Hoops Tonight - Lakers BIG WIN vs. SGA & OKC Thunder, Draymond Green returns from NBA suspension

Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app with code hoops that's hoops. New customers can bet five bucks on the NBA and get two hundred instantly in bonus bets only on Draftking Sportsbook with code hoops that's hops. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net. In New York called eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine.

In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. Twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See dkg dot com slash basketball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and

responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to ho Tonight here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody, hoop all if you guys are having a great week. Just a quick show today. We're gonna hit thunder Lakers, talk about the Golden State Warriors and their recent struggles, especially on the defensive end of the floor. Then I have a bit for the end of the show that I want to do about shot quality and the role it plays in basketball analysis.

You guys know the Joe forberget started. Subscribe to the brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if you guy would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feeds.

Wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss the film threads that I do on most mornings as well as show announcements, and the last, but not out least keep dropping mail bag questions is more time because we're gonna do a long mail bag in tomorrow's show. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Lakers get another big win. What did I tell you guys after

the Clippers game? I was like, look forward to them over the rest of the month of January to look really bad at times and really good at times. And that's the thing with this team right now. We're gonna talk about it in a little bit. But the thunder are a damn good team coming in on a winning streak, and the Lakers kind of manhandled them physically again, sixty something points in the paint a really good defensive effort, especially in helping recovery situations. You could see the effort

digging down and getting back out to shooters. The Lakers always have a bunch of big forwards off the ball, and that it makes it so that they can be really good and helping recover situations when they are locked in. Darvin Ham did a nice job mixing in some zone defense in the second half that helps to further the breaking of Oklahoma City's rhythm. They ran thirteen possessions of zone in the second half and gave up just five points,

so it clearly had an impact on Oklahoma City. And then on offense, a lot of action from Lebron and Anthony Davis as cutters. As a matter of fact, the Lakers scored twenty two points on cuts in this game, and sixteen of them where Anthony Davis and Lebron. As a team that can struggle with dribble penetration from time to time, cutting and having passers that can hit the cutters when they make those cuts is another way to generate that kind of rim pressure and all the good

stuff that can happen happen off of that. One of the things that they did a lot in this game is have other guys set screens and have Anthony Davis work in the dunker spot because if he can, shouldn't go up with a head of steam with chet with his attention turned elsewhere. He can either draw foul or finish relatively easily. Another thing is Lebron with those swim

move back cuts that he always does. Lebron's backcuts are almost a very physical play where you know he's standing on the wing and the guy's pressing up a little bit to try to stop, you know, Lebron from catching easily on the perimeter, and Lebron will just literally do what a defensive end does, and he'll just do that angry swim move and just kind of go past the dude and they'll lead him towards the basket for a

bucket that way, same sort of thing. It's just the Lakers are much much bigger than the Oklahoma City Thunder, and when they make these aggressive back cuts and they can hit those guys with the head of steam, there's just nobody on Oklahoma City that can really bother him at the rim when they get to that point. I thought Austin Reeves had a really good pick and roll game, ran nine of them, leading to ten points. He's now actually, with last night, over one point per possession on pick

and rolls for the season. He's one of only fifteen players in the league to have run at least five hundred pick and rolls this year, and he's creeping up that list. At the start of the year, he's well low point per possession and it's just getting better and better and better. You can see Austin Reeves improving as a pick and roll shot creator with each passing game

as he continues to get the reps. I thought he made some really nice kickout passes to shooters too that didn't go in, So I think it could have been even better than what the numbers showed, and the numbers were impressive. And then D'Angelo Russell. You know, I again, I think it's one of the safest bets in the NBA this year that he gets traded, and I still feel pretty strongly about that. That said, like, that doesn't

mean he's not a good basketball player. It's just a redundancy on the Lakers that they have to deal with. And he's a very good basketball player. And one of the gifts that he has is interior passing. He's one of those players that's good at hitting Lebron James and Anthony Davis and others when they are cutting to the basket with the head of steam, and like we mentioned earlier, that's a great way to generate more rim pressure and that was a big part of the offensive success of

