162. The Lakers Media War continues

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be back. I love skiing. It's my second favorite thing to do in the world, behind basketball, and I think Breckinridge might be my favorite place to do it. It's got the best combination of a cool little town to hang out with your friends when you're not skiing, and a great mountain that's got everything that you could want as a skier. And most importantly, they're both right next to each other so you don't have to travel from the town to the skier's order back or whatever. But

you know, I had a good time. I'm excited to be back, and I came back to the house being on fire. And I'm talking about my house. I'm talking about the Lakers House. As this incredible saga of drama continues, the latest drama is a story from Mark Stein that appears to be yet the latest, yet another mouthpiece for one of the parties involved in all of this drama. We had a couple of very interesting quote and I'll

read them to you guys really quickly. Here, Rob Polinka, this is from Mark Stein has the unwavering support of Lakers owner Genie Buss and is firmly entrenched as a pillar of the club's four pronged brain trust, alongside Bus and the power couple of Kurt and Linda Rambis end quote. Not only does that confirm the suspicions we discussed on the pod last week about the fact that Genie is leaning on Rob and on Kurt Rambis and on Magic Johnson as she navigates her way through this. That's a

vote of confidence. That's her saying that she's on Rob's side in all of this, which I thought was really interesting. Mark Stein went on to say, this is an organization that has cut ties completely with Lakers icon Jerry West, who has a legit claim to the to be the greatest Laker ever. When you combine his playing achievements with his front office work, James and Agent, it's Paul. For all of the perceived control they wield, are still outsiders

when it comes to the Lakers power dynamics. If West can be cut off, rest assured, Lebron can too, if he can no longer lift the Lakers out of mediocrity. End quote. Yet another very very pointed statement, basically saying, Hey, listen, buddy, if I'm choosing between the Lakers and you, I'm choosing the Lakers. That's the message that Genie is sending to Lebron there. And I think it's very interesting because, you know, as we've discussed a lot over the course of the

last couple of weeks, this is an incredible disaster. I tweeted this morning, this is one of the worst examples of roster building in the history of the NBA. The stat that I used to demonstrate that is that this year's Lakers team with Lebron and Anthony Davis on the floor together by net rating, has underperformed relative to last year's Lakers team with Lebron and a D off the floor. So last year's Lakers no Lebron and a D better than this year's Lakers with Lebron in a D. Think

about how difficult that would be to pull off. Think about how bad you have to be around those two for that to be the result. And like we've said, everyone's guilty. It requires dozens of things to go wrong for that to be the case, and everyone's to blame. Genie Busses to blame for constantly, constantly relying on what's familiar to her familiar to her instead of putting people in charge and seeking out people who are qualified for

the job. She's also not as rich as other owners and certainly not as willing to spend, which for this particular Lakers team is a big problem. We went step by step through everything Rob Polinka has done wrong in the last couple of years to short change what this team was capable of, and then Lebron and Clutch they flat out missed on Russell Westbrook. They were the ones who pushed for him. It was a disaster before it happened, it was a disaster as it was happening. It's still

a disaster now. Everybody knew that going in, They pushed for it. They are responsible for that. So everyone's guilty. And so what you're seeing now is a classic case of trying to control the narrative, which is one of the most important aspects to sports history. As stupid as that is, because for whatever reason, we allow the narrative to change the way we remember things in sports history. Lebron wants you to look back at this season as

Genie and Rob's fault. Robin, Genie, I want you guys to look back at this season and think of it as Lebron and Clutch sports fault, and they are trying to control that, and it works. Look at the two thousand seventeen finals. You're probably in one of two camps. You either think Kevin Durant outplayed Lebron James head to head, or you think two basketball teams played each other. One team had way more talent, and the one team that

had way more talent easily one. That's the way you would look at it, right if you watched those games, and you saw what happened. There was an attempt to establish a narrative that Kevin Durant Lebron were playing one on one in that series. And so if you buy into that, that's the way you remember the two thousand seventeen finals. That's how powerful these narratives can be. That's

why Lebron's playing this game. That's why Rich Paul called Stephen A. Smith the other day to say, hey, go on first take and tell, tell, tell everybody that Rob Plinka was lying. That's why Genie Buss is going to Mark Stein and attempting to change the way that we view about the view this season. Now, the question becomes, is this all posh suring or we headed towards some kind of blow up here? Because I like to think

that Lebron has no intention of leaving the Lakers. That's just what anybody's paying attention to this to the situation would tell you, right. Lebron loves it there. He loves being in l a, He loves being around all the other celebrities. He loves rolling up to Sierra Canyon games to watch his kids play and doing all of the things that he does when he shows up to those games. He loves everything about Los Angeles. He loves being a Laker, he loves the history, he loves putting on that jersey,

he loves playing in Staples Center. And when I was recording that video, when I was on the trip, that was where my brain first went. There's no way Lebron wants to leave. There's no way. But things are getting nastier, and that makes me wonder. It makes me wonder if this is heading to some sort of breakup. Because the truth of the matter is is I think Genie and Robber a little bit sick of Lebron and Clutch, and Lebron has made it very clear that he's sick of them.

