Hoops Tonight - NBA Trade Deadline Reaction:Luka SAVES Lakers, Durant DENIES Warriors, Fox to Spurs, Williams to Lakers

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to Hohop tonight. You're at the volume heavy Thursday. Everybody hope all you guys are having a great week so far. As of right now, we are twenty two minutes away. As of the time of me recording this, we are twenty two minutes away from the NBA trade deadline. We are going to have a full trade day deadline reaction breaking down all of the incredible deals from the last couple of days. I did want to take like ten to fifteen minutes right now to just talk about the

Lakers getting Mark Williams. Do you guys are the joke? Before we started? Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos following me on Twitter at underscore jcnlts, you guys don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful for he

leave a rating and a review on that front. We also brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where you can follow us for content throughout the year, and then keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments so that we can hit them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. So the Lakers get Mark Williams. Here are the details of the trade. Charlotte is getting Dalton Connect Cam Reddish. By the way, for your Hornets fans,

Dalton Connect, you'll like him. Really good movement shooter. I think he hasn't shot the ball overly well this year, but his rotation minutes have been super inconsistent and he hasn't been very prominently featured in the offense. I think that Charlotte's going to give him much more of that kind of opportunity. The dude can shoot the ball. He's a complete mess on defense, and there's a bunch of

stuff that has to get worked out there. But he's super young, and he's big, and he's athletic, so he should be able to, at least in the long run, become a serviceable defensive player who's a movement shooter, a guy who can run action, a transition weapon. You guys will like Dalton Connect. He just wasn't somebody that fit into the Lakers timeline. You guys, let you Laker fans

who followed the show. You'll notice I didn't spend a ton of time talking about Dalton Connect and my big picture Lakers stuff this year because I just didn't think he was ready. It's no disrespect to Dalton. He's just a young player that needs to have some stuff worked out, and the Lakers aren't a more urgent timeline. So within Charlotte, I actually like Dalton Connect much more as a player that can develop into the high level offensive player that he can be on his own pace and learn how

to play defense over time. Cam Reddish also is in the deal the Lakers twenty thirty one unprotected first round pick. Those twenty twenty nine to twenty thirty one first round picks were more valuable before Luca came to town, but still here in the year twenty twenty five, that's six years from now. A lot can change by then, So an unprotected Laker thirty one first round pick is a good piece of value, and they're getting a swap with the Lakes in twenty thirty so they can get the

better of those two draft picks. The Lakers in the deal get Mark Williams. This is a move to go all in on offense. The Lakers could have gone several different directions with this center spot. They could have gotten like a big bruising guy, someone who's mostly unavailable, like a Walker Kessler, someone like a Yaka partle Yonis Malancun has ended up going to Sacramento, but like that kind of guy. You could get like a bigger, bodied, bruising center.

You could get a defensive anchor, someone like Nick Claxton. This is the direction I thought they would go, considering just the reality of some of the limitations of Luka, Doncic and just Lebron being older and losing Anthony Davis and some of the stuff we've learned in NBA history about how your ability to protect the rim in the front court is such an important part of playoff defense. I thought that would be the direction they would go. Now.

To be clear, I want to get a little further into the Lakers on defense later on in the show, because I do think the Lakers are going to be better defensively than people think. But we'll talk about that in a minute. They didn't go either of those directions, though they went with the dynamic screen and roll threat. They gave Luca and Lebron one of the best young screen and roll prospects in the NBA. This is the first part of Mark Williams that Lakers fans need to

familiarize themselves with. He is just an awesome weapon in the screen and roll game. He sets good screens, he seeks out content, He makes good hard hits on people in screens. But he also has a good feel for one to slip out of screens when the action dictates that, when the when that's the read in that situation. He has absolute magnet hands, catches everything in traffic doesn't turn

the ball over very much. For a center, he provides a huge vertical spacing window, which is just a vital part of what Luca and Lebron do in Pick and Roll. I talked about this a lot, but there's like a there's like a progression in ball screens. I'm gonna do a full breakdown of it in a minute, and one of those important reads in that progression is that vertical spacing window in the lot like a lob as you're coming downhill in the ball screens, and Mark Williams just

perfectly fits into that. Into that mold, He's got like a super high stain reach. I think it's like nine feet nine inches, and change just gets. But he also can catch everything. It's not just dunks either, Like if it's a little bit of a bad pass, he can kind of guide it into the basket at a really

high level. No matter what you want to talk about with Mark Williams, even when you started to get into his defensive limitations, which we'll talk about in a minute, the dude is an incredible offensive weapon and he's going to make life easier for the Lakers on the offensive end. So let's zoom in on that for a minute. We'll

get to the defensive stuff in a little bit. If your goal was to make the Lakers completely unguardable on offense, this was the kind of move you had to make because in order for a Luca or Lebron led offense to be unguardable, you need several things. I have four things on this list. One, ideally you need a legit number two so that Luca or Lebron don't have to do everything, so they don't wear down over the course

