Hoops Tonight - NBA Power Rankings: Will LeBron James & Anthony Davis power Lakers to championship?

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hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by fan Duel here at the volume. I hope all of you guys have had a great week so far. I'm starting to get pretty excited because I'm going down to Mexico this weekend with some friends.

Down to Rocky Point, although, as fate would have it, there is a massive hurricane that is climbing up the next coast that is going to pound Rocky Point with rain on Friday and Sunday, a place that if you've ever been there, you know doesn't get a whole lot of rain, So it should be a very interesting Mexico trip. That said, I'm still looking forward to some R and R. We are continuing with our power rankings today with number thirteen,

the Los Angeles Lakers. I'll go ahead, and I'll go ahead and read the show announcements while you guys are freaking out for a minute. Um, don't forget to subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels. You guys don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And last, but not least, if you miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish them, don't forget. You can find them in

audio form wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight and then, once again, just like I told you guys yesterday, bear with me. I'm still I'm still my respiratory system is still completely messed up from what I had last week. So just bear with me a little low energy and some coughing. UM. So, if you guys remember when we started this process, I talked about the four tiers of the teams that we were going to cover now, and you also know that when it comes to this sort

of thing, I value the playoffs. That's the same way that I've always been up and consistent with that ever since I started doing this show, I've always cared more about what a player accomplishes in the postseason, what a team can accomplish in the postseason. That's always been where I place the most value. Not that I don't place value in regular season or other types of accomplishments. That's just the primary source where I find the most valuable information,

the most informative basketball is in the postseason. Um, when we were sorting the teams into tears, we had the bottom tier, which was the non contenders. Right like when I was talking about Minnesota and I was talking about Chicago and I was talking about New Orleans. Those teams are all interesting for one one reason or another. But I don't think any of those teams are capable of

winning a championship. The types of like hell would literally have to freeze over for things to break right in a way for them to be able to eventually be holding the Larry O. Brian Trophy in this particular campaign.

But if you remember the next year I had above, that was the Puncher's Chance Contenders, And this particular set of teams are are teams that don't have nearly as much talent top to bottom on the roster as the best teams in the league, but they have something about them, a player or a couple of players that make them exceptionally dangerous. And so for instance, with the Lakers, it's

Lebron James and Anthony Davis. You know, Lebron James and Anthony Davis one nearly eighty percent of their games in the first two seasons when they were together, and they were both on the floor at the same time. Now, last year was a complete disaster, and I promise we're going to get into that when we get into the last year's section of this particular show, and we'll talk about all the reasons why, But one of the bigger

reasons why was injuries. The reality of the situation is that Lebron James and Anthony Davis weren't available often enough for them to truly be a good basketball team. That doesn't change the other issues. The other issues needed to be addressed. Many of them weren't addressed. We're going to

talk about those issues. But at the end of the day, if you end up in a playoff series and the Lakers are healthy and Lebron James is on the court, and Anthony Davis is on the court, and Patrick Beverley is on the court, and let's call it Austin Reeves is on the court as a fourth player, regardless of who that fifth guy is, they are dangerous. They can beat you because they have Lebron James and because they have Anthony Davis. That's the reality of who the Lakers are.

And in a playoff series against any of the top tier teams in the league, if you're best players Anthony Edwards and your second best shot creators Karl Anthony Towns, I don't think you have enough to be able to beat a Steph Curry or to be able to beat that Boston Celtics team or the Clippers if they're healthy.

But if the Lakers happened to everything go right throughout the season, everyone's healthy, Anthony Davis gets back to what he was, They absolutely have a puncher's chance to beat those better teams in the league because of who Lebron James is and because of who Anthony Davis is. That's why they are puncher's chance contenders. Do I think the Lakers are most talented team in the league. No, and

we're gonna get into all the reasons why. But I do think they have a legitimate chance to win the title if everything breaks right for them, and that is inherently going to push them up in my list because of the way that I value the postseason. Obviously, the far more likely outcome with this particular Lakers team is

that they're dumpster fire. I know that Lakers fans know that, and all of you guys who are fans of the other twenty nine teams are of the league in general, know that the most likely outcome is that this is a disaster. Lebron James and Anthony Davis miss a bunch of games, they barely scrape into the playing tournament, or they don't make the playoffs and they end up losing in horrific fashion. That's the most likely scenario, but there

is absolutely some in that pie graph. There's a piece of it that is everyone stays healthy, and you've got to beat Lebron James and Anthony Davis four times out of seven. And I miss you. Even if you guys aren't scared of them, I promise you, the other twenty nine gms in the league absolutely are um so last year they were twenty second in offense, twenty one in defense. Lebron only played fifty six games, Anthony Davis only played forty games. Kendrick Nunn, who is the player they invested

in with the mid level exception, played zero games. Russell Westbrook and Malik Malik Monk were the only players on the roster who were available for more than seventy games UH during that entire season. So injuries were a significant chunk of what happened. The rest of the problems come down to a couple of specific pieces, and I want