the Lakers last night. And the last thing I wanted to shout out rujatch Mura and Jared Vanderbilt, who both had big games off the bench. These two guys have been given a rough shake in terms of the rotation with Darvin Ham who just continues to give thirty plus minutes to Torrian Prince no matter what. And when cam reddis gets back, I'm sure he'll be getting a bunch of minutes too. And one of the nice things, like one of the bad things with that is Ruy and Jared

have had really inconsistent shifts and inconsistent minutes. It's just made it hard for their rhythm. And both of those guys have just kept a good attitude and kept playing good basketball that Jared Vanderbilt had one of his most impactful defensive games last night, and Ruey Achamura, after a rough first tap make and some bad decisions, really played smart basketball in the second half. Hits, some big shots,

had some transition runouts, and some cuts. Really good all around game for the Lakers is they notch a very

very important win against the Oklahoma City Thunder. So now I want to talk about the Lakers in a big picture sense because one of the themes of today's show is going to have to do with regular season malayise And you know, I think you can go too far in that direction when every game is like, oh, this team played harder, this team didn't play hard, and there are obviously basketball dynamics that take place, but we'd be foolish to pretend like that stuff doesn't matter, right, I mean, like,

let's look at Sacramento Kings, for instance. The sacrament Kings are a team that have had an impressive list of

dominant wins this year against really good teams. But then they'll just get their ass kicked, you know, once every two weeks, like just straight up get throttled by like thirty points, right, And so they're a team that, like, depending on the night, sometimes they come out throw a hllacious punch and sometimes they come out and they're unfocused and they're unseious, unseerious, and they can lose, right, I mean, look at the Lakers. Let's just zoom in on the

Lakers really quick. Lakers have given up one hundred and eighteen points per one hundred possessions since winning the n Season Tournament championship. That's awful. That's twenty first in the league over that span. In that same span, the Clippers have been the best offense in the league at one hundred and twenty four points per one hundred possessions, and the Thunder are fourth at one hundred and twenty four

points per one hundred possessions. I think they're like six tenths of a point below the Clippers at this point. The Lakers, what like a week and a half ago, held the Clippers to a one to oh three offensive rating, literally twenty one points below their recent success in the James harden Era right, held the Thunder last night two

one hundred and five points per one hundred possessions. Even if we go back to some of their bigger wins early in the years, they're on the strength of these big, strong defensive runs, like the Pacers light up the Celtics, and the Pacers light up the Bucks, and then the Lakers throttle the Pacers and they get a win. We know they have this defensive punch. What does that tell us? They have that punch, they can throw it, but most of the time they don't throw it. Let's make it

even more apparent. So the Lakers are twenty and twenty one. They're a below five hundred team. Call them five hundred if you give them the Pacers win in the regular season which doesn't count towards the standings. In those twenty wins, this below five hundred team has beat the thunder twice, the Clippers twice, the Suns three times, they beat the shit out of the Pelicans, they beat the Magic, they beat the Rockets twice, they went to the to Cleveland

and beat the Cavs. They've won eleven games against teams that are over five hundred. That's the eighth most in the NBA right now. That's a pretty impressive list of wins for a below five hundred team. It's very clear that this is a team that has wildly oscillating effort from night to night. So the question is why why do the Lakers do that? And the reality, in my opinion, is pretty simple. Defense is hard. This is a defensive team,

and defense is hard. It takes hillacious effort and focus and energy and extra efforts and out of area plays and all these different things. And the Lakers completely relaxed after winning the n Ceason Tournament, which was one of my major concerns that I put out there right after the Dallas Mavericks game, the first game after the tournament, and I think there's a bunch of reasons for that. For starters, they all decided they didn't like their coach.

I don't think Darvin is a very good NBA coach. He doesn't know how to organize offense. He struggles with lineup construction. He's super inconsistent with his rotations, which can throw his young players for loops. But at the same time, it's the player's fault too, because the players just also aren't playing hard for it. So it's a combination of like Darvin not doing a very good job, and the players not really buying in or being invested or believing

in what Darvin's asking them to do. I mean again, if we really break it down on a real simple level, it's a team playing good basketball versus a team playing bad basketball. And playing good basketball and bad basketball is a combination of a bunch of factors. Right. It's a combination of the talent you have on your roster. It is a combination of lineup construction and making sure the talent fits right. It's a combination of effort and execution.

