Hoops Tonight - Anthony Davis Trade rumors, Kevin Durant surges, Bucks + Wolves struggle

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a great weekend. I was actually ready for a little bit of a break after last Friday because it had been such a crazy two and a half weeks. But I'm very excited to get back to work tonight. So much interesting basketball going on around the league. It's fun to go back to work when the league is like this.

We're gonna be touching on seven different teams tonight in varying Capacities, the Atlanta Hawks, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Minnesota Timberwolves, of Los Angeles Lakers, the Utah Jazz, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Brooklyn Nets. And we will start with that very back and forth game between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Atlanta Hawks. The Bucks started really well, really controlled the first half of that game. You know, their spot

up shooting. I talked a lot during the first few weeks of the season and even before the season, that there was no two thousand, seventeen Warriors among this group. Every one of the best teams in the league has a certain weakness, right you know, we talked about Golden State and their lack of perimeter size and now obviously we've discovered to have an issue with their bench. We've talked about the the Boston Celtics and their issues with

offensive decision making. We've talked about the Los Angeles Clippers in their lack of perimeter quickness, which has ironically manifested on the offensive end for them this year because of

their inability to get dribble penetration. And that goes down the line, including the Milwaukee Bucks, who've had a weakness with spot up shooting, which which one of the big reasons why there's so much optimism around Bucks fans is the fact that they've got a lot of reinforcements coming on that front, with the return of Pat Contaton and

Chris Middleton at some point in the future. And after getting off to a pretty rough start shooting the basketball this year, despite kicking everybody's ass, they actually had a couple of really good shooting games in a row. They were on back to back games where they made at least seventeen threes, and that continued into the first half and they had made eleven of them, particularly Brook Lopez and Grayson Allen aggressively confidently rising and knocking down shots.

You know, shooting is contagious. I'm a big believer and that most of you guys that have played basketball competitively at some level would probably agree with me. Um. It just it fills your team with confidence when guys start making shots. I don't think it's I don't think it's a coincidence that Grayson uh and Brooke coming out rising and firing confidently knocking shots down did trickled down the roster. But that game took a left turn, a wild left turn in the start of the second half, and it

was fueled by a couple of different things. I anytime you see a dominant kind of reversal like that, there's always multiple factors. For instance, the Bucks couldn't shoot anymore,

they made zero threes in the third quarter. But a big part of it, I thought was de Jon Murray really changing the pace of the game, getting with a pep in his step up the floor quickly and putting pressure on the rim importantly enough to avoid Milwaukee set half court defense, which is so important, especially with how well Brook Lopez and Janis Antena Komba are playing as rim protectors this year, which we'll get further into here in a little bit, because I want to talk about

that dominant win in Minnesota against the against the Timberwolves on Friday night. But in that third quarter, Jon Murray got them going in transition. They started to get baskets, which allowed them to set their defense. They defended extremely well against Nice, forcing him into a lot of uncharacteristic misses. And then they got out and transition themselves again and they got going, uh, forcing turnovers, getting stops and pushing the ball. The whole pace of the game shifted that

ended up feeding their confidence. And then you saw a lot of guys get going with tough shot making down the stretch. You saw justin Holiday make a bunch of big shots. You saw Yuka Ko conglu Uh attacking the offensive glass and making plays that got the crowd invested in the game. You know, this is this is the

upside to making the Degen Murray trade. Now, Um, when it was that particular trade that had very mixed feelings about this summer, because I'm a big believer in all in type of trades, I just thought it was interesting that of all the guys, Degen Murray was the one that they targeted. However, the obvious upside by by bringing in a guy like de Genta Murray is it gives

you so much more flexibility with your team's identity. So, for instance, over the course the last couple of years, it's kind of like a Trey Young heliocentric offense, and we're surrounding him with role players, right, and everything depends on him, and when he's out, the team can kind of lose that identity because they don't have this backup

identity that they can go to. And instead, what happened in this game is not only does Degen Murray give you kind of an offensive fulcrum to run around when Pray is not out there, but all of a sudden, you're going away from Trey and you're bringing in another athlete. So you get a guy like a J. Griffin who has barely played this season and it's kind of a fringe part of the rotation, gets a much bigger opportunity, more athleticism, more score like off ball scoring pop, and

