169. How Frank Vogel let down the Lakers again

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great weekend. Lots and lots and lots of Laker basketball over the course of the next couple of weeks, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what kind of effort we see out of them. But over the course of the last three halves, the players on the floor have shown a lot of fight.

And you know, I'm gonna try to go mostly positive tonight because I know it can be extremely frustrating after a season like this to see another game that is seemingly in the grasp of this Laker team slip away. But with Lebron being out tonight, we have to be realists about just the group of players that the Lakers

were able to put on the floor tonight. I talked a lot after that Warriors game about how well the starters played and how when they went to the bench when they had to play Taylor Horton, Tucker and Avery Bradley and they had to play Carmelo Anthony at center and DJ Augustine alongside Russ, that they were going to struggle against any team because of the fact that there's just nobody on the team that's a big athletic player. So when you take Lebron James out of that picture,

it just becomes even more complicated on that front. We are going to break down everything from the Lakers Spurs game. I'm going to share my thoughts on Frank Vogel and his unwillingness to allow his young players, which also happened to be his best players, to play as much as they should. We're gonna talk about Lebron's injury and what's at stake on that front, and then if you guys,

stick around for the end. We're going to do our latest edition of the Power Rankings, and I will let you know who I think is the best team in the league right now, who I think has the best chance to win the title. Stick around for that. That will be fun as well. I wanted to start with Frank,

you know. So Frank comes out, So I talked a lot of in the last game him about how playing the young guys big minutes was such a huge deal for that team, having the good start that they had and just the general effort and focus and energy that they came out with and that they were able to parlay into a big lead early on against the Warriors. And I talked about how Austin Reeves and Milik Monk

were such a huge part of that. So then Frank Vogel comes out after the game and he says, quote, I like the combination of Malik Monk and Austin Reeves out there together. Interesting. That's something that we had seen more in second units throughout the season, but it's been a combination that our analytics team has has said has really produced. Those guys have some of our best on

off plus minus stats. Those are those types of things, and we decided a couple of games ago to look at it in the starting lineup, even though we hadn't one yet, which is got to be so incredibly frustrating for Laker fans to see, because it's not just an analytics thing, it's a basketball thing. You know. Darius Oriano from the l f R pod to day was was talking about how Austin Reasonableak Monk, even though they've been healthy all season, have only played They've played less than

five minutes together. That's how frustrating that is. Two of the Lakers clear best players, obvious great off ball threats to put alongside Russ and Lebron simply have not been on the floor together enough to get the most out of this roster. Like I've said so many times this season, this Laker team cannot be distilled down to one flaw. I'm critical of Russ, it's not just Russ. I'm critical of the Rush trade. It's not just the Rush trade. I'm critical of Rob Polinka, I'm critical of Genie Buss,

having critical of Lebron's effort a lot. But it's not any one of those things. It's all of those things, and one of the big things has been Frank Vogel and his insistence on leaning on Avery Bradley and leaving leaning on Trevorresa and DeAndre Jordan's and Dwight Howard and all of the older players on this roster that never put in the requisite effort to actually get the most out of this team. And now, of all times, after all these games, Frank wants to start playing Stanley, Stanley

and Moleague and Austin together. And we're starting to see some good results, which is great, but we continue tonight again to see a massive fall off when they went to the DJ Augustine's and Avery Bradley's and a huge part of that is those are not functional basketball lineups. You can't win in the NBA, even against the San Antonio Spurs if they're walking out with big NBA athletes and you're walking out with four tiny guards and Carmelo Anthony.

