156. How the Bucks exposed the Lakers' shortcomings

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a good start to your week. That was a good old fashioned butt kicking. And you know there there are a million things for us to get into in terms of how something like this could go this wrong. To me, the story, the overtop story for this type of butt kicking is the obvious difference in talent between the two teams. You know, I trust Lebron James and I trust Anthony Davis to hank height with any duo in the league. I personally think Lebron is still better than Janice at

this point in his career. Some people disagree with me, but regardless the duo of Lebron James and Anthony Davis, you should feel comfortable with that matchup against any duo in the league, including Janice and Chris Middleton, or Kevin Durant and James Harden, or Steph Curry and Draymond Green, or any duo that you run into. That's how good Anthony Davis is. And obviously we all know how good Lebron James is. But you know what stood out to

me so much as I was watching that game. As you go down the rest of the roster, there's a massive difference between the two teams. You know, you get to Drew Holiday, and Drew Holiday is many, many times better than Russell Westbrook. It's kind of insulting to even include Russell Westbrook's name in a conversation with Drew Holiday. That's how much of a chasm exists between those two guys.

And then you look at the front court and you're looking at Bobby Portis and he's not even their starting center. He's a fill in for Brook Lopez because he's hurt, and he's significantly better than Dwight Howard or JaVale McGee or Carmelo Anthony or anybody else that the Lakers use

to fill in those front court minutes. Then you start looking on the wing, and the Lakers have some interesting wings, right, Like Malik Monk has been a win for the front office this offseason, but he's kind of like a one way player. He gives away a lot of what he gets on the offensive end on the defensive end of the floor. And you know, and you've got these young, exciting players like Stanley Johnson and Austin Reeves, but the reality is is Pat Conaton and Grayson Allen, Dante DiVincenzo,

those are better two way players. They're bigger and more athletic, and they can actually fulfill their responsibilities on the defensive end. They're good at doing what the Bucks need them to do on offense. I mean, Grayson Allen went on like a solo run there in the first half, or he's getting into the lane, making floaters, finishing around the basket. There's a huge difference in the talent level down the roster, and that's where the Russell Westbrook trade becomes such a disaster.

And I'm not even talking about Russ as a player, but just the the talent that was lost as part of that deal, because the Lakers used to have those guys. They used to have, you know, k c p like a really good two way guard at the shooting guard position, great lock and trail defender, awesome attacking closeouts, hit a ton of big shots for the Lakers in the bubble, can hold his own in isolation possessions as a defender.

You looked at Kyle Kuzma, just this huge forward who towards the end of his Lakers tenure, had become a great defensive player and a great rebounder who also had the ability on not just on nights when a star was out to lean on him significantly offensively, but he could have huge scoring nights alongside Lebron and n a a D and then Alex Caruso, Like, we're looking at this Laker trade deadline and you're sitting there thinking, man, we would love to have a swing guard slash forward that's

between six five and six eight who can guard everybody and can at least hold their own on the offensive end of the floor. That was Alex Caruso. That's what he brought to this team. And the unfortunate thing there is, you know, there's a debate there would you rather have quality role players or a superstar? We talked about that last night with James Harden and I was talking about how you have to cash those things in for James Harden.

When we got to the two thousand nineteen offseason and you were thinking about, hey, do we want Kawhi Leonard or do we want all these role players? It was obvious that you wanted Kawhi Leonard because that's Kauai freaking Leonard, Like, obviously he's gonna be able to do so much on the court that it's going to justify what you're trading off in that deal. And this Russell Westbrook trade completely

gutted this roster of talent. You know, the Alex Cruso thing is commonly portrayed is just a budget you know, non signing, like let him go to save money on the salary on the luxury tax. But as we know now, if you look at the totality of everything surrounding the Russell Westbrook trade, they brought in so much salary in the form of Russ's forty plus million dollar salary that that was a big part of why they had to

let Alex Caruso go. And it's really unfortunate because now the task that lays in front of the Lakers is significantly more difficult. Can the Lakers win without as much talent as their opponent, Yeah, that happens in NBA history, but it requires that your stars are significantly better than what's on the other team. You cannot overcome that type of talent advantage unless your stars are just absolute world beaters.