to get into them really quick. Versus Russell Westbrook. Now, before we go any further on Russ, I wanted to tell you guys about my rule for Russell Westbrook this season. I there's this weird perception among some Lakers fans that I uh that I love to trash Russell Westbrooker, that I look forward to opportunities to talk badly about him. That is not the case. Um, I don't do it opportunistically. You guys see the numbers are Russ videos don't do that well. The what this show is at its best

and performs the best when we talk basketball. That's what I like to do. That's what actually leads to success here. I don't talk about Russ to try to get hits or to try to go viral. That's not what I do. It is authentic. He bothers me with the way he plays the game. And when I was covering the Lakers last year, I had to talk about him a lot. It was just the reality of the situation. But I was hopeful that the Lakers would trade Russ so that we would not have to do that this year. But

it's looking as though he might be coming back. So I was talking with the guys on our team and we were trying to come up with some ideas, and I think we're gonna have a rule this year. After today, this is the last time that I'm going to talk about Russ in depth, and after today, we are going to have a clock, a limit, and anytime Russ comes up as a topic, we're going to limit it to one minute, and it will be one minute of a take on Russ and then we're moving on because it's

it's not something I want to do. I have zero interest in this being a Russ show this season, and it's it's a shame that he's gonna that he's probably gonna be on the Lakers and we're gonna have to talk about him as much as we are. Um. First of all, it's important to differentiate the difference between the effects of the Russ trade versus the effects of Russ

the basketball player. The Russ trade sent out Contagious Callbo Pope, a good starting shooting guard in this league, Kyle Kuzma, a good starting wing in this league, and Alex Cruso not directly through the trade, but in the trade they brought in a lot more salary than they sent out, and when the pennies got pinched at the end of the season, Crusoe ended up getting cut. So I consider that at least partially to be a side effect of

the Russell Westbrook trade. Not to mention they lost the first round draft pick in that deal and during the summer when first round draft picks were you know, few and far between for the Lakers, and they're so concerned about losing you know, pick because of how handicaps them moving forward. Gosh, it sure would be nice to have that Russ pick right about now, wouldn't it. But when we look at Rust the basketball player, I want to get into the little things that he struggles with that

hurt this particular team. But the reality was is in just in terms of scoring efficiency as a high volume guard in this league, he was one of the worst in the league. And that was one of the larger portions of the Lakers issues this year. One of their primary ball handlers was one of the worst primary ball handlers in the league. That in and of itself handicapped to the Lakers on a night in a night out basis.

Some of these stats are insane. There were a hundred and seventy eight players in the league this year that attempted at least a hundred and fifty catch and shoot jumpers. Russ ranked one out of eight at when you waited for threes, it was actually worse, so seventy one. There were fifty one players who attempted at least three hundred and fifty pull up jumpers. Russ was dead last in effective field goal percentage on those jumpers at thirty nine.

Effective field goal percentage thirty nine on pull up jump shots. There were a hundred and eleven players who attempted at least two hundred shots in the restricted area. Russ ranked one d out of a hundred and eleven in shooting percentage in the restricted area at fifty percent. He was terrible at finishing around the rim. He had six or more turnovers in the game seventeen times. There were sixty

five players who posted up at least fifty times. Russ was sixty in points per possession at zero point eight. There were seventeen players who ran at least two hundred ISOs, and Russ ranked in points per possession. So, just in terms of what primary ball handlers do, which is shoot the basketball, shoot it off the dribil, drive the ball to the basket, take care of the basketball, post up isolations, isolate on mismatches, he was just one of the worst

in the league. That high volume Russ primary ball handler thing cut the Lakers off at the knees on offense it's just the reality of what happened in that situation. Now, the one thing I'll say in Russ's defense there was it was intended that Lebron James would be around, and that Anthony Davis would be around, and that Kendrick Nunn would be around, and Russ could have a more limited on ball roll. So the one thing I'll say in his defense is that he shouldn't have been relied on

to that capacity. But the one reason why I don't cut him a ton of slack in that department is when those guys were available, When Lebron and Anthony Davis was on the floor, he played the same way. There was no change in approach with those two guys on the floor. He didn't suddenly embrace the role player things. He didn't suddenly lock in on the defensive end of the floor. He did the same old Russ stuff, regardless of whether he's playing by himself or he was playing

with Lebron James and Anthony Davis. That it's the reality of the situation with you within the role on a basketball team of primary shot creator. He's just not good enough to do that anymore, at least not for a good team. He's bad at that even I would say by NBA standards. So the Rush trade essentially involved exchanging three solid role players. I'd argue excellent role players. Alex

Cruzo and Cantavious called Pope are excellent role players. Kyle Kuzma turned himself into a good role player towards the end, and with the Lakers, they traded out three solid role players for a bad primary creator who also is bad at role players stuff. And then when we get into the role players stuff, he was a bad off ball defender. He lost shooters frequently. He would die on pin down screens, or he would just run into the screen and then point and ask for a switch from one of his teammates.

