Dame Saga, Around The League, MVP Check In

He almost he just needs games. He needs reps with these guys. So he's gonna get those reps this week, God willing, if you can stay healthy, and there's gonna be a lot of exciting Lakers basketball to talk about. However, today we're gonna go around the league. Um, we're gonna talk about the Dame Lillard situation and all the news that came out with him over the course the last

twenty four hours. I want to talk a little bit about some of the games that I watched yesterday and some of the differences that I see between the way the Lakers are approaching their season and the way some of these other teams around the league are approaching their season, playing into their strengths and so on and so forth. I'm gonna relay that in just a little bit of Lakers having to do with their starting lineup. Then I'm gonna give my current take on the m v P race.

Who I have is the current m v P and why, and who I think is the best player in the league right now. So some mostly non Lakers today, but a little bit of Lakers in there as well. But we'll go ahead and get started with the Dame stuff. So obviously, we had reporting come out today that Dame is allegedly starting to get unhappy not just with the team, but with Chauncey Billups and with the whole overall vibe

around the franchise. And this has been kind of like a back and forth roller coaster with Dame for a while now. It's honestly kind of frustrating because you could tell it's mostly narrative flexing, attempting to kind of tell us what's going on from his own perspective rather than the obvious reality of what's going on. I mean, the reality the situation is is Dame appears to be unhappy

with his basketball circumstances. He appears to not like as a basketball player what he's dealing with on a day to day basis, and that's normal, that's human. That to me is like what happened with Kevin Durant. We can give him a hard time about, you know, going to such a time team, and we can give him a hard time about deck stacking and things along those lines, but the reality is is Kevin Durant just got sick of playing crappy basketball. He didn't like the year Turn

My Turn thing with with Russ. He didn't like that he wasn't able to get much offensively from his role players. He didn't like that that they were primarily defensive focused players, and it turned it into an isolation contest. And he just saw Golden State as an opportunity to advance himself as a basketball player into the best version of himself as a basketball player. And so, regardless of what we feel about the outcome and how fair it was, quote unquote,

for Kevin Durant, it was just about basketball. And I admired that part of the decision. And I wish Damon Lillard would see the same thing, because here's the reality. Man, Like what you. You have two desires here. You are fiercely loyal to the city of Portland, and you are fiercely loyal to that organization and to your teammates. I get that, But you also are clearly unhappy, unhappy with

your basketball situation and you want something better. That's okay, you have to understand, Dame, that those two things can't coexist. Portland is demonstrated time and time again that they are not capable of setting you up with a really quality

basketball situation. Do you gain something by sticking it out there? Sure, you gain the admiration of some of your peers and of some of the people out in the public, But is that worth more to you then you achieving your desired outcome as a basketball player, playing the level of offensive basketball that you've always dreamed of playing where you don't have to be a superhero every single night in order for your team to win. Because if you want that,

you've got to stop caring about what other people. You've got to stop caring about what I think or the people on Twitter think. If what you want is a better basketball situation, basketball situation, And the reality is, man, is you've paid your dues in that city for so long you've put your heart and soul on the line for wins. They can't judge you. The people in that city who do judge you if you decide to leave. They are the kind of people you want in your

corner anyway. They're just gonna get because that's what they like to do. So at the end of the day, man I I hope for Dame's sake that he comes to terms with the reality that his desire to have a better basketball situation doesn't have to be tied to Portland, and then he should stop caring so much about making other people happy and make himself happy a little bit.

He's paid his dues there, and now is Dame blameless and this whole thing now, Dave Dame has failed to commit to the defensive end of the floor, and he doesn't really commit to staying involved as a basketball player off the ball, which is something that Steff has done such a good job of over the course of his career, and it's absolutely shortcoming. Dame has fixable flaws, but those two me are separate from the situation that Portland is

not a good basketball situation. CJ. Mccolms a great player He's not good enough to be the number two on a team that consistently competes for a championship. When you have two guards that cannot defend, you need to have anchor defensively in the front court. You need to have players that can clean up messes consistently. That's never been the way this team is designed. Yeah, Norman Powell and Robert Covington are good defensive players, above average defensive players.