that's he had a great offensive game. Obviously, Trey Young brings a ton in that specific role, but a J. Griffin a little bit more size, a little bit more athletic, a little bit more ability to crowd Janice in the paint, and then he was scoring on the other end of the four. He caught a little heater in this game, and it gave them a different way to win. If you're an Atlanta Hawks fan, you won that game in a very different way than the vast majority of your

wins over the course of the Tray Young era. That different look, that flexibility of identity is what makes that dogone Murray trade have so much upside. And it's not even just when Trey Young uh is out of the lineup. It's, for instance, gives you the ability to take that identity

and transfer it to non tray nits. For instance, in a playoff series, when you gotta go twelve minutes without Trey, you know what you can go to now, this look of Dejonta Murray with four freak athletes that just play incredibly hard and playoff of Dejonta run up and down the floor, and transition and defend like crazy, get into passing lanes and force a bunch of turnovers. It's it's it's it's a it's a big part of of why

teams go about those specific types of deals. And it was very, very impressive win for Atlanta and the first team this season to notch a win against that Milwaukee Bucks team. But the Milwaukee Bucks, their biggest weakness, like I said, all season in the past, has been their spot up shooting, and that's what failed them in that third quarter. They had zero makes after eleven in the first half. I also thought in general they kind of

fell into the pace a little bit. There was a lot of questionable decision making even from Drew and Janice there in that third quarter where it was just like them getting caught up in the hustle and bustle of Atlanta's run and trying to hit home runs to kind of reel things in rather than controlling the pace again, because you know, if you slow it down and you keep them in the half court, you're they're going to struggle to score. And so that would be my one

other bit, a little bit of criticism. I'm not over here to get on the Bucks because they're the best team in the league right now. But you always want to play the way you want to play. Don't ever let another team in their style whip you up into a frenzy and start playing a different style of basketball

than you want to play. That will only further send things down, you know, a dark path for you in terms of a run in a game like that that the Bucks very well could have one if they had they managed to rein in control of that game a little bit easier in that third quarter. UM. I did want to talk a little bit about that Bucks Wolves game on Friday night, UM that I watched this morning. It was kind of an interesting matchup because I had a feeling it would go the way that it did.

Because we're gonna talk a little bit more here in a minute about the Minnesota Timberwolves in some of the fundamental ways that they're constructed that is inherently flawed, that

that we'll talk about here in just a minute. But in that particular game, Brook Lopez and Jhannas Antenna Coopa, depending on which shift had, which guy wear and what was going on, they were sagging way back into the paint and as a result, they're basically funneling and and funneling de low down into the lane where there's already this rim protection. And we're talking about two of the

best rim protectors in the league. And then on the other end of the floor, the Bucks, when they're making their spot up threes like they did, are damn near impossible to beat. And they made seventeen threes in that game.

Janice eleven assists. And you know, I talked I've said this a million times, but Jannice, everyone focuses on the jump shot, and it always looks cool when he makes a jump shot, but the reality of the situation is that he cannot be guarded in single coverage, so he's going to force teams to build a wall in Minnesota did a good job in this game, holding Janice well below his normal efficiency, crowding the paint, getting him to miss shots that he normally makes, but in process, as

they were collapsing the paint, Janice continue to make the right reads and he is above and beyond as a passer than any of us could have even expected at this point in his career. And that was what I kept saying over the years, is the most important thing. It is more important for him to be able to pass his way open or to make teams pay for building the wall than it is for him to hit shots over the top of the defense, especially with the way the team is constructed, where Chris Middleton kind of

brings that specific capability. They don't need, you, honest, to hit threes or to hit step back twos or anything along those lines. When he makes them, it's great. It's great that he's working on him. Hell, if he figures that stuff out, we're talking about the greatest basketball player that's ever lived. But at the end of the day, it's always the passing that I'm watching with Janice, and that's where he's taken the most steps over the course of the last couple of years in his ascendancy into