He would miss box outs, He took possessions off. He would have entire possessions where he would just stand with his hands kind of dangling by his side while basketball was happening around him. He was freelancing a lot on defense, just like what instead of buying into what the scheme was, he would just randomly double or or randomly attempt to jump a passing lane and and get out of position when he was on ball. On defense, he actually was pretty solid in isolation. Ross has an ego and that's

that's a focused play. Everyone staring at you. He takes it personally to get his stops. That's not surprising. His pride on the line, and he has great physical tools. He is a good isolation defender. That just wasn't enough to make up for some of the other things. He was a terrible pick and roll defender, dying on screens often off the ball on offense. His inability to remain

a threatening when he didn't have a basketball was an issue. Obviously, we talked about him as a catch and shoot shooter and how bad he was this year hundred and seventy out of a hundred and seventy eight players who attempted at least a hundred and fifty catch and shoot jump shots. But also he was just willing to stand still when

he didn't have the basketball. He didn't do He wasn't active off the ball as a cutter or screener, cutting when his defender wasn't looking to get open underneath the basket or hey, instead of just standing at the top of the key, maybe you run down and set a pin down screen on my Malik monks Man, and maybe Malik monk can get free literally anything other than just standing still. And then in late game situations was where it was the most frustrating. He would routinely make catastrophic

mistakes when the game was on the line. He would lose a shooter like him losing Patty Meals on the biggest possession in the Christmas Day game when Patty Mills relocated to the weak side corner and Russ was just standing doing nothing watching the ball as his man got open and made the dagger freelancing uh that you may may or may not remember a game where Reggie Jackson made a game winning layup against the Lakers, where he drove to the left and then spun back to the

middle and made a lay up off the glass. On that play, Russ was in help. Instead of positioning himself between Reggie and the rim, he lunged to try to get his steel completely missed, and then when he spun back there was no help and Reggie Jackson was by himself underneath the basket. That's a defensive mistake that cost his team a basketball game. I can't remember the specific game. I was trying to think of it this morning, but there was another one where it was close towards the end.

They were playing a good team and he barreled down the lane on a late transition play and tried to dunk the basketball and missed it off the front of the rim. Just like he was. He he he could never see the bigger picture of the basketball game and how important specific possessions were or specific moments were. He just was Russ, kind of like unleashed, and in those moments he often did more damage than good. He missed key box outs, take bad shots on key possessions, turned

the basketball over. He was the most frustrating player I have ever covered, and that is why he was talked about as much as he was, And that's why we're gonna have that rule again. The rule is this season from this is the last time I'm getting in depth into the Rust thing for the rest of the season. If we have to talk about Russ in any capacity, we're slapping a clock on it. It's gonna be quick and we're moving on because it's not something that I'm

interested in doing. Okay, So, first it was the injuries. Second it was the Rush trade. Third, it was Russ the basketball player. Fourth it was Frank Vogel So, first of all, all you Lakers fans remember this, but there was specific line up data, not to mention just visually watching the games, especially in big wins like when they beat the Utah Jazz. A handful of times, the Lakers had a clear identity with the type of players that

they had on that roster. There are big guys. The two bigs that they signed Dwight Howard and uh DeAndre Jordan's. DeAndre Jordan was awful. Dwight Howard had handfuls of good games mixed in, but it was the first year where he couldn't really be relied in, relied on night in

and night out as a dependable backup center. So because of their weaknesses at the center position, it was clear that their best chance to win basketball games was to go really small with Lebron James at center and then have Dwight Howard play a small role coming off the bench and spelling Lebron in his center minutes, and then to basically go all in on their youth play guys like Stanley Johnson, Austin Reeves, you know um when in

Gabriel after they brought him on board, Malik Monk in particular, and you saw that in the lineup data, the lineups that succeeded the most were lineups that included Malik Monk, lineups that included Austin Reeves. The that was where the team had to go with the personnel shortcomings they had

as a result of the injuries. You know, and again, like I wanted to mention this earlier when we were talking about the Lakers as a contender this year, but especially when it comes to Lebron James and Anthony Davis, their injuries are specifically impactful because of the types of players they are. You guys, remember me talking about the responsibilities that have to be fulfilled on a basketball court, right, Like, let's just say that there's a hundred responsibilities that these

five players have to fill. And when you've got truly great players like Lebron James and Danny Davis, they can take huge chunks of those responsibilities away. So let's say Anthony Davis takest of the responsibilities and Lebron James takes the responsibilities. Well, then the other guys on the floor can split the rest of it and it's easier for them to fill because they're smaller roles. But let's just say we take one guy out, we take Anthony Davis out.

Now there's a huge chunk of the responsibilities that have to be feel fulfilled by these lower level players. So the Lakers roster weaknesses, their bad role players became way more apparent with the injuries than they would have been under other circumstances. When you have like let's let's say, for instance, we're looking at the Toronto Raptors. They don't have anybody as good as Lebron, they don't have anybody

as good as Anthony Davis. So yeah, their role players do looks uh significantly better because they're fulfilling all the response abilities on the floor, right, But in the case of the Lakers, they depend so much on Lebron James and Anthony Davis taking significant chunks of those responsibilities away, especially with what they can do as two way players. But when Anthony Davis was pulled out, a bright light was shined on their lack of role players, and that's

when those things became an issue. But regardless, and this team wasn't good enough. But if their best case, if the intention was to just float the ship until you could get into a play in game, and maybe Anthony Davis comes back and maybe Lebron comes back and you can make a run. If that was the goal, their best way to do it was to lean into smaller lineups that favored their youth, and they did not do so in spite of great data that was available because

of Frank Vogel's stubbornness. Frank Vogel has always been the type of guy that tries to bend the roster to his basketball identity rather than bending basketball identity to fit his roster. That was the biggest mistake he made in that particular season, and that's why they didn't perform as well as they could have. Even though he was dealt a bad hand of cards. That season was a disaster.

