Speaker 1: Welcome to the State of the the Lakers, presented by DASH Radio.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for coming to hang out
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday. Thank you guys for coming to hang
Speaker 1: out in the postgame show last night. We're just gonna
Speaker 1: be really short today. I'm gonna hit on three Lebron
Speaker 1: centric topics. Namely, i'm gonna hit on the Imon Schumpert
Speaker 1: interview that he did recently where he basically said that
Speaker 1: Lebron ruined basketball by going to the Miami Heat back
Speaker 1: in two thousand ten, and and that he knew what
Speaker 1: he was doing and all that stuff. I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: my two cents. I'm gonna talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: how well Lebron has played this year and how much
Speaker 1: I've appreciated his leadership in this really rocky and tumultuous
Speaker 1: stretch from the Lakers, something that I didn't necessarily expect
Speaker 1: from him, but that I've appreciated from him. And then
Speaker 1: last week, you're gonna talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: everything with the Lakers isn't quite as it seems. That
Speaker 1: I know the record looks bad, and I know some
Speaker 1: of the sentiments surrounding the team is bad, but I
Speaker 1: think this team has been a lot better than you
Speaker 1: would think. And I'm gonna dive a little bit into that,
Speaker 1: but let's go ahead and get started with this and
Speaker 1: mon Chumpert thing. So, like I said, Muncheper goes on
Speaker 1: a podcast says that Lebron knew he was going to
Speaker 1: ruin the game by going to Miami, and that that's
Speaker 1: what what he did, and that it basically implying that
Speaker 1: it opened up the door to the player empowerment era
Speaker 1: and to this incessant construction of super teams and and
Speaker 1: and basically blaming Lebron for that whole thing. Now, there
Speaker 1: are a couple of different angles to this that are
Speaker 1: interesting because for starters, I would actually agree that Lebron
Speaker 1: did initiate the player controlled point era of player movement,
Speaker 1: because while there has been player movement in the past,
Speaker 1: and while players did flex their muscles to try to
Speaker 1: force trades to certain places, We've seen that happen with
Speaker 1: Kareem Abdul Jabbar in the past. We've seen that happen
Speaker 1: with Charles bark Lee. We've seen that happen with even
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant not to leave the Lakers, but threatening to
Speaker 1: leave to get them to make a move, and when
Speaker 1: they did the Paal Gasal trade. But in terms of
Speaker 1: a player waiting until free agency, communing behind communicating behind
Speaker 1: the scenes to link up free agency with peers around
Speaker 1: the league that we're top tier stars, and then joining
Speaker 1: together on a team. Yeah, absolutely, Lebron was the one
Speaker 1: who initiated that. However, I want to defend his rationale
Speaker 1: in doing so, because there's a very important difference with
Speaker 1: his situation in any other situation in NBA history. First
Speaker 1: of all, Lebron immediately before he ever put on the
Speaker 1: jersey was facing pressure akin to what you saw from
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's and from Kobe Bryant. After he started to
Speaker 1: get established in the league, he was being compared to
Speaker 1: the Mount Rushmore of basketball players before he ever dribbled
Speaker 1: a basketball in an NBA game, that came with a
Speaker 1: great deal of pressure. And in his specific circumstance, he
Speaker 1: didn't have the same beginning era of his career that
Speaker 1: his peers did. Michael Jordan's had Scottie Pippen coming up
Speaker 1: now while he was struggling to get through the Pistons,
Speaker 1: and while he had some playoff flame outs early on,
Speaker 1: he had this clear and obvious carrot in front of
Speaker 1: him in the form of Scottie Pippen, a guy that
Speaker 1: he had to have known would eventually be one of
Speaker 1: the best players in the NBA. And while they did
Speaker 1: overcome adversity to beat the Pistons, a large part of
Speaker 1: that was Michael and Scotty coming into their physical primes,
Speaker 1: coming into their mental primes, and just becoming a really
Speaker 1: devastating basketball duo that nobody could mess with for the
Speaker 1: better part of a decade. His circumstance was nowhere near
Speaker 1: similar to what Lebron was dealing with with Cleveland. Same
Speaker 1: thing goes for Kobe Bryant. He literally came into the
Speaker 1: league playing alongside arguably the most dominant player in terms
Speaker 1: of their peak in NBA history, so he didn't have
Speaker 1: that same pressure to immediately go chase a championship. He