the best player in the world. I didn't want to talk about the Minnesota timber Rols for just a second. I talked about their offensive struggles on Friday a little bit, but wanted to get into it a little bit deeper. You know, when when Brook Lopez and Janis Antenna Komba are camping into the paint, its severely limits what Rudy Gobert does offensively, and it really disrupts the flow of that entire Minnesota Temberwolves starting unit on the offensive end

of the floor. And and and a big part of it is just his unwillingness to score the basketball when he has advantage positions on the court. There was a play in this game, I believe it was first quarter where, uh, where Rudy got a deep seal on Bobby port Is directly under the basket, Like he could have just jumped and dunked it reverse behind his head and didn't even look at the rim. He caught it and just threw a touch pass to D'Angelo Russell and the play went nowhere.

When the whole purpose of offense is to generate an advantage. I don't know, like maybe your seven foot tall guy was super long arms directly under the basket buried a defender where he's got no chance to stop him from

going up and finishing in or drawing a foul. And that specific concept, the ability of teams to sag off of Gobert into the paint while the four of the other four Timberwolves just kind of flounder around taking bad shots, is a big part of why their offense is struggling so much, and it's really bad so far this year.

Ant Uh, Anthony Edwards, D'Angel Russell, Jada McDaniels, Carl Towns and Gobert, they're starting lineup, is getting outscored by eleven points per one possessions and is only scoring nineties seven points per one h possessions on offense, which is atrocious, especially with Aunt Edwards and Carl Town's on the floor at the same time. So let's look at that kind of fundamentally for a second. So what are the two things that Rudy Gobert does well Offensively? He screens really well.

Utah Jazz fans were preaching to us about screen assists for years, and that is a legitimate gift of his He's very good at screening and kind of like delaying his his role just enough and like lingering contact to get guards to hang up on him so that his guards can get downhill. And then he's also one of the best off some rebounders in the league. I believe he's tied with Steven Adams at the top of the league with like four point seven offensive rebounds per game

this year. So those are his two things that he does super well. Offensive rebounds are just gonna manifest an extra possessions. But if you screen super well and the team is packing the paint, what is the one way you can weaponize that for your offense? Pull up jump shooting, which I keep saying is the most important offensive skill

in the NBA right now. You have to be able to weaponize Rudy Gobert screening by having guys that can come over the top of those screens and score off the dribble, just like Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley did and and Jordan Clarkson did with the Jazz during that Jazz era. That was a great offensive team despite Rudy Gobert on the floor, and it was because of their

ability to make pull up jump shots. The Minnesota timber Wolves are averaging making seven point eight pull up jumpers per game this year, which is twenty two in the n b A. You know, both Dangel Russell and Anthony Eedwards are shooting about thirty six percent on pull up jumpers. That's just not good enough for that specific type of roster constructs. So as a result, the Carl Town's Gobert line ups with the two bigs on the flour, they

just can't score. And so that that's kind of where I see the fundamental structure of the roster as flawed, inherently flawed. If you're going to structure your team in a way that allows the other team to pack the paint, then you need to be one of a couple of different things. You either need to be the best defense

in the league. Like the Lakers, everybody packed a paint on them, and they had half court offense problems, but they were the best defense in the league, and so they were always out in transition avoiding half court sets, and they won the championship and no one even really threatened them. And then we look at the Bucks, same

type of deal. Struggled in half court offense, especially in the playoffs, but they were so damn good defensively that it was enough for it to like Essentially, they're choosing personnel that limits their spacing but gives them one of the best defenses in the league. And the Timberwolves are not a great defensive team, at least not to this point, not as good as they need to be to justify

having Rudy Gobert on the floor in these lineups. And then the only other way that you can survive with that type of lineup is if you're an outstanding pull up jump shooting team like the Golden State Warriors, So you have Draymond Green on the floor, Kevan Luoni on the floor, two non shooters. Every team can pack the pain if they want to, but they're so damn good at pull up shooting that it basically renders the idea

of packing the paint useless. And we literally saw the Boston Celtics last year Chase Steph Curry and Jordan Pool and Clay Thompson over the top of screens all series long, and they just made them pay all series long because they're the best pull up jump shooting team in the

league in my opinion. So you've got to either be outstanding defensively or an outstanding pull of jump shooting team to pull off that team construct in the Timberwolves are neither, and so I think they're a prime candidate for mid season trade, especially when you factor in some of the

personality stuff. I talked a lot on Friday about the kind of rift that's forming between Carl Town's and Anthony Edwards, and I think up some of that is fueled a little bit by the fan base kind of leaning towards Aunt. He's a little bit more of a likable basketball personality.