It was gonna end poorly anyway. But there was a better version of that story where they were a seven or eight seed or maybe a playing team had they played to their strengths, and they just did not do so. Offensive organization was a huge weakness for Frank Vogel. For Frank Vogel, his he ran very few sets. The sets

that he would run were rudimentary and predictable. Like every team in the league knew they wanted to run that horn set where they'd have a very Bradley come off of the the dribble handoff and then the second screen right like. That was one of the few sets that they ran frequently. They would run a handful of specific actions, like they'd run um like screen and pop actions with

like Malik Monk and stuff like that. But the truth of the matter was is their offensive organization is way below what the rest of the league, especially the better teams around the league. We're doing. So Frank Vogel, and I'll go to my grave saying that Frank Vogel was a fantastic coach for the Lakers. That roster fit his specific skill set perfectly. He had them all bought in. They had one of the best defenses I've ever seen,

and they dominated on the way to the title. Frank Vogel deserves a lot of credit for that, but his stubbornness in this particular season when the team changed around him, was one of the factors that led to their demise. So then, uh so we have the injuries, we have the rush trade, we have Russ, we have Vogel. Fifth, I had Lebron his lack of commitment to defense early in the year that trickled down the roster and caused problems. Anthony Davis his rapid decline his I don't know. Maybe

it's like a work ethic, maybe it's just injuries. I don't know what it is. He used to be a top five player. Now he's barely a top twenty player. That's what happened to Anthony Davis. And then just in general in terms of a philosophy, rob Olinka and Clutched Sports, who obviously is influential in their decision making, those two parties massively undervaluing the importance of role players, and they

I think there was some pride there. I think they looked at it as Lebron James and Anthony Davis won the NBA Championship, which they did. Don't get me wrong, they were the most important part, but they attributed too much of the credits to those guys and not enough to a great group of role players that did their jobs to the best of their ability and at a very high level, and as a result, they were able to win on the biggest stage and take home the

trophy the best. The best example of that specific decision process was them choosing Taylor Horton Tucker over Alex Cruso. Now, I believe this is another one of Clutch's big blunders. The two big blunders from Clutch was pushing for the Russell Westbrook trade and then this particular one. And essentially Taylor, who I like, We've talked about him. He's got a lot of potential. He's not ready yet, but he's got

a lot of potential. But Alex Cruso clearly was a better and more impactful player within this timeline then Taylan was. He should have been prioritized or hell, Genie Buss had the money to pay him both, she chose not to, but them favoring when they decided they had to cut one of them. When they decided to cut Caruso instead of Taylor, Norton Tucker, that was the best example of them not prioritizing the role players enough and not valuing

what they did for them enough. So again, how do you miss the playoffs entirely in a league that allows twenty of the thirty teams in and you have Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the roster. The only way is if everything goes wrong, and that's what happened. So guess what. You can't just blame Vogel. You can't just blame Russ, you can't just blame Lebron. You can't just

blame injuries. It's all of those things. But every single one of those problems still exists, and every one of them have to be a rest in order for the team to succeed. They have to stay healthy in a way they did not last year. They have to fix the Russ problem, either by Russ improving as a role player or getting him off the team. They had to fix the coaching situation. They did. Applause to Genie and Rob. They picked the right guy. I thought Darvin Hamm was

the perfect choice. Okay, they need Lebron rededicated on the defensive end of the floor, and they need Anthony Davis to regain his status as a top ten player in this league. They have to fix all of those things that went wrong for them last year in order for them to truly contend again. Now for the record injuries, who the hell knows what's gonna happen. I think they will fix the rust problem. I expect him to trade him, hopefully sooner than later. I expect Lebron to have a

great season this year. I think Darvin Ham will do a much better job with this group than Frank Vogel did, and I think Anthony Davis will have a bounce back season. Bam right there. That's a significant improvement over what they were last year. But if they don't solve the Russ problem and they don't stay, hell of the none of this matters. The start of the NFL season is here, and the best place to practice your touchdown dance is

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look forward to this season. Um So, in the draft, they picked up Max Christie, who's a lanky defensive wing. I watched him a little bit in Summer League. Uh, interesting player, but I don't think he's NBA ready yet. Cole Swider really good shooter of Once again, I don't think he's necessarily ready to contribute this year, but with their lack of shooting, they might actually need him. But my gut says that neither of them will play much

this year. They traded Taylor Horton Tucker, and Stanley Johnson for Patrick Beverley. We did a full breakdown of that, um I believe last week or the week before, so you guys can check that out deeper down in our feed. They signed Lonnie Walker with the mid level exception, which is the big move I didn't like from this summer. Once again, prioritizing a clutch client over the needs of the team. He's a small guard that is an inconsistent shooter and doesn't defend. Not a not a great player

that I'm super excited about. They signed Damien Jones, Troy Brown Jr. Thomas Bryant, and Juan to Sconell Anderson, all two veteran minimums, and then theoretically Kendrick Nunn should find only play in the second year of his contract, so looking forward at the Rush trades. So before we go any further on this, I just wanted to say I am not a reporter. I do not have the types of sources that the people who have earned that right have.