It's just not a functional basketball lineup. If you could put five Kyrie Irving's out there in their absolute primes, and they would have issues because they don't cross the boxes. Like I say, when it's a five man basketball lineup has a list of responsibilities, and your elite offensive players can check some of those responsibilities, but they can't check all of them. A lot of those responsibilities have to be filled by athletes, by guys that play with motor

and with energy. They have to be played with guys, by guys with physical tools. Those are the things that are going to fill those other boxes so that your elite offensive players can impact the game, which takes me to when you and Gabriel, you look out in the open market and you're able to find a discounted athletic forward whose six ft nine can jump out of the gym, has shown flashes of defensive potential and can shoot the three,

and he's sitting on the sideline completely unused. That's frustrating. That's the same thing as early in the season when we were watching the Lakers lose to the Oklahoma City Thunder,

why Austin Reeves was playing twelve minutes. That's the same situation to this point in this at this point in the season, dealing with Wine and Gabriel, and that's frustrating because at the end of the day, even though this team doesn't have as much talent as they need to really make a run in the West, they definitely are better than the product that we've seen on the floor, and the reason why we haven't been able to see that product materialize has a lot to do with the

fact that the Lakers best players haven't been on the floor too much this season. And that's frustrating. That's on Frank. That's something you know. I saw a lot of Warriors fans talking after or during the first half of that game the other night on Saturday, especially when Lebron was kind of dogging it defensively, and I saw Warrior fans saying things like, I feel bad for Frank that he has to try to make it work with this group. No, no no, no, no, don't feel bad for Frank. He

signs up for this. Frank has options. Frank has had opportunity to be better than he has been, and he has willingly and purposefully decided not to be. In the face of his analytics team. Imagine that every single day he's watching the tape, the same tape that we're watching, seeing the same things that we're seeing, seeing the young guys succeed, while his analytics team is throwing numbers in

his face. Austin Reeves and Malik Monk when they've played together this season are more than ten points positive per one possessions. They are really good with those guys on the floor, and they always have been, and they haven't been utilized properly until this last recent stretch of games. That's frustrating. The Lakers have to figure out that they have to at some point down the stretch if they're going to be able to make any sort of noise. They have to be able to get those guys in

the lineup. They have to get when you and Gabriel in the lineup, there has to be less of those older guys that are limited at this point in their career. For those of you who are just joining us, this is Lakers Tonight presented by FanDuel. Here on the volume, we were just talking about Frank and his unwillingness to play the young players. I wanted to talk about Lebron's

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in West Virginia. So after the game on Saturday, I talked about how Lebron was obviously still injured because I could tell he didn't have that separation ability. A lot of what he was doing was bullyball under the basket, just using his strength, using his jump shot, a lot of savvy. It was a classic. It was an old man fifty six, which is what you would expect from an old man scoring fifty six. It was very much an old man fifty six from a player like Lebron,

who has been a really good athlete this year. He was shown that he has not experienced that much of a decline up until this knee injury. But he showed some vertical pop in that game. He had that crazy reverse dunk where he went through the lane and the

half court. Then he had on that Malik Monk Steele, he had that awesome alley you there was some weird vertical pop there, and I think I said that I thought it had something to do with him just getting caught up in the energy in the arena and the energy of the moment in that game against Golden State, and that appears to be true because whatever he put his knee through in that game led to him waking up this morning with, according to Dave McManaman, significant soreness,

so much so that this game, which was a winnable game that the Lakers needed for the sake of their attempt to stay in the play in, he wasn't willing

to play tonight. And so what that tells us is that this knee thing is significant, that he very much is hurt, which is something that I've been pointing out for a couple of weeks now, and that is concerning on so many different levels, because even if Lebron has had a conversation with his trainer, Mike Mancy has with the trainer for the Lakers, and they've done scans, and even if they come in and they say, hey, you're not gonna be able to make it any worse, so

you can play on it if you want, it still is a risk because of what it does to the rest of your body. When you have pain in your knee and you're playing through it you compensate in every other part of your body absorbing shock, which can lead to things like you know, uh, any sort of non contact injury. And anytime you're what you're absorbing a lot more shock than you're used to on a different part

of your body. The risk is concerning to me, especially when you factor in that this significant soreness that took him out of the game tonight was directly tied to his best effort in the last couple of weeks in a playoff run. What Lebron did last night or two nights ago against Golden State is exactly what he's gonna have to do every night in the postseason for this

team to have a chance. So if that type of exertion is gonna lead to swelling in pain to the point where he can't play, then he's not going to be available for a playoff run anyway. So this brings us back to what I've been saying since the beginning.