He's got a lot of fire and competitiveness, while Cat can be inconsistent with the way that he competes, which is just an inherently, uh you know, unlikable trait for a fan base, right, But even deeper than that, like the the you're starting to see Anthony Edwards get really frustrated with the way his offensive game is more difficult

with the team construct. And you guys all probably all saw that video that went around where the Timberwolves ran to play and Aunt just sat on the right wing and just stand like hands on his hips and watch the whole play happen, which, by the way, like I'm sure he got dealt with privately for that, because that's a really bad look and no matter what your issue is, that's just not the way to you know, could go about expressing that. But you're starting to see some fractures

in the personalities of the team. So if I've got the personalities aren't jelling and the team itself is fundamentally flawed with the way that it's constructed, they're a prime candidate for mid season trade, and so they can go one of a couple different routes. You can either ditch all the non shooting since you don't have good enough pull up shooting, and you can go all in on five out spacing and driving to the basket, driving kick

type of stuff. But it's a hard I have a hard time believing that they're gonna ditch Rudy Gobert after they just traded everything in the entire franchise cabinet for it, right, So the more realistic option here is they end up flipping Dell and Cat and they target defensive players and you basically go all in on we are going to be the best defense in the league surrounding Rudy Gobert.

Because Anthony Edwards, by the way, is has the potential to be an outstanding defensive player, and you you could tell it when he's engaged. He's really really good on that front. So if I I would imagine the direction they'll go is leaning heavily in on defense and understanding that they'll never be a great offensive team, at least in the half court. But if they defend really well get Anthony Edwards out in transition, maybe that can be

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first bet up to one thousand dollars. Make every moment more this season with fan Duel, official sports book partner of the NBA. All right, let's move on to the Lakers so they go into over the weekend. By the way, how we will be covering tonight's Lakers Jazz game during tomorrow's show, including the Warriors game tonight and I think the Nets are also playing tonight. We're gonna basically the

entire late slate tonight. We're gonna cover tomorrow. Um, that'll be live on AMP and I believe six pm Eastern time, but I'll tweet that out just in case as we get closer to the show tomorrow. Um. But the Lakers go, they win two games in a row, right, they beat Denver, they beat the Pelicans up to two and five. A lot of optimism, but they had a really tough weekend slate.

That Utah Jazz team that's beating everybody somehow. They beat the Clippers later in the weekend too, and then you had the Cleveland Cavaliers in that Sunday game, and they're just arguably the best team in league right now. Right. UM. I was specifically worried about both of those matchups from the standpoint of the way that they attacked specific weaknesses

for the Lakers. For instance, the Utah Jazz have to stretch bigs and Darvin ham his screen coverages, he calls him, he calls its center field, but it's basically just drop coverage. The big man is back way back in the paint containing things, and they help a ton out of the strong side on on pick and roll. So like if you're defending a wing on the left wing and the pick and rolls coming out of the right wing, that defender on the left wing is digging down to the

free throw line to contain the ball. So they give up a lot of wide open threes. And then you guys, as you know, one of the biggest UH specific kryptonites for UH drop coverage is a pick and pop, And it's just it's just about the way the coverage work. It works if the guard is chasing the guard over the top of the screen and the big is sagging back to contain the ball handler, but the screener pop rather than rolling directly into the screen defender, he's not guarded.