Neither of them are defensive anchors, though, guys who consistently can clean up messes that you make in the backcourt. The Portland's situation is never really going to pan out to what he wants it to be. And I think it's time for him to stop beating around the bush. Stop trying to control the narrative in the press. Dude, everyone's already already has your back. Everyone understands your circumstances here.

Just just make it happen. Just go to the ownership group and tell them it's time, and you know what, they owe it to you and they're gonna take care of you. Get out of Portland, go go start fresh, somewhere new and live that idealized version of you as a basketball player. That we all know that's what you

want anyway. Um, all right, So I wanted to move on to this game that I watched yesterday between Utah and Cleveland, and it was super interesting because if you guys remember, after the game they lost, the Lakers lost to the Clippers the other night. I was really hard on the Lakers for not really embracing their identity, understanding what they're good at, and catering their system and their lineup decisions and and everything about what they do towards

their strengths rather than towards their weaknesses. The Lakers are a team to have really really good downhill attackers in Russ and Lebron, and they've got a post player who consists only gets mismatches and has the ability to get in the paint in Anthony Davis. And then they have a bunch of shooters. They've got a lot of shooting. Obviously, they've got other archetypes of players that are more defensive oriented,

like Avery Bradley. But the truth of the matter is their best lineups all season long have been with their shooting. When they play Carmelo Anthony, when they played Milak Monk, when they play Wayne Ellington, when you put those guys next to the to the basket attackers on the Lakers, that's when they get their best stuff, and it's it's a snowball effect. When they start to score, they get more opportunity to set their defense. They just play better.

But we haven't seen that enough this year because the Lakers aren't leaning into that that is more of a counter. They fall back to line ups with their shooting rather than starting with lineups with their shooting. And it's funny because I watched Utah and Cleveland, two really good basketball teams. Cleveland obviously had a stretch when they lost Evan Mobley where they took some losses, but they're a very good

team when they have their guys. You obviously look at Utah and we know everything they're capable of in the regular season, but when I watched there, they have really basic rules and really basic organization that played directly into their strengths. Utah's got three really really good off the dribble attackers who can run pick and roll, and Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell and in Jordan Clarkson, and basically they have they have really standard spacing rules that make

a lot of sense. Everybody else on the floor is a shooter or Rudy Gobert. And when Rudy goes at when Rudy Goberts on the floor and he's either setting a ball screen or he sits in the dunker spot. When he's in the dunker spot, the shooters position in a certain way. When he's set in the ball screen, the shooters position in a certain way. It's all very modern. They all fill in replace when they cut, and when they screen, they all have a place they're supposed to go.

Everything makes sense. But most importantly, they're playing into their strengths because they're getting an advantage through screens, not just with Rudy Gobert, but with the guards as well. To get Donovan Mitchell downhill, to get Mike Connolly downhill, to get Jordan Clarkson downhill, and from there they're able to spray out too shooters. And if you overplay their drive and you go underneath screens, all three of those guys

can shoot over the top and knock down threes. So they have a very very simple offensive attack, a system that has proven to work plays into their best player's strengths in a manifests in a successful basketball system. Same

thing goes with Cleveland. They have too they play two bigs, but they understand that Jared Allen is dead as an offensive rebounder and he finishes everything that he catches around the rim, So they use Evan Mobley as the screener so that Evan Mobley can pop to the short role where he can make reads either throwing it up to Jared Allen at the rim or kicking it out to

shooters on the wing. And same thing. Lori marking in aggressive as a as a as a shooter, Isaac A. Coral is a little bit more hot and cold, but they use him in that same way. And most importantly, they have guys who can shoot the three off the dribble consistently. Scarland is thirty nine percent this year on dribble three's that's a great number. Ricky Rubio is eight percent this year on dribble three. That's a great number.

