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great weekend. We got a surprise this morning as the Los Angeles Lakers make their first trade of the season, sending di'angelo Russell and Maxwell Lewis and three second round picks to the Brooklyn Nets for Dorian Finney Smith and Shake Milton. I'm just gonna give you guys my initial impressions on that trade and then we'll get out of here for the day. You guys know, the drill before we get started to subscribe to whom Tonight YouTube channels.
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And the last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions and those YouTube comments. We'll keep getting to them on Fridays throughout the rest of this year. So what we're going to be doing here to kind of go through this, I want to start by just focusing on each player that's coming back from the nets individually as basketball players. Once we get through that, then we'll kind of talk about it in the big picture of what the Lakers are trying to accomplish this season. So join Finney.
Smith is quite literally the stereotypical three and D guy. He is a professional defender. He knows his job is to play defense, and he does it every night, it'll be.
A good addition to the motor.
Issues that the team can struggle with, like an apex athlete. Like, he's not as good of an athlete laterally in terms of like foot speed and covering ground as like Jared Vanderbilt, but he does play hard consistently. He's a good motor guy. Brooklyn's scheme involves a lot of switching. He typically would guard bigger perimeter players, but he did switch a lot, and there were examples, like in the Cavs game in particular, where he drew the Donovan Mitchell assignment right out the gates.
So like, he's pretty versatile in the type of guys that he can guard. He's pretty big and strong, but like we talked about earlier, not overly quick. That said, he's very good with angles, meaning like his approach to defense in terms of reading the offensive player and choosing how to weaponize his physical gifts translates well to his ability to guard different different types of players on different
types of possessions. So, for example, there was a play in the Cavs game the other day a couple of weeks ago, I should say, where he ducks underneath the pick and Donovan. Mitchell hits the jets and tries to turn the corner and get downhill, and instead of like trying to slide over and meet him, he picks a spot pretty far back around like the second block, and like sprints back and even though he's not as fast as Donovan, he's able to cut him off take the
contact in the middle of his chest. Now Donovan spun off of that. It hit like a little turnaround, fadeaway jump shot over his right shoulder. But the point is it's an example of like, Okay, I'm giving up speed here, so I've got to pick the right angle to find a spot where I can beat him there by virtue of the fact that I'm choosing the right angle rather than just trying to beat him in a foot race, which I'm gonna lose because he's done him and Mitchell.
So like, as far as the Lakers go, I think it's important to acknowledge what he is and what he isn't.
Here's what he's not.
Dorian Finneysmith is not the type of defender that you feel great about putting on the other team's best player every single night. Jared Vanderbilt is that type of guy. Jared Vanderbilt is that type of apex athlete, not the super vertical athlete, but he's very very quick laterally in a way that you feel comfortable with him on the other team's best player. That's not a Jared Vanderbilt's issues are on the offensive end of the floor. On the
defensive end, he's pretty far up when he's healthy. He's that type of guy. Dorian Finney Smith is not that type of guy, but what he is is just a really good, versatile defender that fits the Lakers scheme really well. The Lakers aren't switching as much as they did to start the year, particularly in actions that involve Anthony Davis,
but they are still doing a lot of switching. And when you're doing that sort of thing, the kind of defensive personnel you need is just a bunch of guys who are pretty good at guarding bunch of different types of players. Why, Because you might be a guard who ends up guarding a forward. You might be a forward who ends up guarding a guard. You might end up in a rebound battle with a bigger player or a rebound battle with a quicker player, right.
And so like. For instance, like Austin Reeves. You've talked about this before.
Not the kind of guy that you want to have guarding the other team's best player every single night, but does a pretty good job guarding guards and does a pretty good job guarding forward. So does Dorian Phinney Smith. You get Max Christi in the mix right now. Max Christy in the starting lineup is the guy who's guarding
the best perimeter player every night. But like you just added another player in Dorian Finney Smith who's pretty good at guarding the most the majority of types of offensive players that you'll see in the league. So you just feel anytime Dorian Finney Smith is on an island against somebody, you're not gonna feel like you're completely compromised. You're gonna feel like he's got a fighting chance in that matchup.
So does Austin, so does Max. You're turning Maxwell Lewis a guy who was completely out of your rotation as a young player that's got a long.
Way to go.