I have no intention in being a fake reporter of any or anything like that, So take everything I say with a grain of salt. But I do have friends who work in the league, and I do hear things, and I will talk about them as potential scenarios, but do not take them as reporting. That is not what this is, Okay. I just wanted to say that up front.

So what I've heard on that note, um, I've heard that the Lakers are considering holding out trading Russ because they seem to believe that the net situation could go south and that Kyrie Irving could be available at the deadline. Um, I'm frustrated by that if it's true, because I don't understand putting your cards in that ask it when there are more feasible and realistic options at hand right now that aren't that much worse than a potential Kyrie Irving

type of deal. But it would explain some of their reasoning over the course of the summer. So that's one of the things I've heard with Utah. The most realistic deal that's on the table is Bogdanovitch Boy Boy Bogdanovitch, Rudy Gay, and Mike Conley for Russell Westbrook in one first Now, what I've heard is that Utah is like totally down to do that deal and the Lakers are not. Um Again, take that with a grain of salt. I'm not a reporter. This is just the things that I'm hearing.

If that's the case, I think that's insane. We're gonna talk about it a little bit further down the line. But Bogdanovich and Rudy Gay in particular are our solid role players that fit a specific need on this team. Wings that can competently play offense. The Lakers have a lot of young wings that are athletes that are going to be inconsistent and downright frustrating at times on offense. Rudy Gay and Boy and Bogdanovitch are a little bit more reliable and at least would offer you a different

punch on that side of the floor. I like Mike Conley fine. Um. I don't think he fits a specific need on this roster, especially with the Patrick Beverley deal, and it's a team that's already pretty small in the back court. But hey, you could do something with him, and maybe you could flip Kendrick Non or something like that if you get Conley and he's and he's a

nice fit. Um. So it looks like the Lakers are trying to weigh the prospect of keeping Russ to get something better during the season versus taking this Utah deal that's here right now or something else. But it looks like they're leaning towards keeping Russ, which I think is insane, but it is what it is. The other thing is Lebron's mini camp. He does a mini camp before each season.

Presumably that's gonna happen any day now. And I just have a hard time believing that Lebron would host that camp and take Russ to it, and then they would trade Russ afterwards. But between that and training camp, it just seems pretty confusing. So here's how we're going to proceed on this show. I'm gonna proceed as though Russ is a Laker this year, and if they do flip him, we will address it at that point, but for now, we're just gonna move forward as though Russ is on

the team. So the depth chart at the guard position, they have Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverley, Lonnie Walker, Kendrick Nunn, and Austin Reeves. On the wing, they're pretty thin Lebron James, Troy Brown Jr. Juantaskano Anderson, and Max Christie. And then their bigs are Anthony Davis when you and Gabriel, Thomas Bryant and Damian Jones. So on offense, I talked about this earlier when we're talking about Frank Vogel, but because they don't have a ton of offensive organization, they were

just a brute force offense. They ran the third most isolations and the fourth most post ups in the league last year. They were thirteen in isolation efficiency, in ninth in isolation and post up efficiency, so they weren't as impactful doing that, but that was the type of offense they ran. They were finding the guy that had the best matchup, whether it was Lebron or Russ, and they were just attacking in isolation or post up time after time after time after time. That was the that's textbook

brute force offense. And for the record, it is a little bit more reliable in the postseason as long as you can do it well. But that particular Laker team did not do it well. They did not run very much pick and roll. They were a bottom bottom ten

pick and roll team in the league. The main reason why is, and we've talked about this, Lebron James in in Anthony Davis both dictate that you put a big forward on them, and so if you've got two big forwards into screening action, what's the smartest thing to do? Switch it. So every time Lebron James and Anthony Davis frant pick and roll, they would just switch it. That's why the Lebron James Anthony Davis pick and roll that we all dreamed about when they made that trade never

really materialized. Russell Westbrook uh is not a bad basketball player. He played bad in the role that he had this year, but he's not a basketball player. And if you play small guards on him, he can get them to the rim, but he can't shoot. So teams started putting forwards on Russ big awards and having them play way off, knowing that he could take all the jumpers he wants. He's gonna shoot him as inefficiently as anybody in the league. And if they drive in, he can't bully them because

they're bigger than Russ. And so once again, if I've got Russ being guarded by a forward and Anthony Davis being guarded by Ford or Lebron being guarded by forward, even pick and rolls with Russ as the ball handler would struggle because of teams willingness to switch. And then even when they ran pick and roll with the bigs like DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard, teams were going so far underneath the pick and roll with Russ and the drop was so deep that they weren't getting good stuff

out of that. Either. Russ could walk into a pull up fifteen foot or anytime he wanted. He just wasn't gonna make them. The one kind of on ball screen action they ran that had some success was a pick and pop with Monk Lebron. James built some good uh chemistry with Malick over the course of the season doing this. Essentially, if Malik is being guarded by a small quick guard,

they're not gonna want to switch. And so as long as Malik sets a pretty solid screen and forces Malik's man to hedge or to show or to switch onto Lebron, Malik could pop and at least have an advantage to attack from going uh going downhill. They don't have a shooter like that on the roster anymore. So that's gonna be an interesting looking forward this year. And you know, and essentially the downside to brute force offense is it wears on you and you need to spread the love evenly.