Speaker 1: already had three, and then, as you saw after, he
Speaker 1: had a few seasons where he struggled to get to
Speaker 1: the playoffs and to have success in the playoffs. He
Speaker 1: literally got onto a Los Angeles radio station and said
Speaker 1: that he wanted to trade and now it turned out
Speaker 1: that that ended up being a pressure play to try
Speaker 1: to get the Lakers to bring in Pau Gassol, and
Speaker 1: they did. But the point is is that everything is
Speaker 1: everybody's a product of their circumstances. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: why Lebron decided to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and to
Speaker 1: join with star level teammates was because he looked at
Speaker 1: the landscape of the league. He saw Kobe Bryant and
Speaker 1: Pau Gasol having a ton of success together. He saw
Speaker 1: Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen having a ton
Speaker 1: of success together. He saw himself play one of the
Speaker 1: best playoff series is we've ever seen an individual player
Speaker 1: play in NBA history against the Orlando Magic and lose
Speaker 1: to a team that didn't even have as much talent
Speaker 1: as the Celtics or the Orlando Magic did. And he
Speaker 1: looked at the situation and he said, I haven't a
Speaker 1: great deal of pressure on me to succeed in this
Speaker 1: organization is not providing it. And so there's a great
Speaker 1: deal of distrust that exists with Lebron and front offices.
Speaker 1: It's lingered throughout his entire career. I think it's a
Speaker 1: big part of why he's done short deals at various
Speaker 1: points throughout his career. He was hard on pat Riley
Speaker 1: when he would pinch pennies. He was obviously upset with
Speaker 1: Dan Gilbert and some of the decisions that he made
Speaker 1: in Cleveland. Lebron has a distrust that he that exists
Speaker 1: between him and front offices that directly stems from what
Speaker 1: they were able to put around him in those first
Speaker 1: seven years. So he goes, I'm gonna take this into
Speaker 1: my own hands. I am going to control my own
Speaker 1: destiny rather than leaving it to some suit sitting in
Speaker 1: the front office. And so he did. And for the record,
Speaker 1: he's won more championships than any franchise in the entire
Speaker 1: NBA has won since he entered into the league. So
Speaker 1: if I'm Lebron, I'm going what I did worked, guys.
Speaker 1: You know, I took my destiny into my own hands
Speaker 1: and it worked. But in terms of criticizing him for
Speaker 1: doing what he did, the reality is that he was
Speaker 1: just reacting to his circumstances. If Lebron James had Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis coming up alongside him in Cleveland a few years
Speaker 1: younger than him that first stint, he never leaves Cleveland.
Speaker 1: That's a simple fact. In this case, he reacted to
Speaker 1: his own circumstances and the pressure that surrounded him, and
Speaker 1: every one of you would do the same thing. If
Speaker 1: you got out of college and you immediately got picked
Speaker 1: up by a great company and there was a great
Speaker 1: deal of pressure on you to succeed at home, you
Speaker 1: would stay with that company because they're serving your needs.
Speaker 1: But if you were working in a place that wasn't
Speaker 1: bringing the best out of you and was hurting what
Speaker 1: you were bringing home, but you knew you were good
Speaker 1: enough that if you went to another situation that you
Speaker 1: would be able to fulfill that you would leave to
Speaker 1: Lebron just took control of his situation. I think it's
Speaker 1: ridiculous to blame him for that. Is there some fallout, Yes,
Speaker 1: because now lots of other players have attempted to do
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know, what Kevin Durant did was
Speaker 1: kind of to another level and is another There's a
Speaker 1: whole other conversation to have. I've often said that one
Speaker 1: of the things that benefited Lebron was the fact that
Speaker 1: that Heat team struggled so much, in large part because
Speaker 1: of Dwayne Wade's physical decline, that Lebron faced enough adversity
Speaker 1: in Miami that people still add a great deal of
Speaker 1: legitimacy to the two titles he won there. I believe
Speaker 1: there's a version of that story where Wade stays healthy
Speaker 1: and they run the league for three or four years
Speaker 1: and he wins three or four championships and they look
Speaker 1: really easy, and people kind of look at him the
Speaker 1: same way they look at Kevin Durant. Kevill Kevin duran
Speaker 1: did is similar to what Lebron did in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, obviously to another extent in terms of talent
Speaker 1: and accumulation. But there was a version of that Lebron
Speaker 1: story in Miami that could have gone a different way.
