Hoops Tonight - Lakers "bizarre" lineup change + perfect trade to help LeBron James & Anthony Davis

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roles changing within the locker room. We're both going to give our personal opinion on what the starting lineup should look like, and then we're going to talk about what needs the Lakers have at the deadline in light of their recent slides. So, without any further ado mister Jovann Bouja is going to join the show. Jovan I was reading an article from you this morning, drinking a.

into defense is not getting stops. They are scoring just one hundred and five points per one hundred possessions and they've been outscored by twenty points per one hundred posessions over that span. But hey, they're rebounding really well for whatever that's worth. So I'm curious. We've seen behind the scenes, We've seen the references to leaning into their identity and weird comments about Austin Reeves minute load, even though that doesn't seem to apply to other players on the roster.

Have you heard anything internally in terms of it. Turmoil is the wrong word, but is anybody like raising their hand and going like, hey, this is not a good idea.

a surprise to me. And I think with D'Angel Russell essentially being on the trade block since the summer, with the way that the Lakers structured that contract that he eventually would either move to the bench or just get moved in general.

think you saw that in the OKC game. There were plus one in ten minutes, basically treading water against the OKC group that didn't have Josh Giddy, and frankly, it's not a great matchup for OKAC. I know you've covered that they're just too small for the Lakers. So the Lakers were able to overwhelm them with their size and physicality. But then you see it against Boston arguably the best team in the league, certainly in my opinion, the best five man unit in the league right now, and they

just evistrated them. It was a twelve zero run in two and a half minutes. Lakers could not, I mean, you freeze any possession that's inside the three point line, and there's four Celtics minimum in the paint, if not five, and they're cheating off of Lebron and Towrnian Prince. And that's kind of another thing here, where like Lebron and Tornian Princes have both shot the ball well, but I don't think they still get the respect that maybe they're shooting percentages would indicate.

and he said as much basically postgame. But I think it's a mistake, and I think at some point in the near future, within the next few games, they're most likely going to have to go to a different starting lineup.

because a couple of things. First of all, when you have guys that are on the ball taking heavier duty responsibilities, the off ball jobs are easier, especially for smarter players, and so you can get better defensive production out of lesser defensive players in an off ball role, especially if they're a smart, high IQ player like Austin for instance.

a stance and to fight harder over that screen. And it's about believing in what your unit is capable of doing on both ends of the floor. And like above and beyond anything else, there was no legitimate like earning of the rotation spot. And what I mean by that is it's not like Cam's playing so well you have to start him. It's not like Jared Vanderbilt is playing

so well you have to start him. Torny and Prince is the one guy in that group where it's like he's taken like eight nine threes a game and he's making forty percent of him over the last month or whatever. Like Torrian, at least you can make the case he's shooting the shit out of the basketball. You gotta have him on the floor, right, But those other two spots, how is it that by default they're going to lesser players. That's the part I don't understand, like, like Austin Reeves

has had some defensive limitations this year. There's no doubt he hasn't been as good this year. Teams are being more deliberate about attacking him. But beyond any shadow of a doubt, the total two way impact of Austin has far superseded anything that Cam Reddis and Jared Vanderbilt had brought to the table. So there is legitimately no logical case for putting this line up out there to start games.

And it's frustrating for me because I hear you say things like what you just said a minute ago, you were like, and I think they're going to stick with it for the time being. Okay, can you elaborate on that for me? First of all, like how long do you mean? And also like, is he just under the impression that this is going to start working at some point?

