Big Three Player Grades

looked like to this point. UM tonight at midnight, I guess this will be Tuesday morning for you guys. The I will have Lebron, a d and Russ up, and then the rest of the role players will post at midnight on Tuesday for you guys to listen to on Wednesday before the game. UM, a couple of little rules. I'm basing these letter grades based on what I and what we expected coming into the season, you know, relative

to their expectations. It's obviously not fair to grade Molik Monk on a veteran minimum contract on the same scale that we grade Lebron James or Anthony Davis or Russell Westbrook. It's just not the way that we should evaluate them, So keep that in mind as as I'm doing this.

But these are both gonna be pretty short. Like I said, obviously everyone seems to be trending in the right direction, but just wanted to take kind of like take a minute, take a deep breath, and just kinda take a look back at how things have gone so far and how guys are looking as we move forward for the rest

of the season. So starting with Lebron, and I'm gonna be especially hard on Lebron and a D here, And the main reason why is because you know, I think I think Lebron and a D made a calculation that was you know, shortsighted and didn't take into a how the factors that led to their situation. Right, So Lebron and a D completely dominate to start the season, you know, from the opening tip in the first preseason game, totally

different vibe than this year's preseason. They attacked it, especially on the defensive end, and even though they lost that opening night game against the Clippers, they really were rolling everybody all season long. They started twenty four and three and we're truly dominant. Then they're mostly dominant throughout the postseason. So this is where I think they got some made a made a bad read on the rest of the league.

So coming into the following season, which starts if we remember early, because they were planning on waiting until Martin Luther King Day, but they didn't. Instead they went ahead and started, uh right before Christmas. So I caught a lot of people off garden, A lot of people showed up into camp out of shape, and a lot of

teams got off to slow starts or poor starts. Meanwhile, the Lakers, even though Anthony David was significantly beneath his output from the previous season, the Lakers were literally twenty one and six, and obviously the fall the rest of the season was derailed by injuries. So as far as Lron and a D were concerned, a D was coasting. Lebron was playing really well, but you know, a D was coasting, and it was enough for them to win regular season games, and I think they tricked themselves into

thinking that's the way it would always be. But a lot of that had to do with the fact that all of the other teams in the league that season, because of the quick turnaround, we're also struggling to get their legs underneath them. Meanwhile, so the Lakers kind of had that advantage and the quick turnaround. They were most recently attached to quality basketball, and a lot of that just lingered for them. So moving forward and going into this season, I think they thought they could take that

same approach, and that just wasn't the case. Given the fact that it was a normal off season, and given the fact that there were a lot of teams coming back to full strength teams like Golden State, teams like Brooklyn, in addition to some established teams from previous years like Phoenix, like Utah, and like Milwaukee. The Lakers were gonna have to attack this season. They were gonna have to bring a lot of energy, and their stars were gonna have

to be great. And I think you saw that right away in preseason, I thought, I think you saw that lack of intensity and just the Lakers operating at a level beneath that of the rest of the league, which even with their talent there, even their talent was not enough to overcome that. And so that's kind of like the bigger picture thing when I'm looking at Lebron and a d here, but we can dive into two each of them individually. So you know, Lebron has had a

lot of good this season. He shot the ball really well, um when when they've been good quality shots, he's fifty on wide open threes, obviously not shooting well when he's taking contested threes. He does have the highest true shooting percentage of the on in a d ERA and there's a bunch of different reasons for that. I think this is one of the reasons why. UM. I think this is one of the ways that Russ has really helped.

For instance, Lebron is attempting two point six wide open threes per game, which is the highest since he came to l A. I think that has a lot to do with Russ and having another guy who pressures the rim and kicks the ball out to him. Lebron having that capability of being a really, really deadly off ball threat is part of what makes the Russell Westbrook experiment work. The when Lebron has when Russ has the ball, Lebron is still so effective, and that has made things easier

for Russ now. Obviously, for the first chunk of the season, Lebron struggled with availability, so I want to cut him some slack there. Obviously, both of those injuries were injuries that if they happen now, I think he might try to play throom. But at the beginning of the season, the Lakers thought, given their easy schedule, they'd be able to rack up wins, and they just weren't able to. And so Lebron took that as an opportunity to try to just keep as close to a physically as he could.