And so that the Utah Jazz, with the with all of the shooting that they have on the floor to punish Darvin Ham's over helping and with their pick and pop bigs. With the way that the Lakers dropped into the paint so much, I had I had, I had a feeling that they would have a hard time guarding that specific matchup, and they got absolutely torched. They gave

up a hundred and thirty points. Lori marken In absolutely killed and by the way, Lori markin in this season on five restricted area attempts on paint non restricted area attempts forty six percent from the mid range and out of the corners. Basically, the only place he's not making shots right now is above the break. A Link and Marketing combined for forty five in this game, and they made eight jumpers. Lebron, Anthony Davis, and Russ combined to

make five jumpers in that game. Another big thing from Utah that uh that killed the Lakers in this game was and the Lakers, by the way, even though there was some match up stuff that was problematic which I just went over, it also just wasn't a very good defensive effort from them in this game. This was the first time that they didn't bring a plus defensive effort after seven really good defensive games. And uh, Mike Conley in particular, is having a great season was killing the

Lakers punishing them for not checking cutters. So a lot of times what will happen is, you know, off ball defenders will kind of key in on the basketball and they put themselves in a typical defensive position, which is

roughly halfway between their man and the ball. But one of the ways that you can remain a threat off ball is not just shooting, but cutting to the basket, and particularly um Jared Vanderbilt and Lori Marken In every time that like Lebron would be keyed in on the basketball, they would just like face cut, like cut right in front of Lebron's face, and rather than him paying attention and checking the cutter, he'd be late and they would

just quit catch and finish. And Mike Conley did such a good job of making the Lakers pay every time they got lazy in their off ball defense. And then the so that was just an ugly game for the Lakers,

and then the Cleveland game. They're massive on the interior, they're very good paint defense, and so so basically, when you have downhill threats like Lebron, Anthony Davis and Russ and the worst perimeter shooting team in the league, you're basically driving at Jared Allen and Evan Mobili all game long, it's gonna go poorly. So I was worried about that.

And then on the other end of the floor, the Cleveland Cavaliers are an outstanding pull up jump shooting team, which is another one of the great ways to beat a drop coverage, which is Darvin Hamm's bread and butter coverage. So it's kind of a two way, uh bad matchup for the Lakers. And for the record, the Lakers came out and played a really really good first half of things really fell apart in that third quarter. And you know, I wanted to specifically highlight the value of pull up

jump shooting. How it's driving Cleveland right now. So in that particular game, Karris LeVert, Darius Garland, and Donovan Mitchell combined to go nine for seventeen on pull up jump shots, which is over. It's it's not just about like, oh, he makes a tough step like Donovan Mitchell sticks a stuff, a tough step back over Lonnie Walker that rescues a possession. Yes, rescuing a possession is a big part of it, but

it's about beating the coverage in all game long. Darius Garland in particular and Donovan Mitchell were getting over the top of the screen, getting downhill, biggest, too far back, rise and fire from fifteen feet and they knock it down.

That is why that skill is so incredibly valuable. And you juxtapose that with the Lakers, who are by far the worst pull up jump shooting team in the league, they're dead last, and pull up jump shots made per game at five point three twenty nine is seven makes per game, so they're significantly behind the rest of the field,

and they're dead last in percentage at below. Cleveland is eighth in makes, pull up jump shot makes per game in sixth in percentage by comparison, So you can see that that that specific problem is is manifesting for the Lakers on a bunch of different fronts. They don't we focus so much on the perimeter shooting as it pertains to spacing, but Lebron just completely losing his pull up jump shot, which has been one of the most reliable part of parts of his game basically from two thousand

seventeen to two thousand twenty one. Like that, him losing that from his game so far to start this season has been really problematic because Russell Westbrook can't do it, Kendrick Nunne completely forgot how to play, you know, like that. Without the team just has no pull up jump shooting, so they're never forcing teams to go over the top of screens, at least not often enough for to manifest in real offense offensive advantage creation. It's a big problem

but shout out to Donovan Mitchell. He was the best player on the floor in this game by a mile. Had absolutely no problem getting to his spots all game long. You could see it, dripping with confidence all game long, talking to people courtside, just a swagger from him on the court, and he controlled that game. He has been one of the five best players in the league to

start this season. He's firmly in early m VP debates, and when we do our first top ten Players of the regular season list, which I think is coming on Thursday this week, he will absolutely be featured very high on that list. The Lakers tried to match his athleticism with Lonnie Walker as an individual matchup, and he just got absolutely barbecued. Um, So we have to kind of like side Laker topics that I want to talk about first is Lebron, who struggled really bad in the Utah game.