At a certain point, read the writing on the wall, understand the circumstance, understand the situation, and know that you are dealing with an injury here and that it's probably gonna be something that hampers you from achieve achieving your goals for this season anyway, and you have to factor in the risk that you're taking by pushing it on this front. You there, this is not a complete waste of a season. You could always live to fight another day.

After two thousand nineteen, Lebron was dragged through the mud. He famously had that play. I can't even remember who it was, that small forward, the European small forward from the Knicks, who blocked him on his game winning shot. You know, he looked, he looked really bad. He was bringing a glass of wine court side. He looked like it was very much nearing the end in two thousand nineteen. But he lived to fight another day, and the next season he was in my opinion, the m v P.

I thought he got robbed. I don't think your honest deserved it. I thought Lebron deserved the VP. He also won, or excuse me, he also won a finals MVP that year. He lived to fight another day, and the same thing can take place here. Yes, you're gonna be older, but hopefully if you play your cards right this summer and you actually build the roster to your strengths and weaknesses, and if Anthony Davis can stay healthy, maybe it will be an easier season from me for you on a

workload front. You can next season capitalize on the little victories from this season, finding Austin Reeves, finding Stanley Johnson in a weird way, Rob Polinka. Not cashing in the chips is an accidentally smart move because of the fact that this season is a lost cause you still have those assets, rebuild this summer, live to fight another day, Lebron, It's not worth risking this season when there's not a real achievable goal. In my opinion, that's something that I

hope that he pays attention to. A couple other quick um Laker notes, Taylan's going through a little bit of a slump here, and I think it has to do a lot with him just having the classic young person conundrum of forcing it when he's struggling. I talked about in our YouTube video, the special we did on the Young Players. I talked about how he had been making progress as a playmaker. Well, he's kind of slumped a little bit since then, and like all young players do,

he's reacted to that by forcing things. And there were a lot of moments tonight where I thought he had easy reads available to his teammates where he could have kept the ball moving to generate higher quality shots, but he just kept trying to pound his head through that wall to try to break out of his little offensive slump that he's been And he made a lot of shots tonight, but it reflected negatively in the plus minus, and I think it was a big product to the

fact that the ball was sticking with him and it was causing some problems with the overall flow of their options offense. Malik Monk is also experiencing a little bit of a slump coming into tonight. He was averaging thirteen points on twelve shots in his last twelve games, shooting about forty from the field and about thirty three percent from three. He's missing a lot of stuff right at the rim. He's getting a little too creative and too crazy with some of his scoop shots and double pump

paying time type of shots. He's actually having a lot more success when he just elevates and tries to finish as high as he possibly can. That's been something that's been part of the reason why the Lakers have struggled so much. They need under their current situation, with their limited talent, they desperately need Malik Monk to be a

really good offensive player, and he hasn't been. Now silver lining there, If he finishes the season this way, the Lakers might be able to retain him at a discount. And I still really like Malik Monk, especially if you can surround him with good basketball players. He's some one that would be great to have back in the Laker jersey next year, and this slump kind of helps him on that front. I also wanted to give last little Laker not I wanted to give a little bit of

a shout out to Russell Westbrook. He was really really bad right after the All Start break, but the last couple of games he's starting to round back into that being a role player guard, not forcing things too much. He's generating high qual there. In that third quarter, he had a stretch at the start of the third quarter where he was getting into the paint and spraying out to shooters. That's when he's at his best again. It's all up and down with Russ. I mean, it's just

like the Warriors game. He was really good for the most part, but then it's crunch time and he throws the ball away twice and takes a one legged fade away early in the shot clock, and you're like, come on, man, like you've gotta you've got to stay on target here, stay on task. But I want to shout him out. He's been playing a little bit better as of late, which at least is something that the Lakers can attempt to bottle up and try to package into some good