You need to have lots of matchups that you can attack with lots of players so you don't become predictable and so you don't wear down. But when Anthony Davis went down and when Lebron was banged up as much as he was during the season, and they tried to run a brute force offense without the manpower to do so, and that was a huge part of why it didn't work. Um So, what do I think they should do this season? So last year they were they ran the twenty five

most off screen actions in the league. These are actions like I was talking about with Chicago in with um uh, with New Orleans, where you have your your perimeter star whoever it is, started the week side corner and kind of work his man down to the short corner and then come off of a screen and basically curl around.

If he's open, he could shoot, but curl around so that he's attacking in isolation, but with an advantage either the defender trailing him on his backside or him going under this under the screen and you're meeting him with the head of steam. The Lakers didn't do that nearly enough this year. Now, they don't have movement shooters, so you're not gonna have guys flying off the screen shooting. But I'd like to see them do a little bit more of that to try to get Lebron and Russ

attacking downhill with an advantage. Milwaukee did do this quite a bit, so I'm hoping that Darvin Hamm brings some of that over uh from Milwaukee. I don't think it's crazy to think that you could do that with Anthony Davis as well. Imagine like a horn set where you have Anthony Davis on the left elbow and you know Lebron or one of the big Thomas Priyant, someone like that,

on the right elbow cross screen. Have Anthony Davis come over the top of that screen, catch and just go so that he's attacking with a little bit more of an advantage, especially since Anthony Davis doesn't have the quickest feet in the world. UM, Kendrick Nunn coming back should be an interesting pick and roll threat for them because he'll have a small defender on them, so teams won't switch. The thing is is it's better in theory than it

isn't result. He was only thirty eight percent on off the dribble shooting and UH two thousand one when he was with the Miami Heat only on pull up threes. That's not good enough. Uh. He was zero point eight three points per possession on pick and roll. That's not good either. So hopefully that's just the Miami Heat situation and he's got more talent than that and he'll flash that this year, but the Lakers could absolutely use uh Kendrick Nunn being a better pick and roll shot creator.

I think that you'll get to see Patrick Beverley do some stuff off on second sides as well, but you don't want him as a primary creator. Spacing is going to be the biggest concern with this particular team. So Kendrick Nunn is an outstanding catching shoot player. He shot from three. Patrick Beverley is solid thirty nine percent last year on catching shoot threes. Bron James is solident of catching shoot threes, but Lebron can't shoot when he has

the basketball as a spot up shooter. Right. So the reality is is everyone else on the roster is a player that other teams will play way off of. They're not gonna care if Troy Brown Jr. Takes threes, They're not gonna care. If Wantascano Anderson takes threes, they're not gonna care. If Thomas Bryant takes threes, they're not gonna care.

If Anthony Davis takes threes. They're not gonna care if any of these guys take threes, except for maybe Kendrick Nunn and a little bit of Patrick Beverley and Lebron when he doesn't have the basketball. So spacing is gonna be a severe problem on this particular team. There are a couple of things that could help. They desperately need Austin Reeves to take a leap as a jump shooter. You actually wasn't as bad as you think last year, and catch and shoot situations will get to that um

when we get to the X factor UM. But the other thing too is Thomas Bryant, in theory, should be a stretch big that should allow the Lakers to have a little bit better spacing when he's on the floor. But once again, there's a huge difference between shot result and the way teams that actually guard the way teams actually decide to guard. You. My guess is that even if Thomas Bryant shoots from three, that other teams are gonna happily dare him to shoot, and so spacing is

going to be a significant issue for this team. And this is this is probably the biggest reason why a Rush trade is so important and why holding onto Russ would be so catastrophic. Most of the Lakers role players, like we talked about earlier on the wing, are athletic, play hard, defensive minded guys. All of them have severe offensive limitations right now. Um, Austin Reeves, who's not a very good shooter at this point, although he was in college,

so I'm hopeful that he'll figure that out. Austin Reeves attacking closeouts is good. But outside of that, a lot of those other players are not going to shoot the ball well, are not going to be good into driving kick type of system. They're gonna struggle there. They don't

have competent role players on the wing. And so if you could flip Russ and bring back someone like boy On Magdanovich who not only can attack mismatches and post in the post as a as like a big mismatch attacking four that I always talked about, but can shoot the basketball. Is a high i Q player that can attack close outs and make reads. Rudy Gay can do

all of that stuff as well. Both of them have some defensive limitations, but at least you'd have some versatility and decisions that you can make where hey, if the young players are playing out of their mind and playing well in offense, hey we lean into that. But hey, all of them are are are have completely lost their confidence on offense. We need to go with Rudy and boy On tonight because they're just more confident on that side of the floor. The Lakers just don't have that