He's pretty solid in the Cleveland game. He's nine for ten in the restricted area, looked a lot more explosive. You could tell that the illness is at least fading or he's starting to get over that a little bit. Um, But he couldn't hit another He couldn't hit his perimeter shot. Again, there are specifically two things from Lebron that are really hurting the Lakers. First of all, like we talked about the pull up shooting, he's taking six of them per game,

but he's only making of him. He's the only guy on the team that can bring that skill, so they need him to get that going. But the big part, and this is something that we're not talking about nearly enough, is he's not actually trying to turn the corner and press sure the rim in pick and roll. So, for instance, Russ leads the team, Russell Westbrook leads the team in offensive writing among rotation players. Amongst guys that are actually in the rotation, the team scores best when he's on

the floor compared to anybody else on the roster. Russ and Anthony Davis lineups without Lebron are performing considerably better than Lebron James Anthony Davis lineups without Russ. And the main reason why is Russ is attacking off of pick and roll. He is picking up ahead of team and he is getting downhill, which is collapsing the paint and leading to advantages, which is the whole job for Russ, Lebron and a d create advantages so that the rest of the team can benefit from it. It's not a

one on one game. It's a five on five game. But if everybody's playing one on one because nobody has an advantage, you're gonna struggle. But if you turn it into a one on oh because this guy's unguarded and you've created an advantage, that's where you start to get really high quality shots. And I'll give you an example. Early in the third quarter, they go to they go back to Russ with like eight and a half minutes left in the third quarter because the Calves came out

and immediately went on like an eleven oh run. After Lebron James layup and uh, they bring Russ in and he runs a pick and roll with a d top key and he gets downhill fast on Donovan Mitchell and I might not even have been a pick and roll, might have just been in isolation, but he gets fast downhill and as a result, Jared All has to step up easy little lot pass. Anthony Davis is dunking and hanging on the rim that's only open because the Russ

gets downhill. Everything depends on you getting downhill to create those advantages Lebron when he runs pick and roll with a d he there's no pace to it, there's no intention to get downhill. He's coming over the top of the screen, and a lot of times he's just picking up the dribble and like throwing like a crappy like swing pass to somebody who's not even open, who has to like v cut back out to the perimeter to catch the basketball. Or he's throwing like super low, difficult

pocket passes to Anthony Davis who's barely open. In those situations, he's not being very intentional about creating an advantage as he comes over the top of those screens, which is literally the only purpose to why you do that. So not only does it kill. I'll give you an example. There are forty eight players in the NBA that have registered at least forty possessions as a pick and roll ball handler this year. Forty eight players at least forty possessions.

Lebron is dead last and is scoring just zero point five six points per possession in those situations. And it's because he's being incredibly passive there, and that's a huge part of the problem with the Lakers offense right now. Now he was sick, and now Lonnie Walker sick, and now Patrick Beverley sick. Anthony Davis said he caught it two. So there's a little bug going around the Lakers. I want to cut him some slack. And he did look a lot better against Cleveland than he had in in

recent games. But Lebron's inability to make jump shots, in him not being aggressive in pick and roll, those two things are a huge problem for the Lakers right now. Yes, they're two and seven, but their fifth in defense. The Lakers are literally fifth in defense after having the third toughest schedule in the league according to ESPN, literally a playoff team every single night. That's how difficult their schedule

has been. And they're getting stops. So getting the offense figured out is the difference between this team notching a bunch of wins and continuing to flounder in the failure failure that they've been floundering in. So the Labarn thing is worth keeping an eye on now. I I anticipate that he'll figure it out, but let's be clear about

what's happened to this point in the season. Blast Out of the Lakers Anthony Davis, so Bill Simmons started a little bit of a fire last night when he said that he had been hearing rumors um that Anthony Davis might be available for trade. And then I also saw something that said Hon Coward might have seconded that, but I didn't actually specifically see that audio, so I'm not a percent sure, but I did think that was interesting, and that was kind of the talk that was dominating, uh,

you know, Twitter today. It was just like, is Anthony Davis gonna be traded? Who would you trade him to? You know, why would they trade him? That sort of thing. First of all, he's been the best player in the Lakers by a mile so far this year. He's not what he was offensively, not even close, but I think he's been the best defensive player in the league and probably is the front runner for defensive Player of the Year if the Lakers could win enough games on the offensive.