So when they're running their pick and roll game, they're able to get downhill easy because the guards have to panic chase over the top of these screens, which is getting them into the paint, which is creating good stuff, which brings me back to the Lakers, And this is what drives me nuts with this. Lebron and a D are capable of knocking down jump shots off the dribble. That should always be part of their game, but that should never be their bread and butter. That should always

be a counter. That's what they should do after they've established their strengths as a counter or as a fallback. But both Lebron and a D. And we're gonna talk about this in a minute, because it might have a good A good percentage of this has to do with spacing, but a lot of it has to do with their own individual identity as well. Lebron and a D don't realize that if they actually get into an off the dribble jump shooting contest with the other team, they're almost

always gonna lose. Why because while Lebron and while Lebron and a D are both top tier rim pressuring players, top tier two way versatile forwards, there definitely not in the top tier, maybe not even the second tier, maybe not even in the third tier of dribble jump shooters. So when you actively lean into not a weakness, but certainly not your strength, you are playing down to the competition in order for the Lakers to win Night in the Night Out, they need Lebron and a D to

be the two best players in the floor. They can't be the two best players on the floor if they consistently lean into their weaknesses, which is dribble shooting, at least relative to what their strengths are, which is being big, versatile, bruising forwards that protect the paint on one end and

get into the pain on the other end. And it's frustrating to me to see teams like Utah and Cleveland who know exactly what they are, who know exactly know exactly what they're good at, and play into those while I watched the Lakers essentially play a caricature of something pretending to be someone else, which is not what they are. And they will never be able to establish anything consistent Night in the Night Out in this league until they

actually lean into their strengths. When the Lakers lean into their strengths as a basket attacking team that sprays out the shooters, they'll suddenly look like one of the best teams in the league because nobody does that as well as them. Nobody does what Lebron and a D does when they actually decide to do that, it will turn things around, and that that's what's so frustrating about the

starting lineup thing. And I I vented a lot about this the other day, having to do with the simple fact that the starting lineup was the most redundant assembly of basketball talent I've ever seen, with four rim attacking players and Dwight Howard. Where Lebron's your best shooter in the lineup, and he, like we've said, is good when he's wide open, but basically bad everywhere else in terms of as a three point shooter. This year it was

bound to fail. But from Frank's perspective, the way he looks at it is if I have th h, T and Russ out there with Lebron, A D and Dwight, I should be able to get stops. But consistently this year when the Lakers have gone big, they haven't been able to get stops. And again against the Clippers, they had a defensive rating over one twenty when those guys were on the floor, And so you have to ask yourself, why why is it that that group couldn't even get stops.

It is some of it Lebron being rusty and not being engaged defensively, sure, but everyone else in that lineup was engaged defensively and it still wasn't work. The reason why it has to do with the way the offense and defense are intricately related. This is what we saw with Brooklyn so many times over the course of the last season. When you score the basketball, and score often and score easily, you keep the other team out of transition.

You constantly get to set your defense. By virtue of doing that, you set yourself up to succeed defensively when you're constantly missing jump shots, which is what the Lakers did non stop with their starting lineup in that In

that game, you're constantly live in transition. Except for now you're a team that's living in transition with two really big, slow footed guys on the floor, and so as a result, the other team is never going against your set defense, always ahead of where your bigs are running up and down the floor, and they're able to consistently generate easy shots. So again, you could play your best defensive lineup, but because you can't score, you're setting your defense up to fail.

You actually have a better chance getting stops with Carmelo, Malik Monk and Wayne Ellington all on the floor. If it's Lebron in a D and you're getting baskets and your defense is set every time, and you're keeping the other team in the half court and you always have

help side defense. Not to mention just the intangible mental effects of seeing the success of your offense and that motivating you to care more about the defensive end because it manifests on the scoreboard, because you're able to generate a margin of victory and you get to go back to the locker room and see a positive verse old regardless of what you think you're getting out of that

giant lineup. If I'm going back to the huddle and it's eighteen to twelve at the first TV time out every damn time, then none of the guys are going to buy in on the defensive end. None of the guys are gonna feel like sprinting back in transition consistently because they're not seeing the result, because they're not seeing the positive, and because they're not motivated in that regard. The Lakers absolutely have to start leaning into their strengths.