Speaker 1: I've often said that the best thing that happened to
Speaker 1: Lebron in terms of his individual development as a player
Speaker 1: and in terms of his own legacy was Wade's decline,
Speaker 1: because it forced him to face the realities of his
Speaker 1: own shortcomings and to become a better basketball player, and
Speaker 1: asked it made him struggle to win the championships that
Speaker 1: he won, which inherently gave a whole a whole new
Speaker 1: layer of legitimacy to the titles that he won. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what he mean on Shepherds After with
Speaker 1: that interviewer with that quote, I just vehemently disagree with it,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to have Lebron's back in this case, alright.
Speaker 1: Moving on to the way he's played this season. You know,
Speaker 1: after the game where he elbowed Isaiah Steward in the face,
Speaker 1: I warned like our fans to be prepared for Lebron
Speaker 1: to potentially go down a very dark path, a path
Speaker 1: that I've seen him go to a few times in
Speaker 1: his NBA career, where he very clearly passive, aggressively pouts
Speaker 1: his way through a negative situation until things kind of
Speaker 1: come back around to what he wants. We've seen that
Speaker 1: in a handful of different situations he was kind of
Speaker 1: in terms of his body language. He was checked out
Speaker 1: quite a bit in two thousand four team during that
Speaker 1: Spurs playoff series. That happened again in two thousand ten
Speaker 1: against the Celtics where he had a rough ending to
Speaker 1: that playoff run where his body language was pretty poor.
Speaker 1: And then you see him turn around in a new
Speaker 1: situation like he did with the Heat in two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven or with the kaz in two thousand fifteen, and
Speaker 1: have a renewed sense of invigoration. We even saw that
Speaker 1: in his first year in Cleveland, when he earned excuse me,
Speaker 1: in his second year in Cleveland, when he was frustrated
Speaker 1: with David Blatt. There's a lot of bad basketball from
Speaker 1: Lebron at the beginning part of that season, and then
Speaker 1: David Blatt went out the door, and Lebron re engaged
Speaker 1: and went on one of the best, most dominant stretches
Speaker 1: of basketball we've ever seen from him. This is something
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot in his past two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: the bringing wine to the bench and some of the passive,
Speaker 1: aggressive behaviors that he's shown. He has shown a tendency
Speaker 1: to be a really good leader when things are good,
Speaker 1: but a leader that struggles with his own you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, his own tendencies to the way the way
Speaker 1: he copes his coping mechanisms with bad situations, and the
Speaker 1: negative impacts that can have on a team. Well, I
Speaker 1: thought we might be heading down that route again this year.
Speaker 1: Into Lebron's credit, he's actually done nothing but hit the
Speaker 1: gas since that game. Not necessarily since that particular game,
Speaker 1: but in the in the games following that. I keep
Speaker 1: pointing to that triple overtime lost to Sacramento, but We've
Speaker 1: seen Lebron this season actually get more and more engaged
Speaker 1: as things have gotten worse, and I'm hopeful that Lebron
Speaker 1: has learned his lesson from some of his previous endeavors
Speaker 1: on that front. And it appears to me that this
Speaker 1: is gonna be exactly what we need to float this
Speaker 1: team until they can either one get whole and healthy
Speaker 1: and things will work, or until they can make a
Speaker 1: trader to that better suits what Lebron and a D
Speaker 1: do well on a basketball court. Regardless of how you
Speaker 1: feel about this roster construction, the most important thing is
Speaker 1: Lebron in a D looking like Lebron in a D.