And and I want to cut him some slack for that. But even when he was available, like outside of that Golden State game, which I thought Lebron was one of Lebron's better two A performances this season, you know, up

until this recent stretch, Lebron was really inconsistent. When he was healthy, You'd see him dominate the Cleveland Cavaliers at the end of the game, but kind of bs his way through the first three quarters, or dominate the Houston Rockets at the end of the game, but kind of coast and leak out and get his dunks and stuff, but not really be that engaged, dominant to a player that you've seen in recent weeks. And then finally, as I was preaching in the NonStop in the pod Urgency

had to kick in Eventually. You can't sit there as a competitor and continue to get kicked upside the head and not eventually fight back. And I think after that triple overtime lost a Sacramento, Lebron finally understood the gravity of the situation and finally started to engage in the season, and from there he's completely taken off. I have him in a B minus um and a D at a C plus. They both have had similar seasons in terms

of their ebbing and flowing engagement. The reason why I gave Lebron just a slightly better grade than a D is he does have this dominant stretch here, this last seven game stretch, or Lebron has looked like the best player in the world, or at least in that conversation. Anthony Davis hasn't really had that stretch yet. I believe he will. I believe he will soon, but he hasn't had that stretch yet. That's why I'm giving Lebron that

little edge there. He's trending towards becoming in that conversation of the best players in the league. Specifically changes the ceiling of this team. He just was too relaxed to start the season because he made a bad read on the situation league wide. Um, but moving in the right direction. I just, you know, I hold Lebron too high standards, so I'm not I'm not gonna cut him, you know, so much slack when his peers, the guys that we're trying to say he's better than, have attacked to the season,

like Hadie and Steph have alright, moving on to Anthony Davis. So, like I said, no dominant stretch yet that's been the big differentiator between him and in Lebron this season. But similar idea came into the season taking a lot of really really tough off the dribble jump shots, the same kind of shots he was taking and making in the bubble, and as he was missing him and missing him and missing him, he just wasn't making the adjustment. He wasn't

leaning into his identity as a rim attacker. And yes, the you know, the big lineups played a role in that, especially with Lebron, you know, as a guy who likes

to drive the basketball from the perimeter. But both of those guys have played with two bigs a lot in this era and gotten the hell of a lot more rim pressure than they got over this stretch, and I think that has a lot to do with just trying to save their legs, trying to coast, thinking they might be able to be a dominant team without having to put that stress on their bodies, when the reality was

they were always going to have to do that. But what I'll give a D credit for is similar to Lebron right around the time of that Sacramento game, He's been a lot more engaged on both ends of the floor,

specifically in those post up situations. He's shooting a lot fewer of these turnaround jump shots over both shoulders that he's shooting at an extremely low percentage, and he's taking more interior jump shots, like trying to generate a little bit more separation to get a little bit closer to the rim and shooting that little fade away from seven

to ten feet instead of seventeen to twenty feet. And in there he's just a lot more accurate as a shooter, and in there he's allowed he's able to use his physical tools more to turn it into a higher percentage shot. A shot you know, the A D stuff is tricky. It's not really fair to him because he's so incredibly talented that he can be, you know, inconsistent with his engagement and with his effort, but still put up monster numbers. So many people have pointed out, you know, leading the

league in points in the pain. Yeah, that's awesome. You know, he has a very very difficult job. That's true. Um that said, as a superstar talent, it is expected that you have a difficult job, and there's no excuse for after three consecutive days off where you get to rest your body to come into a game like he did against Boston and coast through half before you really engage. That will always be the thing that it's hard for

me with a d is. Even with as dominant as he is, he should be in the conversation for the best player in the world, and I think the only thing that separates him from that and being in the tier right below that is that consistent engagement, being a self starter, finding ways to motivate yourself on a night and night out basis, to leave a physical imprint on

the game on both ends of the floor. The big things that I'm looking for him moving forward for the rest of the season or one out of area plays he's starting to make more of them. But you know, again, a d has a job on the floor. But one of the beauties about him being so good is that he can extend beyond his job and cover for the

shortcomings of his teammates. And he always has had the ability to do that, but he keeps it in reserve, specifically when he's trying to avoid getting hurt or when he's trying to save his legs for the rest of

the season. I'd like to see him kind of dip into that a little bit more, try to use a little bit more of that reserve, just because it's so important as this team is establishing its habits to give his teammates confidence and to lean into that side of things until they really get up to speed with Frank's system and what they're asked to do on both ends, specifically with their defensive responsibilities and their rebounding responsibilities down the line. And this is something I said in the

pod last night. Down the line, once everyone has good habits, hopefully, if you rip off a bunch of wins in a row and you establish habits, even with guys who have struggled with those same habits in the past, if you established those habits then you might have the ability, if you're a d and Lebron to take a few plays off here and there, maybe not take place off, but not have to cover for your teammates as much. But in the meantime, especially as they're trying to claw out

