Howards was better than DeAndre Jordan's We started DeAndre Jordan
Speaker 1: to kind of keep Dwight hard in that uh, in
Speaker 1: that lineup that he's probably gonna be in if everyone
Speaker 1: was healthy, right, But we're not in position to do that.
Speaker 1: We're five hundred. We need to get wins. We are
Speaker 1: not at a position to be experimenting anymore. We're forty two,
Speaker 1: forty three games into this season. I think we know
Speaker 1: what we have, and I still feel like we're playing
Speaker 1: experimental games here. The mellow at the five lineups have
Speaker 1: been destroyed, like they the numbers say that they've been
Speaker 1: absolutely killed. We went to that way too much, and
Speaker 1: we're just having basketball points of uh points of failure, right,
Speaker 1: and when you go small, you're gonna have a bunch
Speaker 1: of those. But I just feel like we're shooting ourselves
Speaker 1: in the foot man and Indiana just attacked us right
Speaker 1: to the pains. The Bonus got whatever he wanted, a
Speaker 1: bunch of offensive rebounds. We'll get into Russell Westbrook later.
Speaker 1: I think it's shocking that we bench Russell Westbrook tonight.
Speaker 1: I think that's something really interesting. Uh. He didn't play
Speaker 1: for the final four minutes, which is the first the
Speaker 1: first time Frank Vogel. You know sat Russell Westbrook, I
Speaker 1: thought you brought him Leek Monk and Austin Reeves too late.
Speaker 1: Um and again Reeves twenty four minutes. I probably could
Speaker 1: have been higher. I can't complain, but Stanley at sixteen
Speaker 1: is just inexcusable man after the game he just had.
Speaker 1: And you know, I would understand playing Carmelo thirty minutes
Speaker 1: when we had no wings. We have everyone back now, Jason,
Speaker 1: other than Anthony Davis. You have THHD available. You know
Speaker 1: you you have Austin Reavesonville like you can go to
Speaker 1: other lineups and I don't want to blame it just
Speaker 1: on him. This team has a there's a lot of
Speaker 1: other bigger issues here. But you know, the lineups were awful,
Speaker 1: Like there's no forgiving that. And I don't know where
Speaker 1: we go from here. I wouldn't be surprised if we
Speaker 1: wake up with a new coach tomorrow. Like, would you
Speaker 1: know you better get ready for ros You're all season
Speaker 1: all season long've you've been Mr. I'm not there yet
Speaker 1: And I don't blame you because you're you're much more
Speaker 1: reserved than I am. However, like he's gone rog this
Speaker 1: is happening, like this is we we we need to
Speaker 1: enter into the acceptance space here because that was there's
Speaker 1: just no way, there's no way, how how could you
Speaker 1: possibly bring him back after everything that came out this
Speaker 1: week and tea in both parties privately trading jabs through
Speaker 1: through articles and reporters like it's over, it's over, It's over, dude, dude.
Speaker 1: There was a stretch there in the middle. So I tweeted,
Speaker 1: right at the end of the third quarter, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: the fourth the fourth quarter lineup that one year the
Speaker 1: game last week was you know, teach Team Monk Reeves
Speaker 1: and the lebronic Stanley Johnson, So he's obviously going to
Speaker 1: go to that group to start the fourth, right, And no,
Speaker 1: he takes out Stanley Johnson and goes to Carmelo Anthony,
Speaker 1: which is just completely inn mentally changes the athleticism and
Speaker 1: versatility of the lineup and keeping keeping old with old, right,
Speaker 1: like we're just thirty four year olds with like thirty
Speaker 1: six year olds, Like I just don't get that, but
Speaker 1: yet keep going. So then then right around like the
Speaker 1: seven seven and a half minute mark, he takes Carmelo out,
Speaker 1: puts back in Stanley Johnson, but he also brings in
Speaker 1: Avery Bradley ononhe he can't switch, so then he starts
Speaker 1: calling for his same stupid ass drop coverage that he
Speaker 1: likes to use, when literally everything we did against the
Speaker 1: Jazz was switching something. Guys, for all of you who
Speaker 1: are new, we've never listened to us before. ROJ and
Speaker 1: I have been all over this stupid ditch. The bigs
Speaker 1: play five out, but play your bigger wings, switch everything.
Speaker 1: But Frank is obsessive with drop coverage because he's obsessed
Speaker 1: with ball pressure and he's obsessed with chasing ball handlers
Speaker 1: over screens and trying to funnel them to ring protection.