punch right now. And so one of the biggest reasons why I think they have to make that trade is to just bring in competent offensive wings, just to make things easier for them on the offensive side of the floor, you know, and in general, this is there's so much that comes we We were talking about this earlier when I was talking about the Lakers, but having competent role players is extremely important. They are confident when they shoot

the basketball. They are willing to relocate and move without the basketball. They'll cut to the basket, they'll screen for each other. Rudy Gay and boy and Bedonovitch offer you match up hunting. So if Lebron's tired on a possession and he doesn't feel like doing anything, but Boyon's being guarded by six five wing, he can go down to

the block and post up. That's an option for you, same thing for Rudy gay Um basketball like you, So avoiding taking stupid shots or not understanding time and score, or making a silly mistake or turning the basketball over. Young basketball players do that veteran players typically don't, and so improving those role players to having more competent veteran presence to mix with some of the youth would go a long way towards making things easier for them on

the offensive end of the floor. So let's talk about us for a second. If they don't trade Russ and they have to keep him, how do you fit him in. He is good at a couple of things. He's big and strong, and he can get to the room. He doesn't finish well, but he can get to the rim. He can bully smaller guards on the defensive end of the floor. He's a great athlete. Still, He's not what he used to be. He's not a nuclear athlete anymore, but he's still a great athlete that all money, that,

all you know can come together into a usable basketball role. So, for instance, if he went from being a primary creator to being a secondary creator, either off the bench or second side creation playing off of attention that is generated by other players on the team. He's not good enough for high volume creation, but he certainly is good enough to do it in small bursts and against specific matchups, like if he happens to to draw a weak defensive player,

that can be some uh an opportunity there. And then just focusing his efforts on the defensive end of the floor and not just on ball like we talked about. But he's a big, strong athlete. He can be a good health defender if he can. There's enough he can be a dominant UH player within a defensive scheme if he commits to that end of the floor. He just

has to be willing to do so. And then on the offensive end of the floor, instead of just standing around when he doesn't have the ball, cut without the basketball, go screen for a teammate, crash the offensive glass, do something to be useful, knowing that you're not responsible for those primary shock creation responsibilities anymore. If he does those things, that could replace a role player that they can hunt somewhere else in a trade. If he became that, they

wouldn't need to trade him. I just don't think it's a realistic thing for him to embrace those things, and that's why they I think they have to trade him. Moving on to the defensive end of the floor, so UH. In Frank Vogel's defense, they were severely limited last year.

They had bad defensive players. Um. The good defensive players that they had were either hurt like Anthony Davis, or just weren't playing hard like Lebron James, who, again, as I've said, when he cares, is one of the best defensive players in the league, he just doesn't care, uh, at least not in this past season. So it's hard to say too much about what Frank did with that group. UM, but this is a completely different roster, a completely different coach.

We have to look forward to what Darvin Hamm would do. So Darvin Hamm's defensive scheme in Milwaukee, because of brook Lopez and Janice together, it's essentially a two big scheme, and typically what they would do is, um, Joannice is so good off ball when he can load up and help around the rim. They would have brook Lopez run a traditional drop coverage as the screen defender, and then

Janice is waiting underneath the basket. And you know, we talked about tagging rollers, So in a drop coverage, you can imagine if I've got a really good shooter coming off of that screen and the guard has to chase over the top and as a result, Brooke has to come up and help, so there's a pocket pass that's open to the roll man. A lot of teams will tag out of the week side corner, sending a player in over to to grab the roleman, or at least

to stop him from rolling to the rim. Janice is devis dating in that role as the helper in the week side corner, coming into help and pick and roll. The Lakers could run very similar stuff like that with Lebron James and Anthony Davis, or with Anthony Davis and Thomas Bryant, or Anthony Davis and Damian Jones, right, So, I'd like to see them kind of follow a similar type of idea. This is a team that has weak perimeter defensive players. That's just the reality of the situation

right now. But they do have strong interior defensive players, especially when they're healthy. With Lebron James and Anthony Davis, this can be a basketball team that mimics the Milwaukee goal of being willing to give up three point shots at the expense of completely erasing things around the rim. It's better to be truly great at one thing and to try to to manufacture success elsewhere than to be great at nothing and to be bad at everything, you

know what I mean. And so from a schematic standpoint, I'd like to see Darvin ham lean into over help and taking away the rim. They do have some better athletes on the roster than last year, with the addition of Troy Brown Jr. Want Toscano Anderson and then again DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard were old and they swapped him out for younger, more athletic bigs and Thomas Bryan and Damien Jones. So would that increase in athleticism. They should be able to be potentially a little bit better

on the defensive end, even on the perimeter. And then Patrick Beverley with him at the point of attack, he'll be the best point of attack defender the Lakers have had since they got this core together, except for maybe Alex Caruso. With him there and with his tone setting, he's a He's a real try hard guy, not a fake try hard guy. He's not a yeller and a

screamer you know that doesn't accomplish anything. He's a yeller and a screamer that also puts his money where his mouth is with the way he plays on the defensive end of the floor. I expect that to whip Anthony Davis and Lebron James into a frenzy on most nights to the point where they defend at a level that