of games and overseasons. While I'd argue Lebron and Luca together compliment each other in that way, giving each other the ability to rest, take it easy when the other is on the floor and they need a break. And with Austin they have plenty of depth in that regard. I'd argue they're the best shot creation trio in the entire NBA right now, when you get down to it, to Austin for weeks now has been like twenty points per game on fifty to forty ninety. That's what you're

complimenting Lebron and Luca with. Secondly, you need a legit vertical spacing threat, a dynamic above the rim, kind of thing that the defense has to account for. Here's why the vast majority of teams are going to guard Lebron and Luca up at the level because they don't want to let them get downhill. Even when they don't, the role man is going to have to excuse me, the screen defender, the guy guarding Mark Williams is going to have to come up to at least account for Lebron

and Luca as scores. You guys have all seen it before. If you let Luca have the defender chase him over the top of the screen and he could pin him on his backside, and if you let him just methodically roll down the lane, he's gonna get to one of those little five to seven foot push shots that he just never misses. Right. So, like you have to account for Luca on the role, and Lebron is like the

downhill threat. If you let Mark Williams screen for Lebron and you let Lebron go screaming down, he's going to break your defense down. So you have to account for Lebron by meeting him, meeting him up high so that he doesn't get ahead of steam. You need Lebron to come off of those ball screens slowly right, And the only way you're going to do that is by bringing a big up to the level so Lebron doesn't see

a runway to go downhill. Right. So in those two situations, if the screen defender has to account for Luca, if Mark Williams defender has to account for Luca, if Mark Williams' defender has to account for Lebron, Now Mark Williams is open rolling to the basket in that lob window, right, how do teams account for that? They account for that by bringing a guy over from the weak side to

tag the roller, right. But the only way they're going to do that, the only way they're going to account for that role man, is if they view him as a real vertical spacing threat. So that's the second most important part to making a Lebron or Luca led offense unguardable. You've got to have depth of shot creation. You've got to have a vertical spacing threat so that you can

throw the lob when the screen defender comes up. Thirdly, you need to have guys who can finish plays by capitalizing on the advantages that are created as the defense shades towards Lebron and Luca and towards Mark Williams. Right, So imagine we have a guy who's guarding Ruey hatchra Mura in the weak side corner. That guy is going to come over and basically box out Mark Williams so that he can't roll to the rim for a dunk, for that easy lob dunk. Right, this is where those

skip passes are open. Two of the best passers in the history of the NBA in ball screens to that skip to the corner are Luca and Lebron. You have to have guys that can score the basketball on the weak side of the floor, and this team will constantly have when Luca has the ball, Lebron off the ball, Austin reeves off the ball, during Finney Smith, who's knocked down three point shooter off the ball, Ruey Hatchimura a

guy who can score the basketball. Even Gabe can both hit shots, but can put the ball on the floor and make extra moves in the mid range score in close out situations. Right, Like when you play playoff defense, a really good playoff defense, it's not a lot of catch and shoot jump shots. It's not a lot of easy stuff at the rim, it's a lot more of like you get an advantage, this guy has to score. This guy might have to put the ball on the

floor and hit a mid range jumper. This guy might have to put the ball on the floor and make that next read to further break down the defense. This is a strength on this roster. Now, the Lakers always had these guys that can do a little bit more offensively, guys like Austin, guys like Rui, guys like Gabe, but

they couldn't create good enough advantages for them consistently. Now, because Lebron is slotted as your second best shot creator, because Austin is slotted as your third best shot creator, because you have the lob threat, the legitimate lob threat that Mark Williams brings to the table, you are going to provide guys like Ruy, guys like Austin, Guys like Lebron, even Luca when he's off the ball, Guys like Gabe.

You're going to be providing them really high quality advantage situations as defenses have to account for more Mark Williams on the roll, and if they don't, if that Loman doesn't come over, if they stay glued up to Ruey, Austin, Lebron, whoever it is on the weak side, Mark Williams is gonna get a dunk every single time down the floor. It like every team in the NBA is going to have to make a decision with how to guard the Lakers,

because that's the last piece. If first it's depth of chock creation, second a vertical spacing thread, third week side scoring. The last thing is what if they switch? If they switch, you gotta have guys who can beat a switching defense, and Luca just puts you into much better position to handle that type of defensive look. You will have more favorable matchups all over the floor as defenses have to account for Luca. What decision are you gonna make as

a defense guard in the Lakers? Do you want to let Lebron and Luca just pick on your weakest defender and switches. That's probably not gonna go. Well, do you want to let Lebron and Luca get downhill in ball screens and pick you apart. That's probably not gonna work. Okay, So then you're gonna have to come up to the level that's gonna open those skip passes and lob passes or you're gonna have to double when they're picking on switches, which is just gonna lead to more of those advantages