the standings, he needs to do more of that. And then the last thing is jump shooting. And I'm not really talking about his off the dribble jump shooting, his post turnarounds or anything like that. I'm primarily talking about spot up shooting. I think for the playoffs, ceiling of the Lakers down the line, when you're in these dragged half court sets at the end of these games, Anthony Davis being able to knock down and catch and shoot three is so important for the spacing in those environments

against the top tier defenses. And again, he doesn't need to shoot a ton of them, but he needs to shoot a few of them. Again in the bubble, having Anthony Davis take three and a half threes per game and knocking them down at a thirty eight percent clip was a huge part of why the Laker offense that had struggled most of the regular season had more flow and effectiveness in the postseason. That's the thing I'll be tracking. I'm not worried about the crazy shots he was making

in the bubble. To me, that's the different. Yeah. Yeah, if he starts making those and does everything else, well, now we're talking about maybe the best player in the world. But we all knew that that might have been a little bit of a fluke. But he is a good shooter. He does have good touch, getting to the point where he is a reliable, moderately reliable even just like what Russ has been this year. Just being a moderately reliable spot up shooter goes a long way towards extending the

ceiling of this team. So those are the things that I'll look for moving forward. Again, Lebron b minus a D C plus. I gave Russ a B plus. Russ was really and I'm partially responsible for this, but Russ came into the season under a mountain of negativity. Not only was he perceived by most Laker fans to be a bad fit with this group, but we also had all mentally prepared ourselves for Buddy Healed. We were under the impression that Buddy Healed would be coming in as

a seamless fit. With Lebron and a D and so Russ came in just with a mountain of negativity, and again I'm I'm partially responsible for that. And then in

addition to that, he was set up to fail. Frank playing two big lineups and leaving his shooting on the bench, primarily with Russell Westbrook in the lineup was not was was putting Russ in a position where it would kind of make it extremely difficult for him to tap into the best areas of his game, which are rim pressure and physical mismatch attacking, like having smaller guards on him and being able to take them and bully ball them into the paint, and being able to use his speed

to beat guys in semi transition to get all the way to the paint. Having our slow footed lineup out there, having our non shooting lineups out there, made that extremely difficult for us. And so the reason why I gave him a B plus is when you really think about what the expectation was for him coming into the season and how much negativity surrounded him, and when you really think about the lineup decisions that set him up to fail,

he's massively outperformed those expectations. In my opinion, especially in recent weeks, he had a really rough start to the beginning of the season. But as we know with the Russ, as he's trying to learn how to play with a new group of guys, he just tends to have a lot of live ball turnovers. He tends to struggle identifying the right time to drive and when not to drive. He'll throw the ball out of bounds when he doesn't really know where guys are going to be on those

kickout situations. But as every single person who's watched us in the past has told us, he eventually just learned where his opportunities were in our offense and he started to succeed. And then, honestly, one of the coolest things with Russ to see is the way his physical pressure on the rim tends to wear on team is over the course of a game. At the beginning of the game, he might pick up some charging fouls, he might throw

up some stupid shots and not get foul calls. He might try to bullyball guys and it might not look pretty, but you know, guys will get in the way of him in the first quarter, and then they'll get in the way of him in the second quarter, and then all of a sudden in the third quarter, they kind of stopped getting in the way, and his endless energy source and his motor overcomes the opponent in conjunction with his physical tools and now he's living at the rim.

And that's what we've really seen over the course of this last month that's made him look so great. He's also shooting thirty seven percent on wide open threes. That directly addresses one of the biggest concerns of the fit coming into the season. Would Russ be able to knock down enough open threes so that if you so that if teams completely ignored him, you wouldn't be losing your advantage there, And so far he's done a good job

of that. We've also seen some little tricks him attacking when he catches uh when he's open on the wing and he catches at the three point line, he'll just catch an attack. We've seen him as a screener with Lebron catching the ball in the short roll position. We've seen him as a cutter. We're seeing a lot of good with Russ. The fit issues are no longer a problem.

The only reason I gave him a B plus instead of something closer to an A A plus was he struggled to start the season, which like it or not, it had an impact on the team. And then in this last couple of games he seems to be struggling a little bit. He had nineteen I think last night against Orlando, but he had single digits or ten or fewer in the previous two games. So he seems to be trending in the wrong direction right this second. Hopefully

that's just an anomaly. But again from bottom line, with Russ, I think as a Laker fan, under the circumstances, you couldn't possibly be happier with the way that he's performed. Alright, guys, that's it for part one. This is going to post on Monday night at midnight, so be available for you guys on Tuesday morning on your way to work, and part two will be exactly twenty four hours later. Thank you, guys as always for your support, and I'll see you in a couple of days. Book