basketball the rest of the season. All right, that's all I had on the Lakers. Let's talk about are power rankings. So if you guys remember, um, last I think it was two or three weeks ago, we had the Sons at number one. We're gonna start at number ten. Just so you guys know, all the stats that I quote are before tonight. Because NBA dot Com does not update their numbers fast enough. I'm gonna go through this quickly. Let's go number ten, the New Orleans Pelicans. This is

our big surprise appearance. They have the second best net rating in basketball over the last fifteen games. A lot of this has to do with their defense taking massive leaps brandon Ingram's playing the best defense he's played since he was with the Lakers, and c J. Mccollin just gives that extra offensive creation piece that they needed. Him and Brandon Ingram actually have a really nice give and take. They just beat the Nuggets, the Raptors, and the Suns.

Those are all really quality wins. And then they utterly demolished the Utah Jazz after they had just one nine out of ten, some really quality wins in there. And then the prospect of Zion potentially return earning before the end of the season gives them that extra little bit of matchup flexibility that makes them at least a puncher's

chance to win a playoff series. When you're lining up to guard the Pelicans and you've got to put a big wing on on Brandon Ingram and you've got to put a strong wing on Zion, chances are C. J. McCollum is gonna end up with some undersized, under athletic guard and he's gonna have guys that he can attack. That is all of a sudden, out of nowhere, become a very interesting basketball team. Number nine the Golden State Warriors. Precipitous drop off. They've lost four straight, eight out of ten.

Their defense has completely fallen apart. We talked about this the other day since Draymond dropped off. Since Draymond went down, they had a stretch where they defended okay, but all of that perimeter defense that was carrying them over that stretch has fallen off, and as a result, their defense

has fallen off. Steph's decline has utterly chopped the legs out of their offense, and if to meet like the Warriors went from a team that I thought of as a bona fide top tier title contender to a team that very easily could lose in the first round, I'm deeply concerned about them. Steph doesn't look like a top five player anymore. They're a team that I'd be really worried about if I was a fan of Number eight, the Denver Nuggets. There twenty and eight since January seven.

They have the second best offense in the league during that span, including ninth and defense. For them to be twenty and eight with Yokich in the group of guys that they have is absolutely insane. Yo Yoki is the runaway m v P in my opinion. I just think he's been better than embeat. I think his team has more talent and beat us had much more defensive talent to work with as much as I like em Beat, and I thought he was close to him at one point.

I think Yoki is pulling away. I think he deserves to win the m v P. Gotta give him around applause. I don't know if they can win a playoff series because they don't have enough offensive creation outside of Yokich, but I have them at number eight right now, number seven the Milwaukee Bucks. This team is there's something going on with these guys, and I don't know what it is.

They're fifteen and twelve since January three, there eighteenth and defense during that span there wealth in defense overall for the season. As you guys know, long standing philosophy with basketball in the NBA, you don't win a title unless you have unbelievable talent advantage or a top ten defense. The Bucks have neither. Maybe they're just an example of a team that's going through some malays and maybe they'll

kick it into high gear in the postseason. But every little hallmark and indicator that we look at his basketball fans tells us that this team can't win the title. I'm really concerned. I still think they're a title threat, but we can't not be concerned at this point. Number six the Miami Heat. They are twelve and two in their last four teen games now Kyle Lowry's out. They've

had massive health issues all season long. They deserve a ton of credit for how how consistent they've been despite having guys in and out of the lineup all season. Jimmy Misses a bunch of time, Bam miss is a bunch of time, Kyle Lowry business a bunch of time. They've had a bunch of issues on that front. Still, they are going to be the number one overall seed and all likelihood, not number one overall, number one in the East and all likelihood, which is really impressive on