And he's still giving you twenty three points per game on fifty percentury shooting, which is fine, but obviously he's got some ground to go there. But he's been so good defensively that he's right around the tenth best player in the league right now, which is good. He's doing his job a d is doing his part. I've been critical of him in the past. I wish he could get it together offensively. He's had some bad defensive games this season, but for the most part, he's been great.

I don't think there's any reason to trade Anthony Davis. Tanking is pointless. They don't own their pick, Like if they have a terrible season this year, the Pelicans have the right to swap with them, and if they have a great season this year, then they'll just take their pick the following season. So there's just no advantage to tank it. You're also not gonna get any value for

him aside from draft capital. The quality of players you're gonna get back for Anthony Davis are gonna be like what the Jazz got for Gobert Rotation level NBA players and a bunch of draft picks. So the only value there is draft capital, which doesn't benefit this particular window. So I just don't really see the point. Now, there are two scenarios where I could see the Lakers trading

Anthony Davis during this season. First is Katie becomes available and somehow Brooklyn says I'd rather have Anthony Davis in two First, round picks than DeAndre Ayton or Michail Bridges or or did Jalen Brown or any of the other packages that were out there, if you were under the impression, like Brooklyn calls you and goes, we will do this deal right now, give us Anthony Davis in two first round picks. Rob Blinka says, yes, like I genuinely believe

that he would. But that's that's that's one of the potential scenarios. The only other one I could think of is if Lebron like had a season ending injury and Anthony Davis was still healthy, and the Lakers are pretty sure after all these years that he's not their franchise cornerstone, so they opt to go full rebuild because they know Lebron's careers basically over, and Anthony Davis um can fetch, you know, some trade assets and help them kind of

spark or rebuild. But that's those are the only two scenarios where I could see that happening this season, and I view both of those as extremely unlikely. So I don't think it's happening. I don't think they're just gonna send him to the Knicks or to the Warriors in exchange for role players. I don't I don't see that happening. Now here's what I would do, um if I I would go all in with this particular group, So I

would trade Russell Westbrook. And first of all, I know Russell Westbrook has been pretty good as of late, but he's still very volatile. He still very up and down. And the Lakers, by the way, or the second worst transition defense in the league, and so turnovers and miss layups and things can be very detrimental to them. It's almost like pick sixes and Russell Westbrook in that Cleveland game, in a really bad second half for the game, he had ten more miss layups and turnovers, which you know

helps hurt the Lakers in transition defense. He's been better, a lot better, uh in fact, aggregate good during this season compared to bad the way he was last season. So Russ has been better. However, the best way to upgrade the team remains his salary, a massive salary that can bring back multiple players in conjunction with multiple draft picks. So I would go all in with the Westbrook trade. Then what you do is you've put the fate of the season and Lebron James and Anthony Days his hands.

If you bring back Buddy Yield and Miles Turner just to make it easy. Now you're giving them Patrick Beverley, you know, or Lonnie Walker, Buddy Yield, you know, Lebron, James, Anthony Davis, Miles Turner. Now all these guys like, uh, you know, Troy Brown Junior and Austin Reeves are in benchrolls where they probably belong at this phase in their careers. Everything starts to make more sense. If they lose, Like, if they still suck, that's Lebron and Anthony Davis's fault.

It's because they weren't good enough. So if they're not good enough anymore after a full season, then you know for sure that that can't be your core anymore. So that's when you can do something like either you decide like, okay, e d is worth salvaging, So I'm gonna trade Lebron and I'm gonna refill my draft a stash. Okay, I lost two picks to Indiana and the Heeled trade, but we sucked. The season was a disaster, so I traded Lebron.