But I think what Lebron would prefer, it's just to regain the power in the situation. He's trying to a lot of this aside from the narrative, is him trying to take back power? You know, Lebron tried to manipulate the Lakers into making a bunch of trades at the deadline through the media. Yeah, it's straight up went to a press conference and said, we're not good enough to beat the Bucks, and we can't beat good enough to

beat the Milwaukee Bucks as currently constructed. He sent very pointed messages and he got rejected, and that just doesn't happen a lot in Lebron's career, and I think he I think he immediately reactionary, in a very reactionary way, tried to take back control. And so the way that looks for Lebron is we get to this summer and the Lakers have some assets, right, they have Tailor, and they have these two first round picks. I think Lebron wants all those sent out to retool the roster around

these guys and make another run at it. But it's now in question whether or not Rob and Genie would be willing to do so, and they wouldn't be the first to do so. In the summer of two thousand seventeen, after Kyrie demanded a trade, Lebron asked the entire Calves organization in the front office to trade that first round pick. The Colin set the Collin Sexton pick to try to bring in Paul George or some star to come play with it. And Dan Gilbert looked at him and said, okay, fine, resign,

resign with me, and I'll do this trade. And Lebron said no because obviously he wanted to go to the Lakers and he didn't get what he wanted, and that could happen again this summer. Lebron is one year left on his contract after the Sea is in and he has no doesn't ever player option. I don't even think he has a no trade clause in that contract. In that contract, he doesn't have any real controller leverage here.

Actually Robin Genie do, And so what I think, if there's one angle that Lebron needs to play here, it's the fact that this team can't win without him right now. They don't have They already mortgaged much of their future for Anthony Davis, and in the years leading up to this, they struggled. That's the angle Lebron needs to be playing.

The angle Lebron needs to be playing is you can't win unless you have me, And we can't win with the first and a twenty one year old guard who's way behind in his development relative to what the Lakers

need from him in this moment. So I think the most likely scenario is that Lebron leverages that and attempts to get Robin Genie to put all the chips in the middle to cash in, because that what are we even trying to do here if we're not trying to win a championship, especially if you're the Los Angeles Lakers. You don't get participation trophies with the Lakers. Not when

there's seventeen banners on the wall. This is an entirely different standard that they're operating under, and so clinging to assets, having one foot in the moment and one foot in the future, that's not the way to do it. That's going to piss off a lot of Laker fans. That's not up to the standard of the franchise. And I don't know what the pathway out of this is because the truth of the matter is is Genie, as you can tell from this mark Stein story, she's son knowing.

She's obstinate, she's stubborn, she's very, very under the impression that they are in the right here, and so is Lebron. So we're coming to a head, you know. And Lebron can make comments like I might go back to Cleveland one day, not for sure, but maybe I will. You know, he can say that kind of stuff all he wants. I'm not even sure. Clearly, move on him if Lebron wanted to go back to Cleveland, he would have to take on a different approach than he has with his

Lakers team. The Lebron process is chaotic. We've talked a lot about that over the years on this spot. When he when he shows up, you win, You're gonna get a championship. But the process is unbelieve. You're gonna send out a bunch of assets, You're gonna mortgage the future. There's gonna be drama, there's gonna be conflict, there's gonna

be passive aggressiveness. That's all part of the journey. And we're at that part of the journey right now with the Lakers, and obviously, because they're not winning, it doesn't seem like it's worth it. The Calves have a nice organic core that they've built with really good young players, and make no mistake, if they got Lebron, they'd be

a bona fide championship contender. If you could put Darius Garland next to Lebron James with that incredible Alan Mobile front court, they would be extremely difficult to beat, especially if they got some veteran role players in there, especially with Kevin Love coming off the bench. But what what What in the world makes you think if you're a Cass fan, that you want to take on that Lebron chaos when everything with the team is going so smoothly right now. So that's the one angle with this, that

Lebron has gotta be careful with your thirty seven. Now, you're gonna be thirty eight next season. The Lakers are willing to put up with you. I'm not sure that some of these other young cores that you see out there are willing to put up with you. So that's the that's the other side of this that gets interesting. My prediction is that Lebron stays in l A. My prediction is that they ship off all the assets this summer and that they try to retool around Lebron in

a d next year. But there's some bad blood in the water, and if that continues, if this bad blood gets worse, it can burn a bridge. Jerry West is a hero to Laker fans for what he did in his career. They're not even on speaking terms with Genie Buss now. Lebron is a little more high profile right now, so maybe that makes it a little more complicated from Genie's perspective. But I wouldn't be shocked. That story from

with Mark sign is very pointed and very intentional. It's clear that they're not happy with the way things are going well. See, Like I said, I predict that they send out the assets, but I wouldn't be surprised by anything. At this point. I wanted to move on to the Phoenix Suns for a minute. So Chris Paul has a right right thumb evulsion fracture. If I'm saying that properly, he's gonna be out sixt eight weeks. It's not necessarily