It's a combination of like like rhythm and confidence right, and like what causes rhythm and confidence to change? Rhythm and confidence can be a combination of like offensive process, like making sure you get guys in the right spots. Like It could be a combination of off court work, like not putting in the necessary off court daily shooting to make sure that you're in rhythm and ready to go. It can be inconsistent rotation and a coach fucking with your minutes too much, and how that can kind of

mess with things. Like all these different things lead to playing good basketball and bad basketball. And I think I think another big factor that we don't really bring up enough here is Lebron's thirty nine years old and he plays one of the most important positions in the NBA for any defense, which is that lowman position. Because of the as pull up shooters have gotten better, the centers had to come further out from the basket, which has required that lowman to be more active on the back

side of the defense. And Lebron has played downright shitty defense since the n season tournament. He's capable of doing it, he is choosing not to, probably a combination of saving legs during the regular season, frustration at the situation with the roster, frustration at the situation with the coach, right because that's the other thing, there's an aura surrounding this team knowing that someone's gonna get traded at probably at

least d Angela Russell, if not more so. Like as a result of that, there's just a lot of shit going on that is leading the Lakers to playing bad basketball, poor lineup construction, inconsistent rotations, bad offensive process, frustration with the coaching staff, and weirdness around the deadline, and a thirty nine year old playing one of the most important defensive positions on the team. All of that is combining to them being a really inconsistent, a really inconsistent a

team since the n season tournament. Right. Another thing with Lebron being old too, is just with the offense, Like he's the one guy on the team that can consistently generate rim pressure, and so if he's not being super physically aggressive on offense, their offense can fall apart. There's been a lot of talk around the Lakers' offense this year. In seven in season tournament games, they have a one

to twenty one offensive rating. Now, I still don't think their offense is good enough to win the title, but it's much better than it's look for most of the season. Because of all of those reasons that I just talked about. Now, this is one of the reasons why I feel pretty strongly about this, and one of the reasons why my opinion on the Lakers hasn't changed really at all over the course of this season, despite the ups and the downs, even it didn't really change in the ups and it

didn't really change in the downs. And one of the biggest reasons is I've just seen this so many times over the course of Lebron James's career. I can think of five examples of seasons that kind of had similar vibes around this time of year. In twenty fifteen, when the Cavs traded for j R. Smith, they were nineteen and twenty at one point that season went on to make the NBA Finals. In twenty sixteen, when they wanted to fire David Blatt, they were really really ugly right

around that end of December early January stretch. Not as bad as some of these other teams, but they weren't playing very very good basketball. They fired David Blatt. They go on to run to the NBA Finals. Right twenty seventeen, that team just knew that they could beat everybody in the Eastern Conference, so they didn't try for most of the regular season. In fact, they lost fourteen of their final twenty five games going into the playoffs, and then

they swept everybody. If it wasn't for Avery Bradley making a game winning shot in Cleveland, which they immediately followed up by going down to Boston and beating the shit out of them in Boston, they would have swept everybody. So that team knew. This has been a consistent trait in Lebron teams. They know Lebron deep down knows that he doesn't need to necessarily live and die by every single win in the regular season, which is something that

translates when he turns it on in the playoffs. Right. I don't necessarily, I will talk about this a minute. I don't necessarily think that's the best way to go about things, but that is a thing that is definitely a characteristic of Lebron James led teams over the years. In by the way twenty seventeen team went to the finals.

Twenty eighteen, when Lebron was sick of Isaiah Thomas and Jay Crowder and just frustrated with the roster, they went seven to fourteen over the twenty one games before Lebron was informed about the trade, and he was playing like absolute dog shit twenty four points per game, five turnovers per game immediately after that, thirty ten to ten the rest of the way, fifty four percent from the field, thirty nine percent from three, and he had eight forty

point games in the playoffs, clearly laying off in the middle of the regular season right before the deadline, clearly turning it up leading into the playoffs. That's and then last year they start two to ten from day one of training camp. Everyone knows Russell Westbrook's gonna get eventually get traded. They look absolutely lifeless in January, drop a couple of really ugly games before the deadline, and then they go on a run and make the Western Conference Finals.