And now that's what they need to be, you know, regardless of what happens at this deadline, whether or not they can get a legitimate wing to put along the side of them, or multiple wings, no matter what we know now looking at this team juxtaposed with the teams towards the top, that Lebron and Anthony Davis are going to have to put on a performance for the Ages in order for this team to have any legitimate chance to win the title. And that's unfortunate because this was

self inflicted. You know, here in a minute, we're gonna talk a little bit about why the Bucks are so much better, not just in terms of talent, just in what they do functionally as a basketball team, But a huge part of it is continuity. You know, the core pieces of the Bucks are still there from years ago, and so there's a culture that exists and that permeates down the roster to everybody, and even the new guys

that come in kind of take on that culture. The Lakers won a championship in twenty and basically turned over the entire roster, you know, so much so that it doesn't even it's not even recognizable compared to the identity and the types of personalities and the types of competitive nature that was on that team. Think about how crazy that is that you could have a Lebron James and Anthony Davis team that is still Lebron James and Anthony Davis team, but just a year and a half removed

and completely and utterly different. Because of how much you swapped out around them. And it's funny because there's a classics saying you don't fix something that isn't broke, and the Lakers fixed something that wasn't broke, and in the process trashed their best chance to make another run with Lebron James and Anthony Davis. It's really unfortunate. Now the question becomes, how do you move forward from here? Right because you don't want to have a defeatedst attitude, certainly

not within the locker room. You can't just be like, well the Bucks are better, We're gonna lose all the Sons are better, we can't compete with them. My, we'll just call it. So I look at it from two fronts. The first front is the trade deadline. Obviously, you have to find a way to slot guys better. Right now, the Lakers third best players probably Molik Monk or Russell Westbrook, depending on who you ask. You need to get somebody better than those guys into one of those slots so

that you slot everybody down. You know, you want you want your role players to compete, be competing with the lesser role players on the other team, and the best way to do that is to bring in just two or three good NBA starter level wings that can come in and move guys down the roster. That may not even be possible. That's how dire this situation is. But that has to be the goal throughout the next week.

Find some way to bring a little bit more talent in so that you don't have a situation like what you had tonight against the Bucks. The other half of it is just simply becoming better at basketball. And I'm not talking about skills or talent. I'm talking about the things that basket ball teams do to win games. So, for instance, Milwaukee, you watch them tonight. They flow in and out of their offense so easily. It just looks natural. It looks like they've been playing together forever. The actions

that they run are all crisp and quick. They run them early in the shot clock. They don't find themselves in late clock situations where some guy has to isolates. Very organized. Then you look on the defensive end of the floor and they're always in the right spot. Their rotations are sharp. They were doing a lot of switching early in the game, which is super interesting because it's

not something that this team used to do. But The Milwaukee Bucks are an extremely well run, extremely well coached basketball team that has amazing habits, that plays the right way on a night in and night out basis, they don't have effort issues. Then you look over at the Lakers and it's the exact opposite. They've struggled with effort

throughout this entire season. To start the game again tonight after they got absolutely destroyed by the New York Knicks and transition and off to an eleven zero start again tonight, they weren't getting back in transition to start the game. That's just effort. That's guy's just not running. That's guy's just not communicating with each other about who their matchup is or where they're supposed to be on the floor.

This is not a discipline team. They're running a switching scheme a lot with their guys, similar to what Milwaukee's doing, but it looks sloppy. They lose guys all the time. When they do get switched onto a bier guy, they don't try to get in front and box out. They just kind of stand behind the guy and watch him get an offensive rebound and put it back. All of those little details within the Lakers are broken. So the second part of this, aside from talent, Obviously, Rob Polinka

has a job here. Rob Polinka's job is to try to bolster the talent on the roster. But for the Lake, for the for the guys in the locker room, they have to establish championship habits. And I can't believe I'm still saying this after fifty something games, but for whatever reason, that urgency just hasn't clicked with this group. Now. I

have my theories about that. As I've said many times on the show before, I just don't think this concoction of players makes a ton of sense, not not in terms of their personalities, just in terms of what they do on the court. There's not the right mix for these guys to really buy into his scheme and try to execute it on a daily basis. But something has to be done on that front. Because the Lakers have fought injury problems all season. There have been issues with

guys in and out of the lineups. You can it's hard to point at the standings and just say, oh, this team sucks. When Lebron's missed as many games as he has, Anthony Davis has missed as many games as he has. If I remember correctly, this is just the eighteen game this season that Lebron and Anthony Davis both played, So there's some excuses on that front. But now you have your guys, the excuses are gone. Obviously, you'd like to tune up a little bit with some talent, but

more or less, this is the core. In the big moments, It's probably gonna be Lebron and a d Russ, Probably Malik Monk is gonna be out there. It's gonna be a Stanley Johnson or Trevor Rees or maybe one other wing. But this group of guys has to figure out how to develop those same habits that Milwaukee has, and it starts with a night like tonight, like you fight back. I've been sick of the fake comebacks with this Laker team.