They absolutely have to start favoring the offense, start leaning into what they're good at, which will inevitably help them in the areas that they're bad at all the time throughout NBA history. If you took random metrics that measured the average points per possession and transition and the average points per possession after made baskets, the average points per possession on made baskets is way lower because you're consistently set in your defense. So Frank is, you can't see

the forest for the trees here. All he can think about is defensive rebounding and defense, and that in that physicality, containment on the perimeter, the ability to be able to to shut off the paint. And he's failing to see the fact that you're not even getting Dwight Nady set up under the basket. You're not even getting your point

of attack defenders in a position where they have an advantage. Instead, everyone's on their heels instead, everyone's trailing instead to help defense isn't even set up because you're living in transition because you can't score basket. And until that little detail gets worked out, I just don't see this team hitting its ceiling. This is an offensive minded team. It's very

clear in their priorities. The only way you'll ever get them to defend at a high level is if you get them scoring consistently, that's where this team needs to leave, alright. So the last thing I got for today was I wanted to give my current envy p to this point

in the the season. I don't think it's super controversial, but I think at the end of the day, this is a player who's been dragged pretty relentlessly over the course of the last two years, especially by the people that I primarily have been surrounded by as a Laker fan and as as a Lebron fan, and that's Steph Curry, and I think he deserves recognition for what he's doing and what he has done, and so I wanted to

take a few minutes today to get into that. You guys know him a Lebron fan, I think that when he's healthy and engaged, there's nobody who brings what he brings to the table, and guys, when he does, when he finally does this year, I'll be the first guy on that train. But that train hasn't even left the station at this point, so there's no point in talking about it when I'm evaluating players. And this is something

that I've been consistent with from the very beginning. When I'm ranking players at the top of the league, I always look at three criteria offensive, I look at playmaking and score it. Can you consistently attack a matchup in isolation to generate offense. That's super valuable, especially when you get into late playoff rounds when everybody's switching everything and actions cease to work and it's all about who can

win the one on one matchups. And then second, that playmaking part is incredibly valuable because when you are the kind of player who can score in isolation, inevitably the

defense will start sending multiple bodies at you. Whether it's through what you're seeing it with Anthony Davis just packing the paint and sending doubles over, or if it's like Steph where guys are, you know, chasing him all over the floor even when he doesn't have the ball, Or what if it's like Lebron and Russ where you're driving to the basket and guys are caving into you so

open three point shooters are there. Regardless that ability to consistently make defenses pay for sending additional defensive attention your way that's also super valuable. And then lastly, defensive versatility, and notice it's defensive versatility and not defensive ability, because while Rudy Gobert, for instance, is the best defender you could possibly have any regular season environment, he's more like the fifth or sixth best defender in the playoff environment

because he's not as versatile. He's not as good when you consistently make him cover ground on the perimeter, whereas Anthony Davis, for instance, appears to be a better defensive player than Gobert in the playoffs because he's more versatile on the perimeter. So I look at those three things as the primary indicators of a player's value, especially in the late rounds of the postseason. So that's what I'm

gonna rank on. And for the longest time, it's been Lebron for me because I was thought he was I thought he was the only player in the league who crossed all three boxes. He was the only player in the league that if you left him on an island against just about anybody, he was going to get what he wanted. He was the only player in the league that when you send defensive attention his way, he's going to find the open man and make you pay consistently.

And he was the only player in the league who also, in addition to those two things, could defend multiple positions and be an anchor to a high level playoff defense. There are lots of players who do variations of those three things. Maybe they're really good isolation scores, but they can't create for others. Maybe they can create for others, but they're not great isolation scores. Maybe they're great defensively, but they're more limited offensively. So on and so on

and so on and so on. Every player in the league has weaknesses in one of those areas, except for Lebron when he's at the top of his game, and that's why I always thought he was the best player in the league. But I can't give him that nod right now because he's a blow average defensive player right now, because he's just not caring and his legs aren't really