Four of those five examples they make the NBA Finals, one of them they win the championship, and then the one that's not in those four they make it to the Western Conference Finals. So again, this is not exactly a super uncommon trend for Lebron James led teams in January. Now there's a conversation to be had about Lebron's role in all of that. And we'd had that conversation on the show before, and so I'm not gonna do it right here just for time sake, But this is just

kind of what it looks like. The point is, my opinion on the Lakers is exactly where it was before the season. I think they're a really good team that isn't as good as Boston or Denver. I was wrong about them as a regular season team. I thought they would attack the regular season from start to finish, and they did not. They took the It's very clear they took the N season tournament very seriously and not everything else.

To break it down, guys, this team is literally thirteen and twenty one in non inseason tournament games, or fourteen and twenty one. They literally are fourteen and twenty one. Like, think about that. What's that forty percent? They're winning forty percent of their games? Like? Is this the kind of

team that could? Is this team with Lebron James and Anthony Davis playing at the level they've been for most of the season, right, and with the positive progression of Austin Reeves and all of this athleticism, how are they fourteen and twenty one in these other games? That's a really strong indicator of that thing I'm talking about. They've taked. They took the n Season Tournament seriously. They took a

couple of high profile games seriously, and that's it. If they hit with their deadline moves, that is what I think will make them. That will our opinion the Lakers should change post headline, because at that point they should lock in. We'll have a better feel for where the roster is Lebron and ad. It doesn't matter how sick of Darvin Ham they are, they're gonna have to just kind of deal with it for the rest of the season. So they'll put their head downs and they'll go to work,

their heads down and they'll go to work. That's when we're gonna find out whether or not my take of the Lakers needs to go down a level or go up a level. But we're not learning anything about this team right now. I thoroughly expect them to look like shit and then look amazing like another two or three times before the deadline. They beat the Thunder, don't be surprised if they drop that game to Dallas tomorrow. Don't be surprised. They might win, but don't be surprised if

they drop that game. One other thing, because again I've seen a lot of people in the comments like why is it that you use the effort excuse so much for the Lakers in particular, And the long and short of it is, it's just I'm referring specifically to my history rooting for Lebron James and my deep familiarity with

this kind of phenomenon. Right that said, you're not wrong, and in my opinion, NBA history tells us that veteran teams with talent led by superstars win the title when they attack the regular season, not when they bullshit when they attack the regular season. There's been so much talk about the fatigue element of them going eighteen and eight

post deadline last year. I would argue them going eighteen and eight post headline last year is why they went to the playoffs and made it to the Western Conference Finals. They practiced playing really good basketball for a long time.

There was a clip going around on Instagram today or last night of Dan Campbell and it was in preseason, I believe, and I don't know what the background was, but it seemed as though players were complaining about doing too much contact practice and Dan Campbell goes like, listen, like, I think about you guys every single day. I'm always worried about where your bodies are at making sure you stay healthy. But we have to practice playing contact football.

He's like, otherwise it'll take eight weeks for us to get used to hitting people. That kind of process is a similar belief I have about winning championships in the NBA. Yes, it is smarter on your bodies to chill more during the regular season, and even that's debatable by the way, even the NBA came out and was like, load management is not proven to decrease the risk of injuries, And I would argue playing not hard is that a great

way to get yourself hurt. But like, at the end of the day, even if we accepted that as a reality, in my opinion, the benefits of building a championship identity, of building championship habits, making it habitual for you to focus and to give those extra efforts and to bring it on a nightly basis is the kind of thing that will help you down the line when you get into the postseason. I mean, even in the playoffs last year, do you remember the first two series the Lakers literally

played the same every single game in the series. They'd come out in Game one with a hilatious effort and they'd win. Then they'd punt game two. Then they'd come out in Game three with a hilatious effort and they'd win big at home. Then in game four be this crazy rockfight of a game, they'd pull it out. Then in game five on the road, they'd punt, and then they'd come home games in game six with a hilatious effort and they'd win convincingly. That's literally how both the