And Dangelo Russell, who we're going to talk about, is a real loss for the Lakers on the offensive end of the floor. You're bringing in a legitimate forward defensive weapon there that is real value on the rebounding front. He's not the type of rebounder that Jared Vanderbilt, but
he's a lot better than Torrian Prince was. What I see when I see on tape is a guy in Dorian Phiney Smith who competes and fights on the glass, but again, just isn't that exceptional type of athlete that can really dominate the glass on the offensive end of the floor. There's not really much to get into with Dorian Phinney Smith. He is your textbook three and T guy at three and D guy in the sense that like he is.
A very good catch and shoot shooter.
His numbers as of right now, he's shooting forty three percent on catch and shoot jump shots overall, forty four percent when he's guarded, forty two percent when he's unguarded, converting spot up possessions at one point one four points per possession.
All really good.
That is a solid spacing threat out there on the perimeter. He only attempted eight pull up jump shots, floaters or hook shots all season, so he is not the high level close out of He's not Michale Bridges beating a guy off of a close out and hitting a fadeaway jump shot in the mid range.
That's not what he is.
He's a wide open catch and shoot three drive the close out to either make the next pass or take a layup if he's got an opportunity there, same sort of thing in transition, running his lanes and getting to the corners for three point shots. So, like what that basically means is he can function as part of an offense, but he's not going to be part of the offensive driving force in terms of advantage creation. So like that is what you expect from a three to and D guy.
We'll get back into Dorian Finney Smith in the context of the Lakers and their big picture goals here in just a minute. I wanted to briefly talk about Shake Milton. I don't think Shake Milton is going to be a huge part of what the Lakers do. He might play a little bit in the d LO role right off the bat because Gabe Vincent is dealing with an oblique strain and so he might be kind of forced into
the rotation. But when Gabe gets healed, I wouldn't be surprised if if Shake just falls out of the rotation. But just so, did you guys know what he is. He's kind of more or less a just like an average to below average backup guard that you'll find in the league. Offensive minded guy. He handles the ball and play makes a little bit like you'll see him break a dude off with a dribble combination and whip a cross court pass to a shooter from time to time.
Really really good shooter, really really good spot up guy. His shooting numbers this year right now forty three percent on jump shots, converting spot up possessions at one point three to one points per possession, which is obviously through the roof good a little bit more advanced close out attacking with him, like I think in catch and shoot
jump shots, he's shooting only thirty nine percent. But he's that guy that like gets into that mid to short range and a lot of like little pushots, floaters turn around like got like a good little turnaround jump shot, a little pull up jump shot in that like short range. He likes to take it pretty far in like around like ten feet from the basket. And that's what it makes him a more advanced spot up player, so like he can run a little bit of offense. Good spot
up guy. He was running the backup unit a lot of times this year for Brooklyn. On the defensive end, though, even though he has good size, like his good size six four and a half without shoes on, and has a seven to one wingspan, and he's pretty well built, like he's a solid like two h five two ten in terms of like his physical build, but he does
not make great use of those tools. He's not very quick laterally when you see him on the ball, his weight is forward a lot of times, and he has a stance open, so like he just gets blown by all the time. Doesn't defend well on ball screens, doesn't defend well in ISO for being a guy who's pretty big. He doesn't defend well in the post either, So like the defensive end leaves a lot to be desired. I mean for a guy with a seven to one wingspan, he doesn't really get much in the way of deflections
or rebounds. But again, like it's just a depth piece, right, Like he's a guard that can play NBA minutes from time to time when you need him to. But again, I wouldn't be surprised, especially with how well Gabe has been playing as of late, if we just see more of Gabe and Cam and a lot, and it's just being kind of like an Austin Max Gabe Cam type of backcourt rotation. But again a guy for some depth pieces. So here are my big picture thoughts about how this
whole thing is coming together for the Lakers. I talked a lot about when I looked at like different trade kind of like strategies for the Lakers, that they could get away with an inferior two or three as long as the upgrade they got at the two or three is a really high level player. So if you think of the Lakers in terms of their core lineup as Austin as the one, and Lebron and Ad is the four to five, you have these two three spots, right, and they've been being filled by a variety of different
guys over the last couple of years. Rui's kind of settled into that three spot, But like at the two spot, it's been d Lo, it's been Max, it's been Gabe, it's been Torrin Prince, it's been it's been Cam Reddish, It's been so many different guys, right, And the reality is is neither of those guys are actually the starting caliber players at that position. Could Ruey Hachimura be a starting caliber four for a good team. Yeah, if he's like the fifth best player in that lineup, I think he could be.
But he's a four.