underneath him. So he hasn't looked great offensively. He hasn't made a consistent effort to try to get the ball inside, which is what the team desperately needs him to do. He's holding the vast majority of his basketball ability in reserve right now for some reason, and we'll find out what that is it's not really worth discussing. I think we're gonna see flashes out of Lebron soon, but that's not here yet. Meanwhile, I have Steph Curry who's my

m v P through a fourth of the season. Offensively, he's not a great playmaker in the sense that with the ball in his hands he's going to consistently pick you apart with the pass. But as I've discussed several times on the PO on the pod before, his ability to attract defensive attention off the ball is every bit as valuable as high level playmaking, because when I look at high level playmaking, as is the ability to generate

high quality shots that aren't yours. So for a guy like Lebron, or for a guy like Nicola Yokis, or for a guy like Luca don Che, it's it's about in isolation, drawing attention and making reads. But for Steph it's different. For step it's I'm running off of this double pin down and two guys come after me, and so the guy at the top of key, which is

usually Draymond, is gonna hit Andre Guadalar. Whoever it is quick slipping to the basket for a duck steps not making that pass, but he is generating that look with his gravity. To me, that kind of fills that same mold. And then up until a couple days ago, I'm pretty sure this is still the case. But Steph is the best isolation player in basketball right now in terms of point per possession. As of a couple of days ago, he was at one point three points per isolation possession.

That is an insane number. Think of it. Most high level isolation players are close to one point per possession because it's considered a generally inefficient basketball play. And Steph is more efficient in isolation than any NBA team is for the whole season throwing out isolation. That's counting your transition possessions, that's counting your wide open dunks under the basket and everything. Step is more efficient than that when he's in isolation. So he's checking two of those boxes

extremely well. And then he's also turned himself into an above average defender. It's been like a it's been like a slow ascent from him on that front. Back before, when he was on the two thousand fourteen Olympic team, everyone was critical of him for not being a good defensive player. Him and Clay in Bowl, Clay embraced that. Clay advanced obviously faster and became one of the best perimeter defenders in the league. But Steph pretty quickly became serviceable.

But in two thousands sixteen, you know, teams would pick on him, namely the Caps with Kyrie Irving and Lebron. But then it turned into like, Okay, now picking on him is not a great idea because he's kind of holding his ground, and now it's flat out turned into he is a disruptive defender. He's got good size, he's got really good instincts, he's really good with his hands.

He defends without fouling and isolating him as a fool's Errand yeah, it might be a better option than some of the other guys on the floor to attack, and so he still will get attacked for that reason. But Steph is not tissue paper at the point of attack. I would firmly describe him as a as an above average defender. And so he's checking two of those boxes and then on the third one, he's not checking the box in the way that this or Lebron or Anthony Davis would at the top of their game. But it's

very much not a weakness for him anymore. And when you factor that in with his leadership ability and with what he brings on a night tonight break basis in the regular season, I think he has the best case right now to be considered not just the m v P, but the best player in all of basketball. You know, I I have a huge problem with the incessant need for people covering the league to vault unproven players into that conversation. Like I love Nicola Yokich. He's definitely trending

in that direction. I think he could be the best player in the league someday soon. But do you know how insulting it is to look at guys like Lebron, to look at guys like Steph, to look at guys like Katie, to look like look at guys like Honest or even Kauai who have done what Yokich has done, but at the highest possible level and hold it and held up the Larry of Bryan Trophy? How can you possibly vault Yokich above those guys before he's had the

opera Tuna need to do the same. I get it the night in and night out stuff in the regular season, and is definitely valuable. You can't just completely out that anymore. It's my one of my biggest pet peeves with Lebron fans. I wanna be like, oh, he's aged thirty seven, it's not fair to ask him to do this. Blah blah blah. Okay, that's fine, but then he can't be the best player

in the world. And for all of you guys saying that Lebron was trying every single night last season, Lebron was single night when I thought he should have been the m v P. So you are the only one who thinks he shouldn't be trying. Lebron definitely thinks he should be. He knows he's mailing it in most of the nights this season. But Yokich, as great as it is that he's dominating night in and night out in the regular season, and I want to give him credit