Grizzlies and Warrior series went. And then they ran into a team that's better than them that it took the regular season far more seriously, and they weren't able to play that game. It worked against the young team, it worked against the other older veteran team that struggled in the regular season, and then it didn't work against the veteran team that attacked the regular season. So why am I saying all that? I won't think the Lakers have a real chance to win the title unless they have

a similar stretch before the playoffs this year. They need to have like a twenty five game stretch where they win. You know, sixteen seventeen, eighteen, nineteen games something like that, where over an extended stretch they play really good basketball. That is a prerequisite, in my opinion, if they want to hoist the trophy, because otherwise they'll either lose in the play in or they'll lose in the first round because they will come into the playoffs playing bad basketball.

They have to again, they have to ramp up at some point. We're now halfway through the season, and they did it briefly for the n Sason Tournament, and they've basically punted since then, and so again, my opinion hasn't changed, but it will change post deadline based on the personnel and whether or not they can put together an extended stretch of good basketball to build the habits they need

to build in order to win an NBA championship. All right, let's move on to Draymont and his return to the Warriors. So Dreiman had a quote after the game saying, we can't check, we can't guard as really ugly loss for the Warriors last night in Memphis against a team without Desmond Baine, John Moran or Marcus Smart. But that was kind of a vague answer from Draymond about their defense, and so I wanted to do a deep dive into the specific run of the game when they blew it

was a seventeen point swing. They went up seven in the late third quarter on a Jonathan Kminga transition dunk. Yet they were down ten with about seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. So they were outscored by seventeen in a short window, and I wanted to zoom in on the defensive possessions, each one, at least each one of the the buckets that Memphis got to see what specifically was going wrong with Golden State's defense. Take a

little bit of a deep dive there. So, first of all, when they were up seven on Kaminga's transition dunk, the Grizzlies got two quick threes to end the fourth quarter

based on overhelp situations. There was a double team of Jared Jackson that led to a rotation and lesser Kenona has had a David Roddy contained literally cut him off, but Jonathan kaminga strong side corner, for whatever reason, just decided to double team David Roddy even though Kenonis didn't not need help, and there was a quick easy kickout to the corner to Jacob Gilliard who made a three.

Very next possession, Jonathan Kmica, I think of Sarage turns it over on the baseline and a Jaron Jackson kind of in transition is driving and they got him contained. I think it was Tray Jackson. Davis at this point has him contained in Sarage overhelps and leaves David Roddy

top of the key. And again there's a difference between guy has an angle and you're swinging down to kind of disrupt that angle, and like guy has chested the off the player up and has him squared up and he has no advantage, and now you're just helping for no reason. Right, two quick threes. Now it's a one point game. Also, was a tough lineup offensively for Golden stated that stretch it was Jonathan Kaminga, Brandon Pazemski, dariosar

Tray s Jackson, Davis, and Lester Knonez. There's not a single top one hundred NBA player in that group, so there's a talent element there. That's a great example of why trading for a higher level player is so necessary for this team, because it'll give him the ability to stagger and have more talent on the floor in some

of these lineups. Right then, to start the fourth quarter, Draymond Green had a bad close out on Zaia Williams on the right wing where he kind of chased him off the line and then reached behind him, and as a result, instead of closing out short and or shorter and containing, he reached zayre Drove, got a blocking foul, got two free throws. Grizzlies take the lead. Then there was a bomb over Dariosarge from Jacob Gilliard, really good defense the whole possession just a tough, like twenty seven

foot contested three, so you live with that one. Right after that, Brandon Pizemski was guarding Luke Canard out of the left corner and fell asleep for a second, was late chasing him off the screen, had to panic chase him and fouls a three point shooter that took away a three that steph had just made it three on the other end. Now Canard goes down and makes three

free throws. Then there was a transition possession where Clay kind of faces faces up Jake Gilliard and he hits a little jab step jumper, but he misses it off the back room. On the other side of the floor. Pazemski was back screening for Steph below the foul line, and so the guy he was screening they switched it. The guy who was screening was on his top side and the other guy went with Steph, so suddenly they just had a quick two on one the other way.