their part. That said, I have them at six because their offensive creation continues to concern me in a playoff series with the way these teams zone up now, especially there are a lot of teams are using like matchup zones now to where guys are guarding guys, but they're kind of in charge of specific spots on the floor. It makes it a little easier teams for teams to

functionally double team. And when you have Jimmy Butler on the floor, who's not a good three point shooter p J. Tucker on the floor in bam at a Baio, who I laid out last week is one of the worst perimeter shooting bigs that we have in the league. It's an issue, and I worry about them, and against a really athletic team struggling to score their team that I think could lose to somebody like a Philadelphia for instance. Number five the Memphis Grizzlies. They're on a little bit

of a slept right now. Their defense in particular has been slipping there at a one hundred and eleven point one defensive writing in their last six games. They lost to Minnesota, they lost that game to Boston, and then they had an embarrassing loss to Houston the other day. They it's their young team. Consistency is the hallmark of veterans, so it's something they have to figure out. This is

just a little lull for them. I still think they're dangerous playoff team, but they're on the down slide right now. That's why I have them down at five. Number four right now I have is the Dallas Mavericks. They're twenty four and eight since December, elite on both ends of the floor. Luca's peaking. He looks fantastic. They've added another shot creator and spencer Dinwiddie to take some of the pressure on Luca to create every shot, and now they're

getting stops. That's what they weren't able to get against the Clippers the last couple of years. That instantly makes them so much more dangerous in a playoff series. I have them at number four, number three. I have the Philadelphia seventies six or is there five? And oh Swi Harden. Since the trade, they've been amazing on both ends of the floor. They have some decent wins too. They beat Chicago, they beat Cleveland, they beat Minnesota in Minnesota, which is

not easy to do. This formula of James Harden and Joel Embiid plus defense very much seems to work. My only concern with them continues to be will they get the foul calls that they need in a playoff series. I don't know, will guys like em beating Harden, who can be a little bit one dimensional. Will they struggle against game planning in a playoff series. That remains to be seen. That's why I have them at three and not higher on this list. But they very much look

like a top tier title contender at this point. Number two I have dropped for the first time. The Phoenix Suns. There are three and three since the CP three injury. I still think they're my favorite to win the title overall, but I have to put them at number two because of our eventual Number one, who you'll hear in a second. But they're just starting to show that little bit of

the cracks in the armor really tied to injury. But when CP three is your best player, I'm gonna bring up injury because that's been a story in his career. That's something that has happened in the past. It will continue to be a threat with them moving forward. Number one absolutely deserving Number one. The Boston Celtics. They're twenty one and six since January eight. Their net rating in

that span is plus twelve point eight. That is five point two points better then the second place team during that stretch. They are utterly dominant. They just ripped off three in a row against the Atlanta Hawks, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the Brooklyn Nets. He went toe to toe Jayson Tatum went totete with Kevin Durant on Sunday. I watched that game. It was unbelievable. The most interesting thing to me about that team is the way their defense and

athleticism gives Tatum and Brown a chance. Again, is Kevin Durant better than Jayson Tatum. No, But if Jayson Tatum gets to go down and attack Kyrie Irving and gets to go down and attack Seth Curry and gets to go down and attack limited defensive players and switches, but you are going down and you have to take your pick between Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown, Marcus Smart, al Horford.

You know that they're they're They're defense and athleticism is off the charts on all five positions in these lineups. Robert Williams has been amazing in their switching scheme. They in that game, Tatum was able to succeed because he was attacking weaker defensive matchups NonStop, while k D had to go down and pick from another big, strong athlete that can move their feet. And like I said, you don't need to be better than the top guys in the league if your defense is so good that abides

you margin for error. Their defense is so good that Tatum and Brown just might be enough. They've been far and away the best team in the league over the course of the last two months. They absolutely deserve to be number one right now, and they are a bona fide championship contender. That's all I got for tonight, guys. I sincerely appreciate you guys come to hang out as always. We will be back for the Laker game on Wednesday. I appreciate your support and we'll see you in a

couple of days. The volume