Speaker 1: It's like his fetish. It's the most absurd thing in
Speaker 1: the entire world. And literally, in this game tonight, while
Speaker 1: Carris Lavert is actively on fire, like literally burning alive
Speaker 1: on the court making everything he's throwing up, We're watching
Speaker 1: him run a drop coverage with Stanley Johnson, and I'm
Speaker 1: literally like, that has to be a switch. That has
Speaker 1: to be a switch. As LeVert comfortably walks into a
Speaker 1: sixteen foot or that doesn't even touch the rim, like
Speaker 1: literally it was it was complete malpractice. And then again
Speaker 1: this was. This was thing I pointed out about the
Speaker 1: Jazz game. You know, the start of the starting lineup
Speaker 1: was like minus nine or something in that game, and
Speaker 1: and Lebron and Russell Westbrook made a bunch of pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots. Like literally, if it wasn't for pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots going in with with which with Russ
Speaker 1: is just an absolute disaster, which we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: later in the show. But like, if it wasn't for that,
Speaker 1: it would have been even worse. We probably would have
Speaker 1: lost to the Jazz had Russell Westbrook not made his
Speaker 1: first like three pull up jump shots. And then tonight
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's fool's gold. Yeah, your lineup is
Speaker 1: performing okay with the Reason and Dwight, but it's because
Speaker 1: Russ made three threes. How often is that going to happen?
Speaker 1: Like like like come on, like it's just it's absolutely asinine.
Speaker 1: It's it's the there's an obvious, Like Raj, you consistently
Speaker 1: talked about how there is a good team in here
Speaker 1: somewhere it's at you think you're and I think you're right.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right. But the good version of this team
Speaker 1: is a five out, switch everything modern basketball team. It's
Speaker 1: the l A Clippers, but playing with you know, purple
Speaker 1: and gold on that like the last year, is LA
Speaker 1: Clippers type of identity. And every time we've gone to
Speaker 1: that this year and played hard, we've been good. Every
Speaker 1: time every time we've done that and we've played hard,
Speaker 1: we've been good. And every time we've tried to run
Speaker 1: Frank's traditional schemes and coverages and all of his base
Speaker 1: basketball philosophies that he loves so much, every time we've
Speaker 1: tried to do that with this group, it's failed. And
Speaker 1: once again, one of my biggest pet peeves with coaches,
Speaker 1: and this is just something that I've seen in all
Speaker 1: my time around the game. Coaches that have a belief
Speaker 1: that they imprint on their players almost always failed. Coaches
Speaker 1: that build a belief around their players and their strengths,
Speaker 1: they always succeed. And that has been Frank's biggest problem
Speaker 1: this entire time, is he's so stubborn and so intent
Speaker 1: on trying to get these guys to play his way
Speaker 1: when that's not what they're good at. That this is
Speaker 1: why we are. It's not the only reason why we
Speaker 1: are we are. I want to be clear, there's a
Speaker 1: whole lot of other factors why the Lakers are a
Speaker 1: below five A team right now. But Frank is very
Speaker 1: much a part of that. He's very much a part
Speaker 1: of that. And you know, you talked about the drop
Speaker 1: coverage scheme, and again that's something that Frank Vogel obviously loves.
Speaker 1: And we'll never know how much. You know, starting two
Speaker 1: bigs is Anthony Davis's preference, who's he's been very public
Speaker 1: about that, or is if that's just something Frank Vogel work.
Speaker 1: Frank Bogel likes to do. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: that drop coverage works if you have the personnel to
Speaker 1: do it. The problem to me again, if you have
Speaker 1: Carmelo running Carmelo just naturally right, that's how he plays.