Kamingo was the only one back. It was really bad floor balance, quick swing swing ahead passed. Zira Williams gets a left handed layup. That's bad offense leading to transition, like an unbalanced floor leading to an easy transition layup. Then there were a couple of plays here where Cavan Looney came way too high out of his drive coverage. So Canard runs a dribble hand off with Xavier Tilman throws it to Canard, comes over the top Brandon Pazemski's

in trail position. He's there, but Looney comes way up, which allows Tillman to get beneath him, which forces Kaminga to tag the roller. There's a swing pass out to that corner. Gigi Jackson knocks down the three on the week side. Now Kaminga got a decent late contest on that one. But this season, Gigi Jackson is nine for eighteen on catch and shoot threes. That's a seventy five percent effective field goal percentage. So obviously not the guy you want to leave open in that situation. You want

to not let the roller get behind. Your job there is Looney is to stay further back, trust Pazemski to be able to disrupt any mid range shot or floater from the Canard. If as long as Looney stays back where he can see both of Tillman and Canard, then Kaminga doesn't have to tag the roller and he could stay home and prevent that shot. Right right after that shot, Steph dribbles up the floor and get it's ripped by JAKEM.

Gilliard for a pick six, which, by the way, Steph got ripped in the back court twice down the stretch, which is super bizarre. Now the Warriors are down six. Next defensive possession, same exact thing. The only difference is this time Cominga's on Canard and Steph is guarding Gigi Jackson. Same exact thing. Canard's over Kaminga's over the top great athlete. Canard shoots a floater or a pull up jump shot.

Kaminga is blocking that, but Loony comes way up out of his drop coverage, forces Steph to come down to tag the roller. Kaminga peels off to go down and crack Steph out of that position. Steph goes back to close out, but he's too slow. Gigi Jackson makes another three and again, making half of them this year. Then Kaminga is posting up on the left block. This is an offensive possession for the Warriors, and I actually clip this plane put on my Twitter feed. Steph is screaming

and pointing at Pazemski because he's wide open. He's drawn a double team. Kamina is not looking. The double team probably would have led to a rotation that would have got Steph a wide open three in the right corner. Instead, Kaminga turns it over and they go down the floor in transition and Canard gets a three. Now it's a ten point lead with seven minutes left. You'll notice I didn't say anything about guys getting toasted off the dribble,

did I? I didn't say anything about guys getting physically overwhelmed. This is execution stuff. That's a seventeen point swing mostly off of execution. Golden State has good defensive personnel. Draymond Green is still one of the best defensive anchors in the league. They have athletes on the perimeter like Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kminga and Moses Moody. Brandon Pazemski is a good young point of attack defender. Stephan Clay are two really smart team defenders. Most of this is execution.

It was bad offense putting them into misbalanced transition defense situations to give up open shots. And then it was mistakes over helping strong side corner one pass away Looney, too high in his drop coverage, Brandon Pazemski falling asleep off the ball and having to foul a three point shooter, Dario Sarage, over helping in a transition situation, a bad

close out from Draymond Green. These are all fixable problems, which takes me back to the theme that I was talking about in the Laker segment at the top of the show. Golden State has been playing bad basketball, like from the top down that the lineup construction isn't working, the effort in execution isn't there, the buying isn't there, the inconsistent rotation is leading to the young players struggling on a night to night basis. It's a coaching issue.