lost their three consecutive games earlier in the season. That's when you saw Austin Reeves go to the bench and he inserted Cam Reddish, and that was the big change was you know, this starting lineup isn't working. We don't believe in you know, Austin and Dilo can play together, and we want to try Cam out there. So they make that change. And you know, so now they're on

a three game losing streak. We ask about it and he's like, well, you know, that's a big deal to change the starting lineup at this point in the season, and you know, it's it's not something that we, you know,

are going to do lightly. So then they lose the fourth game in a row, and then all of a sudden they make this starting lineup change, and I just so, I think inherently there's a level of stubbornness that comes with being a head coach where when you make a change like that, you don't want to give up on it. I asked last night, you know, I said, with the way that defenses are guarding Cam and Vando right now

and just packing the paint and completely ignore them. Do you think a Cam vandoh Wing tandem is viable, you know, as a starting tandem And if so, how are you gonna make that work? And then he basically went on to say, it's all about pacing and they have to attack the way that defenses are playing them and use the space against them. But like, those guys aren't Draymond Green as passers and decision makers, and the Lakers don't

have Steph Curry or Klay Thompson on this lineup. So it's one thing to use the Golden State model of we're gonna use Vando as like a dribble handoff guy and like this and that. But like if you saw the way that Boston offended them in those actually like they tried some of that stuff.

transition defense. They were cross matched with Boston because Christaps Porzingis was on Jared Vanderbilt, so that kind of messed up some of the matchups, and you saw in transition they didn't know who their man was, and then within the half court sets there was miscommunication on you know, when are we switching these off ball actions, who's sticking with the cutter, etc. So I think right now that they're kind of in a period of still trying to figure some of that stuff out.

in there, you get him in there for Cam. But it almost felt like if Darvin put Austin in the starting lineup, he would be basically publicly admitting he made a mistake by benching him to begin with. And that, to me is stupid because that's cutting off your nose despite your face. You're not proving anybody right, You're just you're blatantly shining a light on yourself that you are

being stubborn. In fact, I've always found it more admirable when people are willing to admit when they've made mistakes, and situations like that Austin, by the way, going into the game where he got not like where he should have been put back in the starting lineup, but they

went with Jared instead. He had like, over an eight game span, been averaging twenty five and six on sixty five percent trait, like literally playing his best stretch of basketball the season, including just being an absolute monster in these in season tournament games. So it was like the most obvious decision that you could possibly imagine for a situation like that.

they don't provide a counter solution. So what we're gonna do today is we're going to have a little exercise where we talk about what the Lakers starting lineup should look like, the pros and cons of constructing them in different ways, and talking about what schemes would have to be used to work with those groups. So I want

you to go first. If you were the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers tonight or tomorrow night, I should say, who would you put out as you're starting five against the Charlotte Hornets.

those guys. Vando obviously bigger, better rebounder. Cam is shooting the ball slightly better thirty percent overall, but twenty five percent in the month of December, but at least he's taking and making some van Do is zero for ten on the season.

perimeter guy, that's fine. Then I look at that Van doh Cam spot as the point of attack, going to defend the best one through three.

eight minutes a night. Torrian's out there as a floor spacer, and then you have the Cam Vandos spot, which honestly to me could even rotate depending on matchup. But if you want to go with one, I think Cam has in the aggregate.

is the better option right now. But the reason why I start Jared is I do think eventually he's going to get his legs underneath him and start defending like he did towards the tail end of last year. So I think inevitably in the long run, because Cam again there have been these brief stretches where it's like, okay, a two or three game stretch here where he only takes corner threes and he's focused on the defensive end

and he's deeply impactful. But it's been a lot of random bs around that, which has kind of limited some of his effectiveness. And again, like it's not. One of the things I appreciate about Jared Vanderbilt is he knows he can't shoot, so you won't see him take a pull up transition above the break three where you're like, dude, okay, we can get a better shot than that. Like he's gonna go get the ball to somebody that can make

a decision with it. So I would go Austin Vando, Torrian lebron Ad in like a hedge and drop system where we're trying to keep ad close to the rim.

botch a switch, people get wide open. That's a big problem. Can be fixed, the repetition communication, just building really good habits. That's that's something where part of part of the risk of changing your defensive set up in the middle of the season is you can go through a stretch where you look like shit doing it because you guys don't have your habits down right. But then the other side of it is like, Okay, we can give up rebounding

mismatches or we can give up post up mismatches. There are downsides physically to switching, but you're huge in that group, Like you're unbelievably big. You're Corey and Prince at six ' eight at the two, Ruyachimur at six ' nine at the three and whatever.