Speaker 1: He's gonna back up. He doesn't have the speed advantage,
Speaker 1: so on any screen, on any screen action that he's
Speaker 1: involved in, he's gonna back up. And he and again
Speaker 1: Trevor Reesa does that as well, but he can switch
Speaker 1: a little bit better. But again, like you're right, Frank
Speaker 1: has to adjust to this team. It's been a slow
Speaker 1: adjustment and to me, like how he feels it is like, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't have my team right, I don't have Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do what I know works, what I've won with. Right, Jason,
Speaker 1: he won a title fifteen months ago with philosophies that
Speaker 1: he's been imprinted with, right that he obviously eaves in
Speaker 1: his his Bible of basketball, like this is how basketball
Speaker 1: should work. Obviously, small ball is something that I don't
Speaker 1: think he really vies in like fully into right, even
Speaker 1: Lebron at center lineup, So obviously I think that's not
Speaker 1: something you would like to do consistently. But it's interesting,
Speaker 1: like you're seeing. And that's why this all kind of
Speaker 1: ties together as well from the beginning of this year,
Speaker 1: because it feels like we've built a roster that, you know,
Speaker 1: goes against everything our coach believes in, and a good
Speaker 1: you know, organization not to attack, you know, because I
Speaker 1: think there's enough fingers the point and everybody that's blamed
Speaker 1: to go around. But usually organization walks in unison, right,
Speaker 1: Like you have a coach and star player and front
Speaker 1: office working and walking in unison, and I feel like
Speaker 1: that's a disconnect that's happened, and you're seeing that struggle
Speaker 1: back and forth. Right. That's why when you see these
Speaker 1: lineups that come out vocals like, Okay, I'm gonna play Carmelo,
Speaker 1: but I'm also gonna keep Avery Bradley out there to
Speaker 1: give me that defensive intensity that I want or you know,
Speaker 1: that baseline level of effort defensively. You know. So you're
Speaker 1: seeing these mixes of like having a foot in each
Speaker 1: kind of side, right, you have a foot in the
Speaker 1: pool and a foot out, and you really haven't decided anything,
Speaker 1: and you're seeing Lebron go berserk to kind of win
Speaker 1: us games. So there's a there's a breaking point here
Speaker 1: that's going to happen. I feel like tonight's the game
Speaker 1: for that. And it stucks again because I know, you know,
Speaker 1: Jason Mabel's tweeted us like, you know, the Utah game
Speaker 1: was fake. But you know, I feel like we did
Speaker 1: find stuff, a little bit of stuff in there that
Speaker 1: you know that could have been Well, we didn't do
Speaker 1: any of the same things that we did in the game,
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. So and again no that, but
Speaker 1: we did though that small ball in that in that
Speaker 1: in that second quarter, that small ball team want got
Speaker 1: us a lead. That's what got us that fifteen point lead.
Speaker 1: Th h T Austin Reeves leek monk that the exerbiance
Speaker 1: experience of youth, right, just jumps off the page. You
Speaker 1: take thirty seven year olds out in a regular January game.
Speaker 1: Who cares how we feel about it, right, it's a
Speaker 1: January game to them. You take them out, you put
Speaker 1: in these twenty year olds who are flying around defensively
Speaker 1: switching everything a good defender in aust rooms Like it
Speaker 1: jumps off the page, and it's just such a stark difference,
Speaker 1: and I get wanting to keep lineups together, like that's
Speaker 1: totally makes sense. A lot of coaches like to do that.
Speaker 1: But we're on a we're on in a position to
Speaker 1: do that, and we're running defense. We're running different defensive
Speaker 1: principles with different lineup, so like we're switching everything with
Speaker 1: this lineup than like one person subs in and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're like, oh, ship, we can't switch
Speaker 1: any everything. Yeah, we gotta changed everything we're doing, and
Speaker 1: it just gets super confusing. And then Indiana, once the
Speaker 1: avalanche came, which we've seen a lot this year, Right,
Speaker 1: once a little avalanche comes, all of a sudden, we're
Speaker 1: like way under all of a sudden, like a five
Speaker 1: point lead that should have been, you know, changed like
Speaker 1: we Jason, I was looking at the third quarter, right,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, we cannot score, like we
Speaker 1: just we cannot score. Seven and a half minutes went by,
Speaker 1: we took a time out. The only substitution was Carmelo.
Speaker 1: Anthony came into the game. I couldn't believe it. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh man, and Indiana continue to push and
Speaker 1: eventually took the lead. So this is super frustrating as
Speaker 1: a guy who's been you know, let's look at process.