Steph's playing like shit. Oh, They're three to eight in their last eleven games. Steph in that span twenty two point five points per game, only three rebounds, thirty eight percent from the field, thirty three percent from three. Kurr's not doing a good enough job. Steph Curry's not doing a good enough job. Draymond Green took himself away from the team for a month, like this is a lot of this is self inflicted. Three things need to happen

for Golden State to turn this year around. In my opinion, One line up, consistency until the deadline. Get Draymond back in with the starters. I personally would go with Draymond, Kmingo Wig and Steph Clay. I'd ride dead out until the deadline. But no matter what, get consistent rotation minutes for the young players so that they can build confidence and rhythm, not constantly staring at the bench terrified they're gonna get taken out if they make a mistake. Let

them play free. Secondly, Steph's got to get it together. Went over the numbers earlier. I'm sure he's frustrated and annoyed at the situation. I'm sure there's a little bit of that Lebron stuff I'm talking about with mid season malaise and frustration with the roster. He's not been good on defense or on the glass either, So like Steph at a certain point needs to kind of be like he needs to get some sort of assurance from the

front office they're gonna do something. Then he needs to lock in and try to win as many games as possible until February eighth, and then lastly, they need to trade for a high level starter at the deadline. I actually think they have a decent shot at Siakam. I've seen some of the proposed offers. A lot of teams are pulling punches. There's the extension thing. I think they have a decent shot to get him, and he'd face. He'd

help in every single phase of the game. He'd help with their defensive front line, he'd help with slotting in perimeter defense. He'd help with them on the glass. He'd help them with slotting on offense so that you don't have guys above their pay grade on offense. He'd help them with staggering and non Steph lineups. He'd help lighten Steph's workloads so he doesn't have to do as much offensively, especially over the course of a playoff series. A guy

like Siakam would help with everything. And then from there, you do what the Lakers did last year, and you make a run. You play really good basketball for twenty five games to end the season, and then you roll that momentum into the playoffs. I mean, I just want to see it. I don't know about you, guys. I'm a I'm a fan of the game, and I'm a fan of Steph. He's my second favorite player in the league. That said, I'm not one of those guys who has

a deep rooting interest in the Warriors. That said, like, I'm just not ready for this to be over. I want to see them give it one more chance, especially with how frustrating last year was. I want to see them retool and I want to see them give it a chance. All right, before we get out of here, I wanted to talk. I wanted to rant for just a few minutes about the analytics side of things. This is something that I've seen throughout the season from every

single team. I've seen Lakers fans talk about it. I've seen Lakers fans talk about it with their opponents, with their own teammates. I've seen it around the league. I've seen Clippers fans talk about it. I've seen Thunder fans talk about it. I've seen Warriors fans talk about it. I've seen everybody talk about it, this idea of like we're just making shots or we're just missing shots. And again, I wanted to clarify this because I think it can

get a little confusing. I don't think shot variants doesn't play a role in basketball games. Of course it does, like it would be foolish to pretend like it doesn't. What my take is is that it's being overused in analysis. I saw someone tweeted this at me this morning, and I thought it was a really interesting thing. It was Patrick Beverley, apparently in his podcast, talking about how, like

I guess, Dame had a sixty point game. I think it was a couple of years ago, and then Pat Bev kind of like locked him up, I guess, And I haven't done the background research here, so he might literally be full of shit for all I know, But like I guess, Pat Bev was like like the discourse around the league is like, oh, Dame just missed shots when he was guarding me, and that doesn't give me credit me being pat for the job that I did on him. And in general, I agree with Pat in

terms of the way the game is discussed. Way too frequently, we just default back to make or miss league, did you make your shots or did you miss your shots? And that becomes the biggest thing we talk about as opposed to being one of the many things that we talk about. And you know, I use the phrase loser mentality, and the main reason why I feel that way it has to do with my kind of background, right Like, I helped coach high school kids and I played in college.

So I'm always gonna look at it from the perspective of inside the locker room. I'm always gonna look at it as the perspective of what a coach would think, what a player would think. And a lot of it is stuff that's changed for me over the years. When I was in my early twenties, I made excuses, blamed the refs, blame shots not missing or not going in. I was that kind of guy. Over the years, I've

kind of learned, like, hey, that's not helping me. Complaining about the refs does not help me in any way making and missing shots. Blaming that that based on variance is not helping me in any way. You know, it's funny. I'm coming back from this Achilles injury that I've told you guys about, and it's been a chore. It's been an absolute chore dealing with conditioning issues like little muscle strains here and there, as I had to take a couple of months off and then you start moving again