And we're gonna talk about that in a minute, and that could fundamentally change the entire direction that this team goes, and you might have to kind of do what you did last year where you're basically a new team post deadline anyway, but you gotta get to that point, and in the Western Conference, you got to try to eat up as many wins as possible. I think finding as many opportunities as possible to have your best players together

can go a long way towards helping you there. D'Angel Russell is arguably your fifth best player, but with Torrean shooting as well as he has and with the built of build of that lineup, let's just call him your fifth best player there. And then again, you eat some of the lumps of not of being as sharp with your switches and hope that it hopes that over time you can kind of figure some of that stuff out.

But like, again to Anthony Davis's point, like there's there's you gotta find what it is that you want to be and lean into it. If you're gonna be a switching team, then build lineups accordingly and lean into it. If you're gonna be a hedge and drop team, then build lineups accordingly and lean into it. But this idea where it's like, Okay, hey, we're gonna we're gonna run Cam and Torrian and and and Jared Vanderbilt, and we're

gonna be this athletic team. But we're just like putting together all these other weird groups where Austin, We're like, okay, here comes Ruey and Dill and they're just gonna come down the floor and shoot every time. Because so we're

fundamentally changing the team. It's been it's been such a bizarre experience watching in the last couple of days because all we're seeing is these really redundant groups that just have a bunch of the same type of talent on the floor and they're really really struggling and there's no doubt that they're underachieving.

be a primary point of attack defender. He's just not Jared Vanderbilt is good enough to do that, but he's such a huge offensive limitation saying I Cam, I would argue he's not good enough to do either, right, And then Ruey hatche Mura basically has to be in a switching scheme because he can't navigate screens, and so that begs the question, like if this is all going in towards a direction where you need to consolidate these guys and you need to turn them into a specific type

of player that works to me. Until Darvin basically accepts that Austin is the one, and that you need to upgrade these two and three. It's hard to even get to that point where we're moving in the right direction. So I guess this would be my question. Have you heard anything internally that has that leads you to believe that there's frustrating frustration building simply from the standpoint that they can't build functional lineups.

And it's really been just kind of this up and down thing with so many guys, and like, I.

about how you compare against Boston, OKC, Minnesota. You guys just went one to two against those three teams, and he referenced the team's injuries. But last night, Gabe Vincent was the only guy that was out, and I know Cam had a groin issue. Lebron obviously had that collision

with Jalen Brown late in the second quarter. But the Lakers have been pretty healthy relatively over the last couple weeks, and we've still seen them struggle to beat a San Antonio team without Ad and just some of these losses, you know, losing to Chicago basically fully healthy, that was the game gave Vincent return. So, like, I think that excuse only holds water for so long, and at some point it's got to be like, we have to figure this out in terms of our rotations and our lineups.

And I think another thing that's kind of gone under discussed with everything right now is like the Lakers wanted to have continuity. That was the theme of the offseason. They said it in every press conference. It was the main reason why they brought the band back together. And

that continuity has basically gone out the window. Where you won with a Jared Vanderbilt, Austin Reeves, D'Angelo Russell starting perimeter group that has barely played together this season, and part of that, of course is Jared Vanderbilt's injury.