for that. I can't put him ahead of guys who have done that and succeeded at the highest level of basketball. Steph is that guy right now. Steph is the guy that is doing what Yoki is doing in the regular season, carrying a team to the extent that they're in contention for the number one overall seed. While at the same time he has the championship pedigree. He has been the bona fide best player on a championship team. I have seen his game translate on both ends of the floor

at the highest levels of basketball. He has to get the nod over a guy like Yoki. It's disrespectful not to, and I think in general, when we are giving that title out that level of recognition, we need the error on the side of being slower to doll that out rather than quicker. We're so quick to be like a ten game stretch. Yokis was the best player on the floor in all ten games. That's awesome. I've looked He's become a flat out good defensive player. I'm loving what

I'm seeing from Yoki. He can't get the nod over guys who have done it at the highest level. That just can't be the way that we make that decision. And the last thing I'll say about Steph. You know, it's hard with Lebron fans because step has always been, you know, the guy that has been the biggest antagonist

to Lebron in his career. I see all the time him, particularly with people that I follow, the negativity that they send in that direction, which is all like kind of residual scar tissue from that rivalry that took place literally all the way through the play in game last year. But you have to take your hat off to what this guy is accomplishing. I think Steph. I don't think Steph is nearly as good as Lebron, at least over

the course of his career. I don't think he should even be in that conversation in terms of at the same level. That said, he is clearly the number two from this era, and so denigrading him, especially for you, Lebron vance, it doesn't accomplish what you think it does. Denigrading Steph minimizes everything that that that's not the route to go, even if you are trying to control some

kind of narrative. The reality is is Steph has definitively been better than Kevin Durant in this era, than Kawhi Leonard in this era, then really really good basketball players

in this era. And then what happened was is he was in a situation where Thompson got hurt and Draymond Grahm was out to start the season, and you know, the team floundered for a couple of years and they missed the playoffs twice, and everyone uses an opportunity to kick Steff when he was down, when anybody who was paying attention was like, he's ever been as good as he's ever been there, he's just playing with gee leaguers.

He's playing with ge leaders and Draymond. And then even when you dove into the numbers, when they played Stephan Draymond without James Wiseman, they were killing teams and they were way over five hundred. So even our little concocted version of his failures wasn't as bad as people thought it was. And you know what, Lebron fans, I do believe that when he's got it all together, he's that guy. When he puts it all together, I will be probably

leaning that direction again. But for now, you gotta give them nod to Steph. There's nobody close. Even Kevin Durant isn't bringing night in the night out, especially on the

defensive end, what step is bringing. Katie's my number two right now in both the m v P race and in that ranking, but I think Steph has a clear hold on that number one spot, and I just hope people appreciate him and what he's brought over the course of the last few years, even though it hasn't materialized and team success up to this point, because Steph is, without a shadow of a doubt, a top ten player of all time in my opinion, and easily a top

two player of this era, and undercutting him just doesn't resonate with me. It seems like crappy narrative construction and lame behavior from disgruntled you know, sore losory Lebron fans. That's just like, that's just lame to me. I can't get behind that. I'm not rooting for stef obviously, I'm rooting for the Lakers. I hope they get it together. I hope Lebron gets championship number five. That's what I'm rooting for. But I also got to call it like

I see it, and right now steps that guy. He's the one that deserves the recognition, He's the one that has the playoff pre pedigree. He's also giving it to you every night in the regular season. He has to get that title. And interestingly enough, I think this is the first time in his career that he's had that title. I think in two thousand nineteen, you had to give it to Kauai. I know a lot of Warriors fans think that. In two thousand fifteen and two thousand Lebron,

I don't think it was particularly close. But here we are steps I think thirty three, he's the best player in the world and I and I think he's got a firm grasp on that, a discernible grasp on that, and and I'm happy for him, and I think he deserves the recognition, and I hope more people get on that train. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. This is going to air on DASH Radio tomorrow morning

at seven am Pacific Standard time. Tomorrow night after Lakers Celtics, Raj and I will be back for our normal postgame show. As always, we appreciate your support. This will be on our podcast feed shortly and we will see you guys tomorrow night.