which the Lakers have guys to capitalize on. I think this team has the potential to be the most resilient playoff offense in the NBA, aside from maybe the Nikola Jokich Denver Nuggets. I think they're on that tier now. Jokic, I think is the best tight space playoff shot creator in the NBA. But Luca is right there at number two, and they have Lebron James, and they have Austin Reeves and so like, I don't even want to overthink things. This team is going to score the basketball. But let's

talk about defense. Mark Williams is flat lee not a good defensive player right now. He produces statistically, he's very good rebounder. We'll talk about that in a Minute's important part of defense. He does block a good amount of shots. He blocks one point seven shots for thirty six minutes, which is not bad. It's not great for a guy his size, but it's not terrible. But he's not particularly

good at anything on defense. He has really bad technique on the perimeter, does a lot of opening his stance, so like try to contest shots by going sideways, which just leaves his stance open so guys can drive by. He leaves his feet on ball fakes and gets out

of position really really bad on the perimeter. So Charlotte tried to account for this by just exclusively using Mark Williams in like a super deep drop coverage, meaning like as the ball screen was taking place, he would just sit back in the paint and try to keep him around the rim. And he does have some value there again, like he's a great defensive rebounder. This is a Laker team that has struggled to rebound at times this year. He has good length, He's going to be an asset

down there. But even around the rim, he goes for ballfakes, he gets out of position. He's not a good defensive player right now. So, like, whether or not Mark Williams can be a high level rotation piece for the Lakers will come down to JJ Reddick's ability to find a way to make Mark useful on the defensive end of the floor. But I just think when we're having that conversation, we have to at least acknowledge what he brings on

the offensive end. And that's why I actually look at this trade as more of a way just to give the Lakers a different configuration that they can go to. We saw this look really good playing small balls in the last week without Anthony Davis. They did have Max Christy in the next game, but they didn't have Max Christi in the Clippers game. Against the Clippers and against the Knicks, they executed their small ball looks really well. A lot of like Lebron Ruey van Do Dorian Finney Smith.

Just these big rangey six 's eight six ' nine, big strong forwards all over the floor that are switching and swarming around and rebounding and doing all the things they knew to do need to do that. John I talked a lot early in the season about how like JJ Reddicks switching scheme can work, the Lakers just weren't doing it well. They they've been doing it in the last week. I actually think this team will have small

ball looks that can defend. There's a lot of talk about like, how are the Lakers going to get any stops. They've been getting stops with the same guys over the course of the last week. I don't think the Mark Williams looks are with like the lineups with Mark Williams and Luke on the floor are going to struggle to guard. That's gonna be a problem, but they're also going to score really, really well. There are good defenders in rotation. Lebron James when he's engaged in the last week, has

been an excellent defender. Dawren Phinney Smith good defender, Jared Vanderbilt excellent defender, gave Vincent good defender. They have good defensive players in this rotation, and I just kind of

see them having these different configurations. I think they'll have small ball looks primarily anchored by Lebron, where it's Lebron in a bunch of forwards and they're guarding and they're doing everything that they did against the Clippers and the Knicks, and then they'll have these other looks, especially like Luca on the floor Lebron off, where it's like, hey, let's

just try to outscore teams. It's gonna be Luca, it's gonna be you know, Austin, It's gonna be Mark Williams, it might be Ruy Hatchamura in that look, and maybe Jared Vanderbilt to guard the other team's best player or something like that. They're gonna have looks for all of these different parts of the game, and you're right, like, there might be a time when it's like, oh shit, we can't play Mark Williams against these guys. He's getting

absolutely fried on defense. They can go to small ball looks. They have the personnel for that now because instead of having a bunch of small guys, they've got six or seven dudes that are between six ' eight and six ' nine and two hundred and forty pounds plus, Like, they just have a lot of bodies to be able to defend in small ball looks, to be able to rebound in small ball looks in a way that they didn't earlier in the season because of bringing in Dorian Finney

Smith because of the health of Jared Vanderbilt. I think having multiple looks is a good thing. The main concern that I have is like, are they going to be able to hang with like a team like Denver And that's where it's gonna get tricky. Do they need to get in the next seven minutes here? Do they need to try to get a bigger center that can bang with Jokic? A little bit and give them at least a little bit more matchup or versatility in that regard.