Is the point Ruey is miscast as a three because at the three there are a lot more perimeter defense responsibilities that a guy like Ruy's going to struggle with. So Ruey's more or less of starting caliber player, but he's at a position. And then there's never there's not a single starting caliber two on the entire roster unless you count Austin who's currently filling that point guard role.
So like those are the two primary weak spots, and so what I was saying in terms of the they're kind of like approach this trade deadline is like, let's say you get like a brandon Ingram. If you get a brandon Ingram, then yeah, I think a max at the two is fine. I think a flawed, more of a bench player type of guy at the two is fine because now you have Austin Reeves, brandon Ingram, Lebron James,
and Anthony Davis. Right, your top end talent is so good that you can kind of craft a small enough role there that it's fine but if you don't get that type player, in this case a Dorian Finney Smith. I only like it in terms of a real ceiling raising move for the Lakers. In the context of also upgrading that two spot. Max has been playing really well this year, but again he's a young player. I think this is where it would be cool if you could get an upgrade at that specific type of position and
start to slot everybody properly in the rotation. So, for instance, let's look at the two spot right now, you have as your bench to Cam Reddish. Cam Reddish has had his moments this year, but he's also had his moments where he's not that great. Every single time I see a play happen, like a play materialize Austin Lebron ad stack, pick and roll, help off the corner, Cam Reddish is wide open, the ball gets in his hands, he misses
another catch and shoot three. I always think the same thing. Man, It sure would be nice if the Lakers just had a better version of Cam Reddish, just like a guy who can guard but like that hits that catch and shoot three at a pretty high percentage, right, That would be amazing. So now you can imagine a scenario with that, we look at Max Christi. Max Christy's really developing, but he's a young guard. Ideally he'd be in the camspot. He is the guy that can guard and we'll hit
that catch and shoot three. So if you imagine a slotting process where we move everything around to where Dorian Finney Smith is now kind of like a traditional starting three, Ruey is now an overquality Ruey may stay in the starting lineup, but Ruey would now be an overqualified bench forward. Max Christie slotted as a bench guard looks good. You get a starting caliber two in there. Let's just call it Bruce Brown for the sake of argument, but it's it might be a different player who knows call it
Bruce Brown. But like, you get that kind of guy in there. Now, all of a sudden you start to look at it and it's like Austin Bruce, Dorian Finney Smith, lebron Ad with a bench group centered around Ruey and Max and Christian Cloco, Gabe Vincent. You guys get the drill right not to make not to mention the bench centers that have been hurt, guys like Christian Wood and Jackson Hayes and stuff like that. So like again, they're saying that they're not going for the high level player,
they're going for the moderate upgrade. If they're going for the moderate upgrade, that's good. I just think you also need a moderate upgrade of that two spot.
You need to.
Turn Max and Cam into somebody else in Max. I think if you do that, you start to have a really strong role player cores and this that kind of goes to like one of the new developments that's been taking place for the Lakers in recent weeks. Austin Reeves was like out of control good against Sacramento last night. It was one of the It was one of the most Like the Warriors game on Christmas Day was a little uglier for Austin in the sense that it was
a tougher game, tougher opponent. Not everything was as easy, but he makes a bunch of huge plays, drops twenty six, twenty six, ten and ten and gets the win. The winn against Sacramento, Austin was just cutting those dudes up, just picking them apart as a ball handler. As a passer, his skip passes and pick and roll were insane. He was just consistently every time Sacramento brought that low man over.