It's like that that stupid Russell Westbrook meme with the calendar that talks about how he's the worst player of all time, and then he's the best player of all time, and then it's the you know, the dead face at

the end. That's kind of been the Lakers story for within games all season long, starting off horrible, then having this crazy fake come back, and then it all falling apart at the end, but at least in that comeback, the Lakers can have some semblance of something to cling to, as like, Hey, here are the habits that we have to build. This is the way we have to come out to start the next game. For instance. I don't think it's a coincidence that these stupid fake comebacks keep

happening with the young guys. That always happened with Reeves, John sin In Monk Hey read read the room, Frank. Maybe that is your group that needs to start the game so that you can set that tone from the start and give your team that best chance to feel confident about themselves. The confidence was a huge issue tonight, Like like I pointed out earlier, the Bucks are not is That was the bucks very best punch. Now the Lakers best punch might not even be enough in any setting.

We don't know that yet. Depth that definitely was not the Lakers best punch. They are not this bad compared to this team, but that's what they looked like tonight because the confidence wasn't there. Milwaukee came in playing extraordinarily confident, and everybody on the Lakers looked scared, except for maybe Lebron,

James and Austin Reeves on the entire roster. And so you have to establish those habits and get in a good groove so that you approached those games and you're the confident team and maybe you can swing that pendulum in your favor so that you can throw your best punch and maybe they don't. Oh there's and you have a chance to get a win. That's how you can be the team that has more talent than you. So that's that needs to be the goal as we go down this game stretch. Guys are healthy, guys are in

the lineup. Have to start building out those habits, have to start mastering whatever Frank's scheme is that he chooses to use with this group of players, which has changed half dozen times this year. But hey, now you've got all your guys, now is the time to figure it out. For those of you guys who are just joining us. This is Lakers Tonight, presented by Fan Duel here on the volume. We were just talking a little bit about,

you know, the talent differential between these teams. The one other thing I wanted to hit on from this specific game was the interesting reality of the Anthony Davis conundrum. You know, Janice takes this matchup super personally, and I think we can all guess why. After the Bubble, Anthony Davis was claimed by my including myself, to be better

than Janice. Now, part of the reason why that opinion looks so ludicrous in retrospect has to do with Anthony Davis's decline more than it does with the opinion itself. In the Bubble, guys, Janice looked helpless getting gentlemen swept by the Miami Heat the only game they wanted that series. Jhannae sat and watched with his brand ankle. That's how bad he looked in that series. And in the same

playoff run, Anthony Davis dusted everybody. Okay, you had one of the most dominant defensive playoff runs that we've ever seen and then shot like Kevin Durant out of the high post. So that's why that was said. Now in retrospect, it looks really foolish. Now we know in retrospect like a lot of that had to do with Lebron James, A lot of that had to do with some uncharacteristic hot shooting, and Janice has gotten much better since that that's the real reason why that is the way that

it is. But for whatever reason, Janice takes this matchup super personally, and every time he looks eye to eye with Anthony Davis, he tries to end him. And I think there's an interesting dilemma there because Anthony Davis has

some limitations in these types of matchups. It really dawned on me in the Miami Heat series in the Bubble in so Portlands, Houston, and Denver, the three teams that the Lakers played on their way to the championship, all three of those teams were limited in the front court defensively right like it's Nurkics. The Rockets didn't even play

a center. And then Nicola Yokich, although he's turned himself into a decent drop coverage big at this point in his career in the Bubble, he's not that great of a defensive player and he certainly doesn't hang well with with Anthony Davis on an island guarding him in isolation. So he thrived in those settings. But then he ran into Bama to Bio, and then he ran into an extremely athletic Miami Heat team and almost immediately in that series, those post up touches that he was getting, we're only