But as I look out from the Mark Williams thing, this team has the potential to be the most unguardable playoff offense in the NBA. But they're going to have defensive holes that they have to fill. Let's just acknowledge that they have more good defensive personnel than I think the public opinion would lead you to believe at this point. The Cleveland Cavaliers get DeAndre Hunter in the arms race

in the Eastern Conference. Details on the trade. The Calves get DeAndre Hunter, the Hawks get Karis Lavert, Georgia Niang, three second round picks and two swaps. I love this deal for the Cavs. The Calves had hit a little bit of an offensive low. They're eight and six in their last fourteen games, and there have been games where the offense looks great, but in the six losses they only logged an offensive rating of one hundred and thirteen

and cooled off a little bit from three. They were only thirty four point five percent on catch and shoot threes in those six losses. DeAndre Hunter represents two value adds for the calves offense. First of all, he's just a knockdown catch and shoot guy. Shoots forty five percent on unguarded catch and shoot threes, so that will help in that specific regard. But he's also just an overall talent ad on the offensive side of the ball. You can shoot off the dribble really well. Shoots forty six

percent field goal percentage on pull up jump shots. When you wait for threes, it comes down to one point zero seven points per shot. As a matter of fact, out of the ninety three players in the NBA this year that have attempted at least one hundred pull up jump shots, DeAndre Hunter ranks eleventh out of ninety three in efficiency. So I got a little bit of off the dribble pop. He has a decent floater that he hits at about forty two percent, and he's just got

some real scoring chops. He's run one hundred and thirty three pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups this year right at about a point per possession, especially good shooting out of ball screens as the handler. And so what I think about when I look at this deal is

the reality of breaking down playoff defense. Is this is a concept I've talked about a lot over the course of the last few years, which is like, during the regular season, you're gonna get a lot of wide open catch and shoot threes, You're gonna get a lot of layups things like that out of defensive breakdowns. But then what ends up happening inevitably is you get into a playoff series, the intensity and the quality of the opponents you're playing goes up, and you're not getting those super

easy trainsansition opportunities as often. The defensive breakdowns aren't happening nearly as often the rotations are super sharp, the game

planning is so intense. The best you can hope for a lot of the times is a little bit of an advantage on the other side of the floor, Like maybe we can get this skip passed because they load up on the ball screen on Garland or Mitchell or wherever it is, and they're loading up on the roll man, and we wit the cross pass across the court, and we can get a guy a chance to catch with a defender sprinting at him, a good elite playoff defender

sprinting at him. And that's where it helps to have scoring chops off the ball, and the Cavs do have a lot of guys that can shoot, that can knock down catch and shoot threes. But DeAndre Hunter is a guy that brings just another layer to those advantage creation situations where he's gonna be able to hit some of the playoff shots. He's gonna be able to do more off the bounce on the skip than a guy like Dean Wade. He's gonna be able to do more off the bounce off the skip than a guy like George's

Niang was able to do. Right, And so it's just a talent ad. It gives them another guy that a lot that with more offensive firepower to break down playoff defenses. I was literally talking about this on the the I appeared briefly on the Athletics Big Trade Deadline special today and I was talking about it there, like your aggregate ball handling, your aggregate skill, your aggregate shooting ability, your

aggregates scoring chops. I always talking about scoring as a separate category from shooting, because scoring to me is about like audacity and confidence, the willingness to take tougher shots and then having like the creativity, the footwork and the dribble combinations and the tweaking your release angles and shooting with a little more arc, a little less arc, whatever it is you need to do to make a bucket happen in kind of a weird fluid situation that's not

like just you standing still or doing some sort of basic drill. That's scoring in my opinion, and so aggregate scoring, aggregate shooting, aggregate passing, those things matter more now than they used to because of the way defenses have gotten so good at loading up on the strong side, taking the ball out of your primary ball handler's hands. So to me, DeAndre Hunter is just an influx of talent that gives them a better chance to survive as things

get tougher in the postseason. He also gives them more size on the perimeter, which will help them match physicality with teams like Boston. That's really what this was to me. They're trying to close the talent gap with Boston as much as they can, and this was a big step in that direction. I like Niang, he did some stuff,

but DeAndre Hunter's just better. And the emergence of Ty Jerome as one of the best backup guards in the league made Karris Lavert a little bit redundant, and I like Harris, and I thought he had some value, especially like I thought he was the best calves defender on shake yos as Alexander in the matchups that they had, And so yeah, if they got to the finals, that could be something that is a little bit of an issue.

But it's just such a small little bit of utility in the big picture that actually think this was a smart trade. Cleveland is approaching this season with some real urgency, and I like it. They have a five game lead on the Boston Celtics. If they can maintain that, they'll have home court advantage in the conference finals and they'll have their chance to eliminate the Celtics. The second trade we're getting today dearon Fox, to the San Antonio Spurs.

I've been asking for this trade ever since Sacramento got off to such a terrible start this season. This is like the half dozen time we've talked about it, so I won't go two into detail, but I've been hung up on this specific concept, which is that San Antonio has a lot of young, developing talent, but that one of those guys is just so far ahead of his teammates in that development trajectory that you can't afford to

just let them slowly grow together. By this time next year, Victor Weman Yama will probably be a consensus top six player in the NBA Jokich, Luca, Jannis, Shay Tatum, and Victor some order, and some folks might even add Victor higher than six. When the time comes and you can't just let a hyper competitive, super talented dude who's one of the top six basketball players in the world just sit around and wait for his young teammates to slowly improve.