Speaker 1: Let's you know, let's try to look at things from
Speaker 1: a when the team is healthy. I want to. I
Speaker 1: don't know how much. Look, Anthony Davis fixes a lot,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of internal issues here that you know,
Speaker 1: you don't just throw Anthony Davids into it and it
Speaker 1: just solves and plugs every hole. Right, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of you know, leaks coming out right now, and Anthony
Speaker 1: Davids will fix a few of them. But we have
Speaker 1: like inner issues that we have to kind of deal with.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the Russell Westbrook thing is a
Speaker 1: whole another one that will definitely we're about to get there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, man, Frank, you know, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if you saw the quote. I'm sure. I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: been tagged in it as well. I think Frank, oh
Speaker 1: you did. Yeah, I'm not even didn't even look up there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Frank Voglan, Benji Russ playing the guys I thought would
Speaker 1: win the game, Like, oh man, that is if that's
Speaker 1: not a locker? First of all, have you heard Frank
Speaker 1: talk like that ever? He's Well, it's because as a
Speaker 1: super diplomatic dude, that is one of the most like,
Speaker 1: forget passive aggressive, that's the most aggressive things I've seen
Speaker 1: him say in the post post presser. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be tough. I don't think you survised this one, honestly,
Speaker 1: And as a guy who's been a Frank not apologist again,
Speaker 1: but as a guy has supported him, as a guy
Speaker 1: who understands the context of the season starting with no wings, right,
Speaker 1: you know, starting with Lebron going out and then a
Speaker 1: d going out, Like, I understand the context, but I
Speaker 1: would totally get the other side as well. If he's gone,
Speaker 1: I just man, the replacement is just my worry, right,
Speaker 1: because if you take him out, you have to put
Speaker 1: someone in. Jason, I don't that's where the that's the
Speaker 1: gray area. To me, you sub a coach in halfway
Speaker 1: through the year, Like, that's again, that's pulling a fire alarm,
Speaker 1: I said, trading Russ is burning the house down, firing
Speaker 1: Frank is pulling the fire alarm. And maybe this team
Speaker 1: needs a fire alarm. But that that's what it would
Speaker 1: be well and that's what's going to happen. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think there's really any precedent for
Speaker 1: bringing somebody completely new to the franchise in in the
Speaker 1: middle of the season, So chances are it's gonna end
Speaker 1: up being Fizdale. And my big thing with Fizdale is like, hey, man, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think you're nearly as schematically competent as Vogel.
Speaker 1: I think I think Vogel is probably the best defensive
Speaker 1: coach in the league. I think he deserves that sort
Speaker 1: of honor, even if he's stubborn in his approach. That
Speaker 1: is his big strength. But he does not he what
Speaker 1: the problem with Frank And this is what Avery Bradley
Speaker 1: is the best example of this. The reason why Avery
Speaker 1: Bradley plays so much despite not being nearly as good
Speaker 1: as some of the other guards off the bench is
Speaker 1: because he is the best at one very specific skill,
Speaker 1: and that's chasing guys over the top of ball screens,
Speaker 1: which is fundamental to Frank's defensive scheme. So that's the
Speaker 1: problem here. He will make his rotation decisions based on that,
Speaker 1: ignoring everything else that's wrong with the situation. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: why do you not switch and Avery Bradley, Stanley Johnson, UH,
Speaker 1: pick and roll with UH, with Sabonis and Lavert? You
Speaker 1: don't switch it because Frank is paranoid about defensive rebounding.
Speaker 1: You know, even though the whole philosophy of small ball
Speaker 1: is like we're gonna give up a few, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be some offensive rebounds in there, but there's a huge
Speaker 1: positive trade off. We're going to force you to play
Speaker 1: isolation basketball all day long. You're gonna have to shoot
Speaker 1: over the top of a contest all day long. There's
Speaker 1: so much good that comes with it, and Frank ignores
Speaker 1: all of that because he'll look at a guy like
Speaker 1: a just a better basketball player like Austin Reeves, and
Speaker 1: he'll be like, hmm, you know, Austin is better at this, this, this, this,
Speaker 1: and this, but you know he's not quite as good
Speaker 1: at chasing over the top of ball screens as Avery Bradley.
Speaker 1: So I gotta go with Avery like that philosophy is
Speaker 1: literally how he dug his own grave here. And I mean,
Speaker 1: and this quote is just the lazy. He's basically the
Speaker 1: dude and the boardroom at that you know in the
Speaker 1: corporate ladder who just gets up and stands on the
Speaker 1: on the table and just peas on the table before
Speaker 1: he says I quit and runs out of the room
Speaker 1: like that's basically what he's doing right now, and as
Speaker 1: he should because you know, like like dude, you're on
Speaker 1: your way out, like it's over. This is this was
Speaker 1: the last straw. Hey, guys, So we ended up if
Speaker 1: for those of you who are in the spaces, we
Speaker 1: had almost four thousand people in the app ended up crashing,
Speaker 1: which was really unfortunate. It crashed right after this Westbrook
Speaker 1: rant that I was about to do. So what I'm
Speaker 1: doing to try to make it work best for the
Speaker 1: podcast because we did restart the spaces and get to
Speaker 1: the rest of the topics, I'm keeping this as part one.
Speaker 1: Part two tomorrow will be Roger and I discussing Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook and then diving back into Frank and doing a
Speaker 1: eulogy on Frank of sorts. But then at the same time,
Speaker 1: the end of the show is us reacting to the
Speaker 1: news that Frank is in fact going to keep his
Speaker 1: job at least for the time being in fly to Orlando.
Speaker 1: So very interesting. Part two coming that will air let's say,
Speaker 1: at five pm Mountain Standard time on Thursday. Thank you
Speaker 1: guys as always for your support. We will see you
Speaker 1: after the game on Friday.