and you start suffering these old nagging injuries. Me not really trusting my right foot to like plant really heavily and to take off on it. But like the biggest thing is like shooting and shooting and ball handling. My rhythms disrupted as I'm trying to get that back right. And I've been recently going through a stretch where i haven't been shooting the ball very well. And you know, it's funny. I was literally sitting in the truck today and I was like, I knows actly why I'm not

shooting well. Like I have a religious shooting routine that I do, like when I'm in my groove, literally six seven days a week, I do the same damn set

of shooting drills every single day. But I went skiing last week, and before that, I heavily loaded up on content in preparation for me going skiing, and so I only did the shooting workout like once in like a six day span, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, no, wonder, I'm missing shots, Like I am not doing the process things I need to do to be a good shooter, because I'm very much a rhythm shooter. I'm a guy who has to work on it constantly in order to

be able to shoot. And again, like when you're looking at all the different things that impact shooting in a game, confidence, rhythm, the physicality of the game, your offensive process, the types of shots are getting both on a team level and on an individual shot selection level. What I just mentioned in terms of off court work, the dill to polish and to make sure you're ready. I think all of

that stuff comes before we get to Luck. But what happens is is the way the game is discussed, Luck is first on that list, and I think that does a disservice to fans everywhere. I think it's a I think it is it limits our ability to digest what's happening on the court. I saw on the Thunder game last night, I was like, this is I watch so many games right obviously as my job, and I'm always listening to these local broadcasters. I'm listening to the Bucks broadcasters,

I'm listening to the Clippers broadcasters. I'm listening to the you know, Orlando Magic broadcasters, and you know, this morning, I'm watching Lakers Thunder and I'm listening to the Thunder broadcasts and they're like, oh, they're just missing shots. They're just missing shots. And I'm like, the Lakers have sixty something points in the paint. They're literally pulverizing the Thunder on all these cuts. They're straight up alpha dogging them

and playing bullyball, so they're wearing them out. They're both on a physical wear and tear level and like a conditioning fatigue level. They're just bigger. So like defender proximity as it pertains to shot values different when it's a taller, longer armed player contesting the shot right. And then there's like a confidence piece, there's like an alpha dog piece.

There's like you tend to make more shots when you are in a better rhythm and flow, when you're controlling the physicality of the game and you look at the stars of the other team and you're like, yeah, I'm better than that guy. But when that that dynamic shifts, shots do miss, and again, it's just amazing to me that we don't factor in all that stuff. We go straight to luck. I can't tell you how many times I've seen Laker fans be like, I can't believe teams

are making all these shots against us. Have you watched the Lakers play defense since in the N season tournament, like I've seen I saw a Laker. Remember me early in the season, when I was talking about the Lakers bad shooting, I was like, it's bad process. They're not getting really good looks. Like it's just it's just I would like to, at least within this show, not do that. Like,

of course it's a factor. Of course it's part of the game, but we lean on it way too heavily, and it's quite simply like the fifth or sixth most important factor in a shot result is luck. Did that dude hit the gym before the game and make his one hundred and fifty three pointers? Did he do it yesterday? On his day off was the team running smart offense, was the individual player taking smart shots. Was the opponent doing anything to disrupt that defensively with their physicality, with

their alpha dog mentality, to disrupt confidence. All of that comes first, and then we can talk about luck. It's part of the game, but it's way too big of the of the way we cover it, way too big of a part of the way we cover the game. All right, guys, it's all hal for today. I want to hit more games from last night. It's late, and I talk some more stuff in general around the league,

but we're gonna hit it tomorrow. I had to get this video in early because tonight the volume on the East Coast is doing their annual party for all the staff that works on the East Coast, and a lot of the staff that works on this show lives on the East Coast, so I needed to get it in early for those guys. That's why we rushed Lakers Warriors today. We will hit a bunch more teams tomorrow, including the Mailbag.

My wife's out of town for a work trip, so I plan on staying up at night to watch some games. I plan on working tomorrow night to cover MAVs Lakers, so it's gonna be a lot of content coming out before I leave town on the ski trip on Saturday. I genuinely appreciate you guys and everything you do to support the show. I'll see you guys tomorrow. The volume