I thought Deeron Fox was the perfect player to address that conundrum three reasons. One, he's older than Wemby, but he's just starting his prime. I think he has at least five years left playing at the level that he's currently at. That is a good long window to justify this type of investment. Two, he's legitimately good enough to be Wemby's number two. I had Darren Fox in my top twenty five this summer. I think his combination of

downhill speed and over the top scoring ability. And again, he hasn't shot as well from the perimeter this year, but he's got such good short range shot making ability to short lean back jumpers, floaters, things along those lines. It's just such a devastating combo to be able to be a real threat downhill, but to always be able to stop on a dime and shoot over the top. It's just a devastating combo. There are a lot of fast guys in the NBA. There are a lot of

guys who can make shots. There are very few that can do both at an extremely high level. And even with his shooting being down a bit this year, he's still over forty percent on pull up jump shots. He's still over fifty percent on floaters on high volume, and he logs in terms of the downhill ability. He logs the same of drives per game as jam Morant to give you guys some perspective on how much deeron Fox can get downhill. Which brings me to the third reason

that I liked deeron Fox for the Spurs. The basketball fit is utterly perfect. The ideal fit for a pick and pop big is a downhill guard. Wemby obviously does a lot on ball for the Spurs. They'll run action for him around the foul line where he'll catch and turn and face you know, eighteen twenty feet from the basket, ISO that kind of stuff. But when he's operating as a screener in action, he's almost always popping out to

the perimeter, right like, that's what he does. He's a pick and pop big in terms of his utility in the flow of the offense. The reason why a downhill guard is so valuable with the pick and pop big has to do with the way that speed can break down traditional ballscreen coverages for starters. You can't switch right like if you switch with a downhill guard and a

guy like Wemby. The best thing that you can do when you're a big switching out onto the perimeter onto a guard is to force him to settle for a jump shot. And there are a lot lot of skill guards in the league that will get bigs on switches, and they'll settle for jump shots, and don't get me wrong, sometimes they go in. But there's a good amount of variants there. The death sentence for a big on a switch is speed, because they really struggle to move laterally

and contain the ball. Deeron Fox can beat biggs off the dribble for much more reliable offense. Beating switches so that's a bad idea, and putting a small guard on a shot maker like Victor women Yama is not not

a good idea either. Right now, let's take a look at a traditional coverage, meaning the defense does not switch if you use the screeners man, so Victor's man to contain the ball, which you have to right because if you're not switching and Wemby sets a pick on the guy guarding Daron Fox and Wemby's man doesn't help at all. Deer's going right downhill. He's flying downhill in your defense, bricks, So you got to have that screen defender there to

contain the ball. Right. But here's the problem. As Victor pops above the break, that defender who's containing the ball now a closeout. He's got to close out from where the ball handler is all the way back out to Wemby where he's popping. This is where the downhill element of Daron Fox's game is so valuable. The longer that closeout is for that screen defender to get back to Wemby,

the better opportunities that Wenby's gonna get. Right. The more athletic the guard is, the further he gets downhill, the more it forces the entire defense to drop back to contain the even longer that closeout's going to be. Right, A skill guard who kind of meanders off the ball screen and pitches it back to Wemby might only be

a ten to fifteen foot closeout. But if Dearon Fox comes screaming down that ball screen and the guy's meeting him more by the semi circle instead of up by the top of the key, as an extra ten feet

that the big guy has to close out. And so I just imagine like just a ton of these really really open looks and high advantage situations for in a wide open top of the key type of situation, I just think I think it's just a perfect fundamental basketball fit in two man game to have a guy like Victor Weminyama that can pick and pop with a devastating downhill guard like Deeron Fox, and he's also a very complimentary defensive fit. I've talked about this a lot over

the course of the season. Fox is an attacking, aggressive, disrupt the ball type of perimeter defender rather than the sit back and contain the ball type of perimeter defender. Containing is most important when you don't have strong rim protection. Attacking can actually be really useful with strong rim protection because ball pressure usually forces the ball handler to speed up. It forces them to drive, because that's how you beat

ball pressure. You beat ball pressure by driving. If you try to retreat, they're just going to keep pressuring you until you lose control of the basketball. You attack ball pressure, and so in those situations where you force them to drive and you pressure well and you rush them, they go downhill without a plan, and that's where mistakes can happen. Cleaning up that type of dribble penetration is a thing that Wemby's better at than literally anyone that's ever played

the game of basketball. So like I viewed as a really complimentary defensive fit as well. So you've got a player who won is good enough to help Wemby compete for championships right away, but is also young enough to fit the longer term Wemby timeline, while also being the perfect basketball fit on both ends of the floor. And you did it without having to give up any of your most exciting young players. I think it's an absolute home run move for the Spurs. That's why I've been