Now I have three more first round draft picks. Or maybe it's like we're keeping Lebron, but Anthony Davis keeps getting hurt. We can't keep. Okay, we're gonna trade Anthony Davis. Now we got two more draft picks back, you know, or heck, maybe it's both. Like Lebron and a d out the window. Here comes six draft picks and a bunch of you know, young players. Like who knows what

that looks like. But the point is is, like everyone talks about these two Laker draft picks like they're the last draft picks the Lakers will ever own, and that they don't have the flexibility or the capability of bringing in future draft assets. Yes, they do trade the picks, trade Russ, bring in role players, give Lebron and Anthony Davis a real chance to win this season. If they do great, If not, then you blow it up. And when you blow it up, you're able to recoup those

draft assets. This is a this is a process that has been done many times in NBA history. There's a playbook out for this kind of thing, you know. And and like, I don't even know that I've never understood the session with the draft picks, and I really don't understand the obsession with the cap space if they didn't do anything. Next year's free agent classes are really bad.

It's not a good year to have cap space. So that again, that's just what I would do if I was running the Lakers, and you know, but I'm not in the chair. Rob Blinker runs the team. We're gonna find out sooner, not all right quickly, before we get out of here. I wanted to shout out Kevin durant

Um after the Kyrie suspension. I talked about how it was going to require a herculean performance from k D to keep this team afloat in the meantime, and I predicted that they would go one in four in their next five games stretched the the you know, the window of ka Kyrie suspension, and they've already proved me wrong because they've gone to a O. And what's funny is

there's nothing exceptional in the stats. KAD average nine and seven over this two game span from the field and from three, arguably below what you would expect statistically from Kevin durant But as I've always said, that's just the worst way to evaluate talent. We're looking at so many different areas of the game, and I hope we've done a good job of explaining that over the course of this show. Um, but from the start of those games, the energy was just different than it was in any

of the other Nets games this season. You know, Katie himself said after the game quote, I just think we rallied around each other. It was a tough week for us, and it's always good to just get back to the game. Once the ball is tipped, all the bullshit goes out the window, and you could tangibly see that from the team in this game. In those two games, Katie came out super engaged from the start on both ends of the floor. He took care of the basketball, which is

something he hasn't done all season. He only had five turnovers total in the two games. He defended the rim well. He had four blocks, and the whole team responded. What are the two things that have destroyed the Brooklyn Nets this year? Defending and grabbing rebounds. In the two wins, they grabbed fort of available rebounds, which is solid. That means they just barely got out rebounded instead of getting destroyed.

And then they notched a defensive rating of ninety four, which is outstanding, and particularly against the Wizards team which has a lot of offensive talent. So you know, essentially they got Kyrie out of the picture a little bit. The distraction was gone. Kadi was a pent Kevin freaking Durant. The role players were galvanized by that. And they want a couple of basketball games. Now, are they going to continue to win basketball games? I don't know, Probably not.

They don't have enough talent, and so I still think this has headed towards the thing blowing up. But what it was just a great example of how a stars engagement level is so important for the rest of the team, and also just how good Kevin freaking Durant still is at basketball. You know, I tweeted that night, I hope someone rescues him so I can watch him play some meaningful basketball. You know, it's funny. The the irony of the k D Kyrie partnership is they're so they're wired

very differently. Katie is like the first thing in his life is basketball, and then spots two through five are vacant, and then I don't even know what six is, video games or who down knows me like something like that. Basketball is all that matters to him. It's his favorite thing to do in the world. It's all he cares about. When anything interferes with that, he hates it. And he's been thrust into this situation. I shouldn't even say thrust.

He willingly went into the situation with Kyrie, a player who frequently gets distracted from basketball, and it's massively undercut his ability to achieve his goals in this environment. Katie is a hooper. He deserves to be in a situation where he can just play basketball and not have to

worry about any of this stuff. And selfishly, as a fan of the game of basketball and is a fan of k D, I want him to play on a good team because I want to see k D play meaningful basketball late into May and into early June, so I can see what he's capable of on that biggest stage again like we've seen so many times in the past. But I did. I did just want to shout out KD for what I thought was a really, really impressive couple of basketball games. All right. That is all we

have for to night. Obviously a ton more games going on while we're even recording this show, But tomorrow, I believe at six pm Eastern time, we are going to be live on AMP going over the late night slate from tonight's games, and then Wednesday, we're going live on AMP after Nick's nets and then live on YouTube after Lakers Clippers. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys support and I will see you next time. The volume