resulting in jump shots. He wasn't able to get a step on Bam or any of the other wings that Miami put on Anthony Davis. And I paid close attention to Anthony Davis in that series, and most of his success around the rim came as a rollman or as an offensive rebounder. And it's just the unfortunate reality of Anthony Davis's physical limitations. And I know that sounds crazy to say, because the dude is freakishly tall and way more mobile than most bigs, and that's why he's one

of the best defensive players in the league. But the reality is, if you have a quick, strong forward sitting right in front of Anthony Davis that can slide his feet, he's not really quick with that first step, and so as a result, when those big athletic forwards really man up on him, he can't do anything but take a jump shot. He doesn't have that ability to get around them, which is why he never became a perimeter initiator for

a big who dribbles as well as he does. What makes Janice so much better or than Anthony Davis is he is capable of being a perimeter initiator. What makes Johanna is capable of being a perimeter initiator is that he can dribble and shoot like Anthony Davis can, but he also has an incredibly quick first step, so he can stare a guy face to face and do a quick move and get by him, which is something that Anthony Davis has always struggled with unless he's going up

against a plotting, slow footed center. Now, Joanna says a million other things that make him better. He's got an incredible motor. He came out and attacked this game from the start, like just truly tried to end Anthony Davis. We that you don't see that type of aggression out of Anthony Davis very often. He's a little bit more of a mild mannered guy, tends to kind of go with the energy of the team rather than kind of generating his own energy. That's another big part of what

Janice brings to the table. And it's funny because as Johannis has developed and as Anthony Davis has declined in recent years as a jump shooter, you and with just his motor and just what he brings on a night night to Night basis. Now there's a comically large gap between those two guys, and it is kind of insulting to even consider Anthony Davis as one of Janice's peers.

But that's you know, that's that's something that's gonna be a problem in any matchup because in that Miami Heat series, that's part of the reason why Ron had such a good series and that I think he averaged thirty on shooting. They relied on him a ton in that series. Because Miami did such a good job of shutting Anthony Davis down, that limitation doesn't go away. That's going to continue to be the case. What Anthony Davis almost becomes, He's still

very good. I want to be clear, I'm not trying to say that he's, you know, in addict, like completely incapable of impacting the game. What I'm saying is he becomes more of like a Rudy Gobert with a pretty decent jump shot. Is basically what Anthony Davis becomes in

those settings. Dominant offensive rebounder, dominant defensive player. He can screen and roll to the rim and finish above the in but he just doesn't have as much just a lot of his polish gets neutralized by having those big, strong athletic forwards that can slide their feet and stay in front of him. That's a limitation there. So that puts a lot more on Lebron. Now you end up in that kind of playoff series, you're depending on a thirty seven year old Lebron to be unbelievably amazing as

that perimeter initiator. But again, uh much props to Janice. That was he came in with a mission to end the Los Angeles Lakers tonight and he very much pulled that off, at least in whatever metaphorical sense that you can think. So the next question becomes who needs to make a move more? Who's more desperate a team like the Brooklyn Nets in their situation or a team like the Lakers, who obviously have a very different circumstance but

of equally floundering. Both teams are in the play in Now both teams are They were literally coming into the season the two favorites to win the championship, and their way below where they were expected to be. And I think this answer is very obviously the Lakers. The Lakers have a clear talent disadvantage and a lot of these matchups down the roster, and they absolutely must bolster the middle of their roster to have any chance to compete

with any of these teams. When I look at Brooklyn, they're they have health issues, but generally speaking, if Kevin Durant comes back at some time before the playoffs, if Joe Harris can come back at some time before the playoffs, and if Kyrie Irving can even just play in road games, we already know what that formula looks like, and we know that formula works in a playoff setting. They got a lot of wins last year and we're on their way to winning the title before the Kyrie Irving ankle

injury and before the James Hardened hamstring injury. So the answer is very clearly the Lakers. They are the most desperate team here. They are the team that has no choice but to try to improve, and they also don't have the long window that the Nets have. Kevin Durant's younger. You know, James Harden is younger, Kyrie Irving is younger, Lebron is thirty seven years old, Anthony Davis is injury prone. There's a lot of issues there that shortened that window.