He's just throwing that skip pass and it's just landing right in the shooting pocket for a guy like Max Christy to knock down a shot. Austin has been so good on offense as of late, and Gabe has been playing better on offense. I think the Lakers are looking at the situation and going like, let's anchor this team on the defensive end of the floor. I think that's
probably the right direction for them to go. If you look at their recent success since the ugly stretch, and I can't remember the exact they were four and one and then they dropped the Pistons game, and then they won two in a row, right, So that would make them what six and two in their last eight if I remember correctly. So like this recent stretch that they've been playing pretty well, it's been the defense that has been driving them by and large, and that is the
best direction for this team to go. Right, is the team that made it to the Western Conference finals. It's Lebron and ad focused on defense, but anchor them with high level offense. That's what Austin Reeves is bringing, right. Austin Reeves is bringing that higher level offensive creation from the perimeter anchor. These guys with defensive role players. I like that direction. Here's the thing that's important to keep
in mind. The the D'Angelo Russell loss is real and worth and worth uh calling into question here to a certain extent, they this year their best plus minus guy has been D'Angelo Russell. It's been almost nine points better per one hundred possessions for the Lakers when he's on the floor versus when he's off, specifically on offense, five and a half points better per one hundred possessions on versus when he's off. So losing Delo is real. This is not just like a oh, Delo's bad, We're getting
rid of Delo. I have my issues with del as a playoff player. When you when the physical intensity picks up and the attention to detail matters more, his mental focus drifts from time to time, his jump shooting falls off of a cliff, and in general he really struggles with ball pressure in the intense physicality of the playoff environment. So like, I have my issues with Delo as a playoff player, but he is a good regular season basketball
player who really greases the wheels for an offense. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Brooklyn ends up flipping de Lo again before the deadline to a team that needs someone that can run their bench groups, like a backup guard, someone that can really help them, and Delo is the kind of guy who can really
help that type of unit. So in this context, it it adds a little bit of a complication in the sense that this will require Austin and Lebron to be very good offensively for this whole thing to work, because without Delo, those guys are going to have more responsibility
to create shots. Also, it at least makes you have to consider as you're perusing the trade market to at least look at backup guards and guys who could potentially help this team on the offensive end of the floor, because we have seen this team this season not be as smooth offensively as they were in this second half of last year. It's been one of the weirder developments with this particular team.
Right.
So like losing d Lo, real loss, it's a real piece that helped this team on offense. It's gonna put more pressure on Austin and Lebron, but you brought in a legitimate wing defender that helps this team in their switching scheme really well. I like it in the context of also trying to support at the two and hopefully squeeze Cam out of the rotation and put Max more
properly slotted as a bench guard. If they can pull that off, I think now you're looking at a team that has a real defense alongside Austin Reeves, Lebron James, and Anthony Davis. And at the level that Austin Reeves has been playing, at the level that Lebron's been playing as of late, I think you've got a real opportunity there to try to make a run again. The last piece of all of this is the thing I've been
talking about with the Lakers all season. When the Lakers had their downstretch, when they went on that big road trip last month or earlier this month, I should say I talked a lot about how I expect this team to have more good stretches. There's a lot of teams in the Western Conference in that five to eleven group that will have good stretches and bad stretches. You watch the Suns on the right week or two, they look
like a team that can win the conference. You watch the Lakers on the right week or two, they look like a team that is a threat to win the conference. You watch Denver on the right week or two, they look like a team that can win the conference. You watch Minnesota on the right week or two, they look like a team that can win the conference. You guys,
get the point. But if you watch them on a different week when they don't have it together, they look like a team that could miss the play in entirely right, and like that, somebody has to separate from that group if they're serious about making a run for the title, and that comes down to a consistent effort, energy, and focus on the details, the margins that win basketball games outside of the talent that you have on your roster.
I am skeptical about the Lakers and their commitment in that department, So even irrespective of any sort of deal that they might make, in order for me to believe in them, it's gonna come down to a consistent effort on those details to become the type of team that has the type of habits you need to thrive in adversity and win multiple playoff rounds. And the way that will manifest is by separating from the pack you're eighteen
and thirteen. Now, I think if you're the Lakers and you want to seriously contend, you got to do what Dallas has done. With Dallas obviously since the Luke injury has dropped another game. But like, if you look at that next tier above number five, those top four seeds, they're just a level, just a level above the group below. And in that group, if you end up in that group, you are demonstrating that you're putting in that effort to establish those habits to carry you in the adversity when
you get to the postseason. Right, Like, again we look at last year you lose to Denver. You can look at the Jamal Murray shot in game two. You can look at the Jamal Murray shot in game five. I look at Ruey Hachimura losing a shooter coming off of a screen, Lebron James missing a box out. I look at a lot of like little details where they lost that series that were under their control that go outside of like let's just hope and pray that Jamal Murray
misses a shot. If you're sharper on those details, you buy yourself more margin for error, which can be the difference between winning and losing that type of series.
So I'm I'm proud of the.
Lakers for giving Lebron James and Anthony Davis the support. The onus is now on them. Well again, there's another part of this. I want the front office to do more. But once the front office has finished the process of revamping the roster, it is on Lebron James and Anthony Davis to lead these guys on the daily process of becoming an excellent basketball team. And I'm skeptical, but I'm hopeful as a fan that they will apply that type of daily process that they need. All right, guys, that's
all I have for today. Is always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with power rankings as well as a breakdown of the weekends games.
I'll see you guys then.
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