way that it has. And part of that, again is injuries and that they have had some bad luck, and that there have been reasons why certain lineups haven't been able to play as much as the Lakers would like. But part of that's just been, you know, certain guys struggle and they get benched, and certain guys struggle and

they continue to play. And I think we've kind of seen that, like Torrian and Cam have very long leashes in terms of you know, like Torrian had that stretch where like eleven games he was shooting twenty eight percent on threes and he continued to play thirty plus minutes

a night consistently. Cam has had some rough stretches, particularly shooting, and he's continued to play, whereas guys like Austin Dilo Rui, like those guys are fluctuating more so, I think that you know, you mentioned the consolidation with Delo and Rui. I think that's a you the likely solution here. But

it has been kind of wild that night tonight. It's really you don't know what you're getting in terms of lineups and rotation, and like, part of that again is injuries, but part of that is just you got to stick to something, and it shouldn't be this current scarring lineup.

them out of games. There's no real upside to giving super long leashes to Torrian or Cam because Torrian is basically a high volume catch and shoot guy and more or less he's just shooting, catching and shoot threes. He's not a guy that's actually breaking the defense down, and Cam, like, I'm not even sure you can point to a single

thing that he does well offensively. So like like maybe putting the ball on the floor for a six eight guy, he's got a little bit more pot there than some guys based on his pedigree, but like, there's just not a lot that you're getting there in terms of upside. And so again, like I agree with you that the fluctuations are occurring in the wrong spot on the roster.

As far as Lebron and the excuses with injury. One hundred percent agree as well, because the way I look at it's like you're not beating the Celtics as cur constructed when Lebron plays like shit under any circumstances. Okay, you played really well against the Thunder, and again, they're a bad matchup and they've struggled with big teams most of the year. The Minnesota game schedule, loss tail end of it, back to back, just just a rough game, right, But there's a lot of games in there that they

had no business losing. You know, even if I give you the Chicago one, because Chicago has been playing some good basketball lately, it's like you lost to a Dallas Mavericks team that was decimated by injuries, and I watched you guys not play hard to start the game. You turned it on in the third quarter, like I watched you guys lose to San Antonio Spurs, san Antonio's first team that literally hadn't beat anybody in like a month and hasn't beat anybody since.

roster you can't afford to lose those games. And one of the things that they did well at the beginning of the year is they lost to the good teams, but they took care of business against those teams, and that hasn't been the case as of late, and I think it's it's done a disservice to them. But let's talk about this deadline for a minute here, because we've seen d Angela Russell's role change. He's only taking ten shots a game over his last nine and forty percent

from the field, below thirty percent from three. He's weirdly important now because of Gabe Vincent's injury as essentially the backup point guard, although Austin's kind of in that spot too, which is which again leads you to wonder why the hell the rotation is constructed the way it is. But I saw a star trade get suggested today. That was the first one that I've actually liked for the Lakers. I have not liked any mention of DeMar Derozen or zach Lavine or any of these other names that have

been thrown out there. But I'm Trannie reported today that we should keep an eye out for de Jonte Murray to be on the Lakers radar. Now, I I want you actually to go first here. Do you do you actually view that as realistic? Because I'm wondering why in the heck the Hawks would want one first and Ruey Hatcha, Mura and d Lo as a package there? Do you view it as realistic?

Jalen and throw in a pick. Lakers have upwards of four pick swaps they could throw in, So maybe you're throwing a pick swapper too, just to appease Atlanta and get is done. Like is you know, is there a better package out there? And I think there probably is

for de Jonte Murray. I look at a team like Philly and what you know they could potentially offer in Philly, and the Lakers are kind of in the same boat in looking for the same types of players, be it an Alex Caruso or whatnot, or you know, more three

and D wings. So like a team like Philly can come in and probably offer a better package and a more aggressive package, as we know Threw Moorey likes to do, so I do look at it would probably have to be a situation where just the market is dry for Dejonte and you know he wants to be in LA and you got the clutch situation, and the Lakers and Hawks, you know, figure out and again probably some pick swaps

in there just to appease them. But that's where I just the actual package itself I kind of struggle with. I don't know if you expand it to a three team deal. Feels like a lot of these potential trades for the Lakers probably have to be a three team deal where Delo gets rerouted to a third team. That's you know, kind of an O case Utah situation where they're just trying to absorb a contract and you know, get another asset out of it. Maybe that's where one