pushing for it all season. I haven't watched their debut. I think they played for the first time together last night. I've been so focused on the deadline, haven't had a chance to watch it yet. But super super for all these guys, by the way, Super excited to dive into in the next couple of weeks the basketball of these dudes playing on their new teams. That's why I got to come back to hoops tonight. On the daily basis, we do a lot of game breakdowns in the mornings

after these games. Zach Levine to the Sacramento Kings. I really like Zach Levine, but I think this was probably by far the most boring place for him to end up. Like. Zach's really good. He's athletic, can get to the rim and jump shooter with real scoring chops. He can create shots for himself out of many different types of footwork, dribble combinations. He's bucket getter. He's got solid playmaking chops. He's been an efficient shot creator in every play type

this year. And he's healthier than you would think. His reputation is that he's never healthy. He had a really bad year last year, but he played like seventy seven games the year before but it's boring because we already know what it looks like. We've literally seen a team led by Demarta Rozen and Zack Lavine as their two primary shot creators. I talked about this, but two years ago, the Bulls had a year where de Levigne, Derozen, and Vucevich were healthy all year long, and they were bad.

If I remember correctly, the starters had a negative net rating even though they had super fortunate health that year. We've seen what this looks like looks like now. I know that Demonia Sabonis is a much better player than Nicola Vusovich and that they have him Malik Monk. I know it's not a perfect comparison, but it's also a tougher conference at West. But at the very least, we do know that Demarta Rozen and zach Levine is not enough offense to be a truly elite game break offense.

And we also know that this King's team is never going to overwhelm teams with defense, not with the lineups build around some bonus zach Lavine and DeMar DeRozan. You're not so like. I don't need to see much or to overthink this to know that the Kings just continued to maintain their mediocrity. This felt to me like the Kings just trying to remain relevant while also acquiescing to

darn Fox trade demand. And they'll be fun. The Kings will go on some win streaks on some nights, they'll look really good on offense, and they'll beat really good teams, but they are going to accomplish anything of significance. And that's why I thought this was the most boring destination

for Zach Lavine. The Milwaukee Bucks get Kevin Porter, Junior, Jericho Simms, and Kyle Kuzma for Marjon Bouchamp, Chris Middleton, AJ Johnson and a pick swap, and I think the Bucks also might have gotten a second round pick back in that deal as well, if I remember correctly. I saw a lot of negativity surrounding this trade from Bucks fans, and I get it to a certain extent. Like Chris, when he's at his best, is a better basketball player than Kyle Kuzma. But Chris Middleton hasn't shown his top

end in a long time. His ball handling has been valuable to the Bucks this year in the half court. He's been able to create advantages and just kind of grease the wheels for them in their offense. But he's been back for twenty three games and he's averaging twelve points six points per game. This is not the same

twenty point per game Chris Middleton anymore. He had a couple twenty point games in the last couple of weeks, but they were in like losses where the team didn't look good or I think he had won in Utah as well. Like, this is not the same Chris Middleton that was such an important part of the championship team a few years ago. Now, whether or not this trade makes any sense will come down to what Kyle Kuzma

turns into. The Bucks need to be able to convert Kyle Kuzma back into their winning culture because he's been playing losing basketball down in Washington for a few years now. And Kyle Kuzma's last year with the Lakers before his trade to Washington, he had actually turned himself into a really good role player. First of all, he's a very

good rebounder. Towards the end with the Lakers in the last year or two, he had become so good off ball, playing, passing lanes, rotating and just being such a good defensive rebounder that he actually had turned himself into a really useful role player. The key will be bringing that out

of him. Again, that's on Yannis, that's on Brook, that's on Doc Rivers Dame and all the leaders of that team to refocus Kyle Kuzma's energy in the directions that made him such a useful player for the Lakers towards the end. He's got good size, he is a good athlete. He can win contested rebound battles, he can fly around in rotation and play passing lanes. He's big, Like this

is a size move for Milwaukee. That Kuzma yanis Brook Lopez front line is just way more physically imposing than a like even then a Bobby portis like too big kind of look because Bobby doesn't move as well as

Kyle Kuzma does. But like certainly like Torrian Prince is a bad rebounder, like this is a big his eyes, athleticism, off ball defense and rebounding upgrade for the Bucks if they can bring that back out of Kyle Kusma, which again that's the big kind of variable here, right And then on offense, Kuzma's an interesting case study in how little efficiency actually matters relative to your reputation in the league.

Like Kyle Kuzma's an inefficient offensive player. His best shooting year was actually his last year with the Lakers, and he only shot thirty six percent. He's a career fifty four percent in true shooting, which is nothing to celebrate. But he is constantly aggressive. It's actually funny how aggressive he is. He's a career seventeen field goal attempts per thirty six minutes in his career. Even his last year in LA, when he was in his smallest role there,

he still took fourteen shots per thirty six minutes. This is an aggressive score. He averages seven three point attempts per thirty six minutes in his career. He shoots so much, and he always he has this threat that he might go off. Like Obviously he's been more of a scoring role with Washington, but even going back to the Lakers, any giving night he could go for twenty. Any given night he could go for thirty. The threat was there. He has ninety seven career games with over twenty five points.