Speaker 1: And right now the Ron looks like Lebron. We're on
Speaker 1: I think about an eleven game stretch here where he's
Speaker 1: averaging twenty eight and I think like twenty eight and
Speaker 1: a half points a game. He's averaging the highest true
Speaker 1: shooting percentage of his Lakers career, the fifth highest of
Speaker 1: his entire career. Lebron is playing amazing basketball right now,
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to give him some credit because
Speaker 1: I was legitimately worried that he was about to head
Speaker 1: down that traditional passive, aggressive Lebron path, and instead, all
Speaker 1: he's done is put his head down and work harder
Speaker 1: and do his best to carry this team. And that's
Speaker 1: not easy to do. It's hard to go out there
Speaker 1: like he did against Phoenix last night and play as
Speaker 1: well as he did knowing he doesn't really have much
Speaker 1: of a chance to win. That is the exact, you know,
Speaker 1: concoction of an environment that would typically bring some of
Speaker 1: the darker parts of Lebron's personality out, and all he's
Speaker 1: done his fight through it. So credit to Lebron. Alright,
Speaker 1: last topic for the day, I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: the Lakers and some of their struggles this season. I
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about this last night, but I
Speaker 1: was a little annoyed by some of the press and
Speaker 1: the sentiments surrounding the Lakers, not just from outside of
Speaker 1: the Laker fan base, but from inside of the Laker
Speaker 1: fan base. After this recent stretch of games. Now, I
Speaker 1: was as frustrated as anybody about the first couple. You know,
Speaker 1: the first month, month and a half of the season,
Speaker 1: the Lakers were playing very uninspired basketball. You were getting
Speaker 1: very poor effort, not just from the stars, but down
Speaker 1: the roster, the lineup decisions that Frank was making made
Speaker 1: little to no sense. We were seeing a lot of Rondo.
Speaker 1: We were seeing Rondo and Westbrook together. We were seeing
Speaker 1: DeAndre Jordan playing with the starters, Lebron and a D.
Speaker 1: Both We're taking a heavy diet of really difficult jump
Speaker 1: shots that didn't make a ton of sense. And what
Speaker 1: you saw was as things got worse and worse and worse,
Speaker 1: eventually that switch flipped. Lebron and a D turned it up.
Speaker 1: They sharpened up their shot selection, They made a greater
Speaker 1: effort to pressure the rim. They played better on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor. It trickled down the roster.
Speaker 1: Frank got rid of some of the poor lineup decisions
Speaker 1: that I just mentioned, and the team started playing better.
Speaker 1: Like I said, over the course of that seven games,
Speaker 1: or excuse me, that ten game stretch before the Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis knee injury, the Lakers were seven and three. They
Speaker 1: were really good on offense, and they were really good
Speaker 1: on defense, and Lebron was playing m VP level basketball,
Speaker 1: considered in the conversation for best player in the world
Speaker 1: level of basketball. Like I said last night, ironically, Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis is the only one that hasn't really quite kicked
Speaker 1: it into high gear yet, particularly on the offensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. But this team was clearly trending in
Speaker 1: the right direction. Like I said, I truly thought they
Speaker 1: were gonna beat Minnesota. In that game, somebody fell into
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis's knee on a very unfortunate play, and then
Speaker 1: a COVID outbreak hit the team, the same COVID outbreak
Speaker 1: that's hit about a third of the league, nearly a
Speaker 1: half of the league at this point. And as a result,
Speaker 1: they've lost three games in a row, one where Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis went down and the team had the life sucked
Speaker 1: out of them, a second one where they showed amazing
Speaker 1: effort on the road in Chicago, missing damn near half
Speaker 1: their team, more than half their team, and they almost
Speaker 1: won if it wasn't for a bunch of crazy clutch
Speaker 1: shots from demarda Rozen that were contested. And then they
Speaker 1: lost to the one of the very best teams in
Speaker 1: this entire league who's full and healthy, in the Phoenix Suns.