of the younger guys goes as well. But that's where I hesitate to say it's realistic in terms of like actually looking at the package, but I think the Lakers Dejonte checks the box of you could imagine him in that starting lineup with his size and athleticism defensively and just what he's capable of. I think he could fit the type of defensive guard the Lakers could use. And then again, the clutch situation, I think kind of speaks for itself, So I think that there's some smoke there

for sure. I just I struggle seeing Atlanta pulling the trigger and that ultimately being the best available package for him.

And the main reason why is to me, Anthony Davis at the RIM is the is the best version of this Laker defense, and throughout the history of this team, the best versions of them have basically been teams that allow Anthony Davis to defend and pick and roll, and then the Lakers will switch at the end of games, They'll switch Anthony Davis in pick and roll onto the opposing star to get a couple of key stops at

the end. That to me is the is the direction this team should should go in order to reach their own personal ceiling. But in order to do so, they need a legitimate point of attack guard that can navigate over the top of screens and apply back pressure. I viewed de Jontey Murray as that type of guy. I think he's I think for starters, he came up with a defen pedigree and.

shoot situations. This was a guy who looked to drive close outs a lot in the past. Now he's taking a lot of those jumpers when he gets them. So I think it's like a would be an absolute slam dunk as far as star trades go. That said, I still come back to the same three things. Ideally, you want an upgrade at the three, an upgrade at the two, and an upgrade.

DeAndre Hunter. DeAndre Hunter is very very similar to Ruy Hatchimura, pull up mid range jump shooter guy, kind of an on an Island score that seems to kind of struggle in the flow of offense, and so I again to your point, they'd need a third team to even facilitate a deal like that. But Brooklyn has like three big lanky wings that are kind of like more like twos and threes. And then Ben Simmons is therefore and he's been injured basically right, so they don't have a big,

strong forward. They don't have like an actual Ruey Hachimura archetype, but they have a guy like Dorian Finney Smith to go alongside Cam Johnson, to go alongside Mikhale Bridges. I'd be looking to potentially make a swap like that where you're getting a guy like Dorian Finney Smith, which is basically Torrian Prince with better perimeter defense, and that ends

up being an upgrade at that position. If they did something like that, now we're talking about a lineup that could throw out Austin at the one, Alex Cruso at the two, a guy like Dorian Finney Smith at the three, Lebron and ad all of those position positions make perfect sense. It cleans up some of the rotation stuff, and then you'd have a playoff, playable center in someone like Andre Drummond coming off of the bench, which I think we've seen a lot from Christian Wood and Jackson Hayes has

left a lot to be desired in recent weeks. So I still lean like instead of targeting that bigger type of target, little trades for upgrades at starting caliber positions. You have two starting caliber players in D'Angelo Russell and Ruy Hachamura that don't start for you because you already have guys in their positions. You have to find a way to turn that into starters that slot into those positions. Do you agree with me or do you think that they should go big fish hunting?

Both starting and closing games, whereas with the Jonte, I think he would slot in properly. You could close games with him in Austin, you could start games with him in Austin. Though I don't know if they would go in that direction, but I think it just makes more sense.

But I'm with you, and I know that this is something that they've been weighing, and really it's been one of the big questions for the Lakers as an organization over the last few years has been do we chase the third star or do we go for the role player upgrades? And I think we saw with the Russell Westbrook situation that they chased the third star did not work. Now, granted, outside of Ben Simmons, that might have been the worst third star to pair with Lebron n Ad in terms

of fit, it probably was the worst. But you know, so, I don't know if that's like the best example of what a third star could look like next to Lebron and Ad. Like I think when they were going after Damian Lillard briefly, like that would have been a perfect