they're capable of. If Lebron James is dialed in on the defensive end of the floor, and Anthony Davis is healthy and Patrick Beverley is they're leading the charge, and Austin Reeves is in that fourth spot, they can be a great defense, not just a good defense, unbelievable defense. I know because I've seen it with Lebron James and Anthony Davis. When they have good role players alongside them, they are capable of being every bit and not every bit pretty damn near as good defensively as they were

in that season. As long as all of this pans out, it's a long shot, but it is possible for it to pan out the best case scenario without a rush trade. So if Russ stays on the roster, if everyone stays healthy, they will be a top five defense because of Anthony Davis and Patrick Beverley's leadership on a night and night out basis. Like I said, that lineup of Lebron James Anthony Davis, Patrick Beverley, Austin Reeves, either Russell Westbrook or

one of the younger we Wings. That's four fantastic defensive players. If they get anything out of that fifth spot, they will be a great defensive team. But again it huge qualifier. They have to stay healthy. On offense, they will struggle. They have less shooting than they did last year. Yes, having Anthony Davis come back and getting back to what he was will help, but last year they were in the twenties on offense. I expect him to finish amount around if they keep Russ. If they keep Russ, this

is a middle of the pack offense at best. So if they are a middle of the pack offense and they are a top five defense, that makes them a middle of the pack playoff team and they will struggle too much to score to be a team like the Clippers if they're healthy, or beat a team like the Warriors. So to be clear, if they don't trade Russ, I do not think they're a contender. I think they're a non contender. But if they make that Jazz trade, or if they make the Pacers trade, or any other trade

that brings back competent offensive role players. You still have Patrick Beverley, Austin Reads, Lebron James, and Anthony Davis. You still have top two or lineups on the defensive end of the floor, except for your adding incompetent offense around them. In the former boy On Magdanovich or Rudy Gay or

Mike con Ley or whoever it ends up being. Health would still be a major concern there because every player that's been mentioned to trades, whether it's Miles Turner or it's Boyan Magdanovich or it's Miken Lee's already Gay, those guys have all had health issues. So health is still

a major concern there. But if healthy post a Westbrook trade, they could be a top five defense and a top ten offense and have a real puncher's chance to beat anyone, because again, if they happen to get there, it's going to be extremely hard to beat a healthy Lebron James, Anthony Davis with a handful of good role players in a playoff series. So again it's a puncher's chance, the

most likely chance. But I think the Lakers have that puncher's chance to win the title as long as everyone stays healthy and as long as they make a Russell Westbrook trade to bring in more competent role players. Worst case scenario, don't have to go too deep into it. Injuries cause a bunch of problems, they keep us around, and there's a bunch of drama, so the locker room is toxic, and then you end up hunting the twentieth season of Lebron James career. To be clear, I think

that's the most likely outcome. I would not be surprised if they held under Russ thinking that they can get Kyrie. The season gets off to a really ugly start, so by the time they get to the deadline, it doesn't make sense to trade Russ anyway, and then they end up just punting this whole thing. That is what I think will happen, to be clear, But I do think there's a possibility that it could go better. The biggest

X factor for this particular team is Austin Reeves. He's already right now heading into a second season an above average defensive player. He's an excellent, excellent positional defender. We've talked about this before, the difference between forward, aggressive, trying to force turnover type of defenders and then positional defenders that give ground with the purpose of making you shoot

over the top. Austin always did a really good job of sliding his feet, taking contact in the chest and forcing players to shoot over the top and they would miss. He has a decent amount of sizes six ft five with basketball shoes on UM, and he gives consistent effort on every possession. The biggest thing he's there is he's gonna have to put on some muscle. But from what we've heard, he has put on a lot of muscle this offseason. I think he's put on almost fifteen pounds

of muscle. If that's the case, he could be a great defensive player next year. UM. The other thing with Auster is that he's really good at is attacking closeouts, and new Laker fans will know exactly what I'm talking about. Austin reeves when he would beat someone off the dribble when attacking a closeout, would always make the right read. If there was an open shooter on the wing, he was going to hit them. If there was an open player cutting back door, he was going to hit them.

If there was a big man in the dunker spot, he was going to hit them. He was very good attacking closeouts. His weakness was he wasn't good enough as a catch and shoot shooter. He had only an effective field goal percentage of fifty three, which is okay, but on only two point two attempts, he pump faked way too often if there was a contest anywhere near. He needs to get to the point where he can confidently and competently knock down three point shots at a higher clip,

most importantly, higher volume. He needs to get that catch and shoot percentage or attempts up from two point two up to closer to four, a little bit quicker release and a little bit more confidence so he doesn't pump fake as much. Um. But if Austin Reeves can turn himself into a legitimate three and D player and replace one of those really good role players that they were missing from that season, that would go a long way towards improving their chances. So, yeah, a lot to unpack there.

We got into a ton of stuff today. And we're gonna talk about the Lakers a lot this year as long as they're relevant, and we'll talk about them again if they make a rush trade. But it's just they're a super wide range of outcomes they could miss. The playoffs entirely, and they can win the title, and I think they're the only team in the league that has that type of variants. Um. All right, that's all I

have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys, and I'll be back tomorrow with number twelve, The Volume