the end of the world. Hand injuries in particular are easier to rehab from in terms of the timetable, because you can do more to maintain your conditioning while you're out. It's not like a leg injury where you literally can't run for six d eight weeks. Like Chris Paul is gonna be able to stay in shape. He's gonna be able to do basically everything other than shoot a basketball for a little while, and then there will be some ramp up in that department. But Chris Paul is gonna

be fine. I'm not worried about that in particular. Now, there are two different ways to look at this in terms of the Sun's prospects. How are they going to do for the rest of regular season and what does this mean for the playoffs. In the regular season, They're gonna be fine. There's seven games up on the number two overall seed in the lost column. Seven games. That is a huge cushion. This season with Chris Paul off the floor, the Suns are plus four point two points

per one possessions. That's in dominant basketball team. That plus four point two net rating would rank seventh in the league right now. Basically without Chris Paul, the Sons are just as dominant as the Cleveland Cavaliers are right now. The Calves currently sit at plus four point two for the season. They're gonna be fine. And I've said this a lot, but the reason why they have so much success is this is the deepest talent from top to bottom that I've ever seen on an NBA roster. They

don't have the top end talent. No one's gonna compete with, like a two thousand seventeen Warriors. If you've got Kevin Durant, Clay Thompson, Steph Curry, and Draymond Green on the floor, that's just a level of top end talent that no team can ever keep up with. But in terms of the toll the whole roster from top to bottom, I have never seen a team with this many good players on it, and they've only done things to improve and

to plug in holes. They had issues with an undersized guard coming off the bench in Campaign and that caused problems for them in switching situations. So they got Alfred Payton, a bigger, stronger, more athletic guard, to give them a different option in that scenario they ended up against against a team that was attacking Campaign. They had tons of issues with DeAndre Ayton getting in foul trouble or every

time he went to the bench for arrest. The Frank Kamitsky and Dario Sarge would get destroyed by the bench bigs that they would face elsewhere in the league, especially honest. So they got JaVale McGee and they got Bismack Bionmbo. They've completely solved that problem. They're deep, they have an incredible amount of talented role players. It's like the opposite of what we see with the Lakers. The guys who aren't the stars are just that team by itself might

be a playoff team. That's how good they are. My favorite player on that team right now is Michael Bridges are one of my friends. Jackson Frank on Twitter did a profile on him today talking about his offensive development. Michael Bridges is averaging nineteen points in his last eleven games on seventy true shooting. I noticed this in the playoff series last year against the Lakers. I noticed like he was playing a role on that team, really kind of confining his game to fit into what the Suns

needed him to do. But I kept seeing these little flashes in that series where I'm like, there's a really talented score like under the surface there that's waiting to come out when given the opportunity. And we're starting to see that. He's almost like Kevin Durant with his ability to make these little one handed, like floating jump shots in the lane, especially as he's coming off of screens, and it just makes him really really difficult defend because how tall he is and how long his arms are.

That's a that is a gitimate all Star level prospect that is not even one of their top two players. That's the type of talent that's on this team. That's why there plus four point two per one possessions without CP three. That's why they have a seven game lead on the number two overall seat. And I don't even get to Camp Johnson or j Crowder and their arsenal of wings that can shoot. This is an incredibly talented basketball team. So they're gonna be fine without Chris Paul.

But this is the latest reminder of Chris Paul's fragility. He is throughout his career showing a propensity to get hurt, like he did with the Rockets in two thousand eighteen that costs them the Warriors series, like he did in two thousands sixteen in that first round series against the Blazers. He has shown a propensity to break down under a workload. And so even though this was just a Haynd injury,

it's just a fluke. But it if something like this happens in the playoffs, he turns an ankle, he pulls a hamstring, that does significantly change the math for this Son's team. The reason why is because, like I always tell you, guys, they are very specific things that championship contenders always have. They always have high level defense, they always have defensive versatility, They always have a guy that can create their own shot, like an isolation score, like

Devin Booker is for the Suns. But most importantly, they always have a guy who's a very talented, high end playmaker, a guy who can make reads, a guy who can interpret the defensive scheming of the opponent and be one step ahead of him. It's like the chess match of a playoff series. Chris Paul is a very very important part of the Son's ability to win a chess match against the top tier teams in the league, and if he does break down, if he does get hurt, it

severely limits them in that specific scenario. You can be a dominant team, you can have an incredible depth of talent, You can be plus four point two per one hundred possessions without Chris Paul in the regular season, but then run into a matchup where teams just schemes really well around Devin Booker and around Deandretan, and you just don't

have a counter for it. Having that really high level basketball like you, that high end playmaker, gives you the ability to be one step ahead of the adjustments that the opponents are making. So point being the Sons are gonna be fine. This Chris Paul injury does not disrupt their ability to win the championship. But he's the most important piece and if he does go down in some capacity that affects them in a playoff series, it could cost them and they could lose. They are beatable without

Chris Paul. They might beat able with Chris Paul, but they're definitely beatle beatable without Chris Paul. So that's the thing they're gonna have to watch out for, is Chris Paul's body breaking down. All right, that's all I have for you guys today. We will be back for a Thursday night show when the NBA re kicks up after the All Star break. I appreciate you guys support as always, and we will see you on Thursday. The volume