He has eleven career games with over thirty five points. This has led to and this stood out to me in such an interesting way when he was with the Lakers. This led to teams accounting for him on the scouting report the same way you would for a more efficient scorer. The way he's guarded is like that of a more efficient scorer. So his value on offense is greater than his efficiency would lead you to believe because teams will

account for him. I think he slots in really nicely as the starting three increases their size and rebounding ability gives them more scoring pop. The big variable here is can they get him to commit back to playing winning basketball. The Bucks also got Kevin Porter Junior. He's just a bench bucket getter. Nothing too crazy there. He has all the footwork in dribble comp nations to get his own shot, but he just isn't particularly good at making shots, for

whatever that's worth. Jericho Sims is just a hyper athletic center who plays really hard but isn't really good at anything on either end of the floor. I do think the Bucks got a little better in this trade cycle. It certainly would have been better if they could have pulled off something like a Jimmy Butler deal or Zach Lavine deal, but they didn't win in those bidding wars, and so they ended up having to pivot to something else.

And again, like with the urgency surrounding Dame's age and Gianni's commitment to the franchise, like you had to do something. It's not perfect, there's risk involved. Kyle Kuzma shares a certain amount of variability here with his commitment to winning. But you had to do something, and this is this at least has the potential to bring real upside for the Bucks. All right, weving new segments that we're debuting today from our new partner, Microsoft. So let's get into that.

Welcome to course correction brought to you by Microsoft. Just like star players and teams navigating performance hurdles, business decision makers today are under immense pressure to get things right. They must rise to the occasion, turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management and trustworthy, responsible AI. And when you're in

the NBA, you have your own hurdles to face. In this segment, we're going to be exploring the challenges faced by teams or star players and how they can turn things around. Whatever challenge you're facing. Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it on. This week, we're discussing the challenge faced by Rob Polinka and the Los Angeles Lakers. Rob Blink and the Lakers were in a

little bit of a bind. They were built around a forty year old Lebron James and a soon to be thirty two year old Anthony Davis, who's a little older than his age would lead you to believe, and they looked like a team that clearly did not have a championship ceiling, in large part because of mistakes that this front office made, the catastrophe of the Russell Westbrook trade, roster imbalances brought by a failure to prioritize motor and

athleticism around their aging stars. It looked really bleak, But at the same time, the team this year was showing some real promise. The Lakers are seventeen and eight in their last twenty five games, to seventh best record in

the league. Over that span. They've shown some real promise with their small ball groups on both ends of the floor, impressive wins against the Boston Celtics, the Knicks without Anthony Davis, a small ball group the Clippers without They beat the Clippers without Anthony Davis or without Max Christy, a lot of small ball groups in those games. Lebron has looked fantastic. But then Nico Harrison calls with an opportunity involving Luka Doncic. This is where I thought Rob rose to the occasion

and turned a challenge into an opportunity. Started with self awareness. Everything in life starts with you being willing to admit you're good at and admit what you're bad at. There was a moment there where Rob had to take a look at this and realize that they're not good enough, even though they've been playing well, even though it looks like there's an upside, even though you could argue that team might have been a trade away. But it was about looking at that and making a tough decision with

self awareness about where this team was actually going. This was a high point in Lakers history, this recent stretch of games that they've been playing in recent Lakers history. I should say there was a lot of optimism floating around, but the reality was they weren't good enough to beat Oka. See they weren't good enough to beat Boston. They might not have even been good enough to beat Denver. So first Rob makes the big decision, We're moving on from

Anthony Davis to Luca. But from there he had to navigate the massive problem that presents for the rest of the roster when you send out Anthony Davis and you don't even have a viable replacement at center. From there, Rob did a really nice job of negotiating with Nico Harrison holding on to his twenty fie thirty one first round pick holding on to Dalton connect Those are two assets that you could argue Nico Harrison should have just demanded like Dalton should be a mav that pick should

be the MAVs. And Rob held his ground and hung onto those picks that gave him the ability to make another trade to find the center of the future in Mark Williams. And to top it all off, you managed to clear a roster spot in the process, which is huge because I think the Lakers are going to be the premier buyout destination in the entire NBA in the next month. Any center that signs with the Lakers can

get a pretty much guaranteed rotation spot. Any wing or swingman that can play some defense and shoot has guaranteed minutes available. They are the premier buyout destination, and they cleared out a roster spot. One of the things I always talk about on this show with respect to players is the idea of just making a play. It doesn't matter how bad of a game you're having, it doesn't matter how bad of a season you're having. If you

just start playing better, then your circumstances will improve. And it's been a really rough tenure for Rob Polinka as GM of the Lakers, but he just pulled off the unthinkable. He just reopened a championship contending window, one that seemed almost shut, and now it could be open for the next decade. Now, as basketball fans, we get to do the fun part, which is watching Lebron James and Luka Doncic play basketball together. So shout out to Rob Polinka.