fit in my opinion. You know, you could have Ad covering for him defensively and with his shooting and picking roll ability, alleviating a lot of that burden off of Lebron, And of course, you know he's been a top ten twelve player over the last few years, so I mean that's the high level upgrade, of course, But like I think, there's degrees here where just just blatantly, you know, saying that a third star won't work or won't fit, I

think is a mistake. But they don't really have the assets to get the type of third star that would fit perfectly next to Lebron and ad In my opinion, it would really have to be a terrible contract or you know, a situation where you know they can get a third team involved and maybe that can help facilitate it. But I just don't see it the Lakers, being straight up, you're being able to find that type of third star that really takes them to the level of a Denver or a Boston.

kcp Cou's Danny Green. Even Alex Caruso is more of a three and D guard, Like, they just haven't had those types of guys consistently, so, you know, it's always been one flawed like Jared Vanderbilt, really good perimeter defender, but can't shoot, and teams just play him off the floor in the playoffs.

would have interest in bringing in. So I think, you know, we're on the same page here in terms of if you can find the perfect third star somehow and make that work and make a miracle, you know, pull it off. Like, sure, go for that, but realistically, I think it's gonna have to be a marginal upgrade in terms of the starting

and closing lineup. But that's still very important for this group is obviously they have yet to figure out what's our best five man lineup and we're over thirty games into the season.

find something that works. Now, I think he's grabbing at the wrong stuff personally, but I do think that this is born out of desperation, out of situation, and like, at the end of the day, you have to you can no longer have it. You put it like this, in your tweet the night that they announced the starting lineup, and it really was this simple. The three three of the top five highest players, the highest played role players outside of Lebron James and Anthony Davis all came off

the bench. That's just a misallocation of resources, plain and simple. You're you're making your job harder and so finding ways to to uh to make it so that it's pretty straightforward that your five best players are on the floor to start and finish games. Is the Bill Simmons, you know, always said this when I was growing up listening to him, and I thought it was smart. It's just like, who's your five, who's your five? Like who's the five you're

going down with? And the Lakers don't know, and that's the problem. And they have a problem here because even number three isn't viewed as number three by the head.

gonna be aggressive there. I think this is going to be an extremely active deadline, and I do think the Lakers are gonna get outbid by some of the bigger targets out there, or for some of the bigger targets, and so I think it is going to be important to try to find, you know, guys that are where you're getting more out of the sum.

seen a lot of people talking about Austin's defense. I can think of a lot of ways the Lakers could lose on their way to a title this year, and none of them involve Austin becoming an issue.

Dame into Malik Beasley. That's that, to me, is just a fundamental part of a good basketball team is you got to have a point guard on the floor and he's probably going to be smaller, and he's probably gonna be a guy that can be attacked. That to me is something you have to learn to work around instead of just bailing on entirely. And so to me, it's about the two and the three. All right, before we get out of here, is there anything that you wanted

to plug? I know you've been working really hard over the holiday.

that's what I think. There was a play early in the game. Ham runs a pick and roll because the Lakers need another ball handler out there. He's running pick and roll, he turns the ball over in the Celtics score and transition. It's like, if you have Cam as that fourth or fifth ball handler in the lineup, you're not really running into that. But when you put him as arguably the second ball handler in the lineup, now

that's where you have some of these issues. So to me, you know, Lakers clearly have to go in a different direction with that lineup in the way that it affects the rest of the rotation.

are gonna make them look lesser than they are. But it's kind of perfect because they're, in my opinion, one of the short list of teams that genuinely has a chance to win the title if they hit, if they hit at the deadline. But tons of drama, tons of shitty basketball for us to complain about over the course

of the eighty two Yovan did an amazing job. In his article today broke down a bunch of specific video examples of the way that the floor is shrunk on the Laker starters, with the way that lineup was constructed. I highly encourage you guys to check it out. As always, we shit you guys for supporting the show. We'll have a show tomorrow coming out with power rankings as well as some game breakdowns.