The Lakers are absolutely the more desperate team between those two. Thanks again for coming to hang out, guys. This is Lakers Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume. The last thing I wanted to hit before we got out of here tonight was this, uh the trades that happened today, and I wanted to start with the c J McCollum trade. So I've always been a huge fantasy Jim McCollum in

his game. I think his skill set, that three levels scoring from the perimeter, that real three level scoring, that ability to create your own shot against the top tier defenders is easily the most valuable skill that you could get from the guard position right there. Now, everyone points to Portland's and how much they've struggled, and they use that as the lens with which to basically minimize what

c Jim McCollum has done in his career. And don't get me wrong, c J McCollum has limit patians, Like, if you're depending on him to be one of the talent focal points of your roster, then sure his shortcomings become more meaningful. But Portland's never supplied damon c J with the type of front court defensive talent that they needed in order for those two guys to stay purely focused on what they do best, which would be one of the best offensive backcourts in the league. And that's

why that group never really reached their potential. I Obviously New Orleans has the same problem, but in theory, brandon Ingram is very capable of being a good defensive player, and if they could just find some kind of front court talent to put along those guys that can defend, that's when you start to get really excited because one of Zion's shortcomings, as good as he is as a wrecking ball around the basket, creating his own shot, is just like with your honest when you really pack the

paint and you make things difficult and you take away the easy stuff, some of his skill limitations start to show up. And that's where having a guy like Brandon Ingram and a guy like CJ. McCollum gets super exciting in the sense that you have that surgical approach that's very different than the sledgehammer approach that Ian Williamson comes with.

Not to mention part of the reason why brandon Ingram has struggled so much defensively is his offensive role has been so large since he left l A. He had a great defensive season in two thousand nineteen before the Lakers traded him, but it was because he was alongside Lebron James. It was because he had a smaller offensive role and he could devote resources in that direction. C J McCollum helps with that. Poor New Orleans has been

playing with young guards all season. Getting a savvy veteran guard that can come in and take the keys to the offense for extended stretches gives brandon Ingram the ability to devote his resources to the defensive end, have more possessions where he's a spot up player instead of an initiator. It's just better for him in general. I'm very high on Brandon Ingram, and I always have been, so I like to see J. McCollum move as a really good move in the direction of the Pelicans building a viable

contending team around Zion. They just have to find some defensive talent to bolster things in the front court, and then lastly, really quickly on this Indiana Pacers trade. So the the obvious overreaction from Twitter today is that the Kings are a total dumpster fire. They got rid of Tyley's how Tyrese Haliburton, why didn't they send off Deer and Fox? They're just a team in mediocrity. What are they doing now? In general, I think people have outrageous

expectations for what these small market teams can do. Hey, guess what, guys. They don't have the ability to do the to make the signings and to make the trades that some of these bigger markets can do. They're limited in what they can do. And the reality is is the King's got the best player in the trade. Demonisa Bonis would say what you want to say about him. He's not my favorite player, but he is certainly a

lot better than anybody they sent out. And what always happens in these kinds of setting is there's like this weird hipster crowd that kind of gathers around one player and elevates him to something bigger than what he is. I like Tyrese Halliburton's game. He's fine. He's not a franchise cornerstone. I'm sorry, Like I I don't think that's an insult, it's just a reality. He's a decent two guard in the NBA who shoots the ball well, play makes really well, low turnovers. He's a solid two guard.

He was not a franchise cornerstone. If I'm a Sacramento fan, I can look at this now and I can go, hey, I got Dear and Fox, I got Demonest Sabonis, and most importantly, I stirred things up. Like I talked about earlier with the Lakers, this basketball chemistry thing is a real thing that ability to for just an assortment of players.

It's the it's the concept of the sum versus the parts, right, and in this case, just swapping out a bunch of bodies and bringing in new guys, you roll the dice a little bit and you give yourself a chance to

have a better group that fits better. And so from that same point, for both teams, whether I'm looking at this a Sacramento or Indiana, these were two bad teams that both have showed flashes of potential in recent years that never really materialized, and they're just smartly understanding there at the end of that window and they needed to mix something up. So I didn't have a problem with it from both sides. Alright, guys, that's all we have

for tonight. We're gonna be off tomorrow night, although the Lakers will be playing on the road in Houston. We will have a show immediately after the trade deadline on Thursday, so hang tight for that and if anything really crazy happens, we're gonna try our best to drop whatever we're doing and get something out. As always, I appreciate your guys support and I will see you in a couple of days. The Volume