Speaker 1: And even in that game, they showed a great deal
Speaker 1: of fight. And so I struggle to understand where a
Speaker 1: lot of this pessimism comes from. Again, and the totality
Speaker 1: of the picture hasn't gone as well as you would
Speaker 1: have hoped, of course not, but this team has clearly
Speaker 1: been trending in the right direction and ben derailed by injuries. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's gonna get ugly over the course of the next month,
Speaker 1: potentially because they're gonna have to try to figure out
Speaker 1: how to win games. Of that, Anthony Davis, But this
Speaker 1: is the last thing I'm gonna say. When push comes
Speaker 1: to shove, when this team ends up in a playoff
Speaker 1: series against somebody, you're going to have to play a
Speaker 1: lineup that's gonna have a front court of Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Trevor Reza in a backcourt of Russell Westbrook,
Speaker 1: and a role playing of their role player of their
Speaker 1: choosing either a guy who can do well on the
Speaker 1: defensive end like Austin Reeves or a th t or
Speaker 1: an elite shooter someone like Malik Monk or Wayne Ellington.
Speaker 1: They are going to be a royal pain in the
Speaker 1: ask to beating those environments, and chances are in those
Speaker 1: settings they're gonna have the two best players on the floor,
Speaker 1: and at least the best player on the floor. When
Speaker 1: we're looking at Lebron so all I'm saying is it
Speaker 1: could be a hell of a lot worse. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of teams out there that don't even have
Speaker 1: nearly the same ceiling that this team has. Yes, they
Speaker 1: struggled to start the season, but they had fixed a
Speaker 1: lot of their problems. They were clearly trending in the
Speaker 1: right direction, and they have still a ton of room
Speaker 1: to grow. And the last that I'll leave you with
Speaker 1: is that the Lakers have been outscoring teams by almost
Speaker 1: eleven points per one hundred possessions when Lebron a d
Speaker 1: and Russell Westbrook on the floor, without DeAndre Jordan and
Speaker 1: Dwight Howard. And that's with all of the sloppy habits,
Speaker 1: that's with Leron and Anthony Davis struggling to start the season,
Speaker 1: that's with rust being horrible to start the season, that's
Speaker 1: with all of the issues that we've seen throughout the season,
Speaker 1: those lineups have still performed that well. This team is
Speaker 1: massively trending in the right direction. There's a bright future
Speaker 1: here as long as a few things break their way.
Speaker 1: It's not all doom and glue. And they have a
Speaker 1: couple of trades to make I know, everyone jumps on
Speaker 1: th h T after a rough game last night. But
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is teams around the league
Speaker 1: do value him. Why because he can guard, and he's
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, and he's super strong, and he's
Speaker 1: got a great set of physical tools, and he projects
Speaker 1: to be a good shooter one day. He's showing all
Speaker 1: of the signs that we look for at with young
Speaker 1: players and whether or not they'll be a good shooter.
Speaker 1: I think this team is sitting as good as it
Speaker 1: could under a really, really tough set of circumstances. And
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is it's one of the
Speaker 1: silver linings here is the injuries, particularly to Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: have forced the Lakers to lean into small ball, which
Speaker 1: is something that I have repeatedly said is their true
Speaker 1: identity and something that I think Anthony Davis easily plugs
Speaker 1: back into. So I'm gonna continue to stay positive. People
Speaker 1: ask me today on Twitter, when will you give up
Speaker 1: on the Lakers. I will give up on the Lakers
Speaker 1: the same way I gave up on them last year.
Speaker 1: When Lebron or Anthony Davis can't finish a playoff game,
Speaker 1: that's when I'll give up on the Lakers. Before that,
Speaker 1: it's all wishful thinking the Lakers when Lebron and a
Speaker 1: d play suit up, when damn you are all their games. Okay,
Speaker 1: they lost more than usual this year for a bunch
Speaker 1: of different reasons, but it was early in the season
Speaker 1: with a bunch of new fit and a bunch of
Speaker 1: new role players. You and I both know all of you,
Speaker 1: and I know that when push comes to show, just
Speaker 1: like last year against Phoenix, when Lebron and Nadi are
Speaker 1: on the floor and they are unhealthy and they are engaged,
Speaker 1: they are a royal pain in the has to beat.
Speaker 1: And every other team in the West and every other
Speaker 1: team in the NBA knows it. All right, That's all
Speaker 1: I have for tonight, guys. This will be posting here
Speaker 1: on This will air on DASH Radio tomorrow morning at
Speaker 1: seven am Pacific Standard time. It will be on the
Speaker 1: podcast speed shortly. Thanks as always for your support, and
Speaker 1: we'll see you for the postgame show tomorrow night.