He made a play, so to speak, and now he's completely rewritten the story of his tenure as general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers. That's it for this week's course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you to take bold steps and make informed decisions, sparking new ideas to help you drive your business forward. With Microsoft as your

trusted partner. You can navigate your journey with confidence. Your journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions in reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers to learn more. All right, guys, before we get out of here, we're going to do a rapid fire segment hitting through a bunch of other stuff around the league. First of all, Kevin Durant refusing Golden State. I wanted Kevin Durant to go to Golden State. I straight up think he would have had a better

chance to win there than he did in Phoenix. I talked about this in the Jimmy Butler Show yesterday, but I think there's a misconception about the Warriors that they're bad, when really they're just horribly imbalanced. Even after that Jimmy Butler trade, they still have like eleven rotation players that can play meaningful basketball, at least within the context of the regular season, and they were able to bring in a guy in Jimmy Butler that immediately balances the roster out.

You don't need fifteen guys that can play minutes in the NBA. You don't need fifteen of them. You can do it with eleven and give yourself, more firepower off the top right. I thought KD would have very cleanly kind of slotted into that Jimmy Butler type of role that we talked about last night, same concepts that I talked about last night with respect to playing alongside Steph. I did have a warrior though, even when all that

buzz was kind of building on Tuesday. This week, I've just heard from so many different sources like that Kevin Durant really didn't like the way the whole Golden State thing went down, and that he looks back at that era with a little more contempt than people are willing to realize. And so I was hoping that enough time had passed and you know, like maybe it would have been able to Like I'd heard a report too that

like Phoenix was coverting Draymond in that deal. Like I thought maybe there was some way to work it out towards Kevin Durant going that direction. But he stepped in there and he said, I don't want to do it. I don't want to go back to the Bay. And I do think that that comes down to the way everything that went down when he left, and so it's kind of a bummer and now Katie's stuck on that Sun's team, which I mean, I guess we're gonna talk

about it in a minute. Maybe they got a little bit better bringing in Cody Martin, but like, I don't see anything really substantial there that looks like an opportunity, So at least Vin doesn't have to move, I guess. But it was interesting the way he stepped in and nixed that deal from taking place. Marcus Smart to the Washington Wizards kind of crazy that they traded two picks, two first round picks to get him and then had to pay another first round pick to get off of him.

It's a weird sequence for a front office that's otherwise been excellent. But the upside for the rest of the league is that if you are not in the first Aprin or second Apron, you could potentially get Marcus Smart in a buyout if he gets bought out before the end of the season, and I think he would be a really interesting buyout guy to raise the ceiling for a team. Golden State would be an interesting spot if Marcus Martin becomes available. Detroit, the Pistons get Dennis Schroeder.

I actually really like Dennis Schroeder. He had a little bit of a rough go there with Golden State, but he was miscast as like the secondary star on the team. Dennis Schroeder, to me, is an extremely useful player in that he can guard point guards from the other teams. He is a savage competitor like legitimately just gives it his all every single night. I loved rooting for that guy. Pistons fans, you will love rooting for him. He just needs to be in a position where he's not depended

on to a great deal to run offense. Now within Detroit, because of the injury to Jaden Ivy, he is going to kind of be in that position where he's expected to do a lot and there will be a lot of highs and lows for Dennis Schroeder on the offense at the end of the floor. You need to be aware of that. But I do like the idea of at least just giving kid another guy that can help, other guy that can help handle the ball, another guy that can handle ball pressure, another guy that can just

carry shifts when he's off the floor. Again, you didn't want to do anything too crazy because you don't want to do anything to mess with Detroit's timeline. But at the same time, this is like a nice inexpensive move that just gives you a little bit more firepower to get a more interesting look at Detroit when they get to the postseason. The Clippers get bogged on mcdonovitch for Terrence Man and bones Highland, another shot creator for the Clippers.

That's a team that's light on shot creation. Any injury that takes place all of a sudden, normOn powells your secondary shot creator and he's been great this year, but getting ball handling there is definitely an ad for the Clippers. Terrence Man had been kind of pushed to the edge of their rotation, which is weird. I actually really like Terrence.

But he fits Atlanta's goal really well, which is Atlanta has been trying to surround Trey Young with athletes, young athletes that can cover for his size and limitations and benefit from his playmaking talent. That is a nice get for Atlanta there. The Suns turned use of Narkic and a first round pick into Cody Martin the sila Ja

Mishic and a second round pick. Now Mitchich probably won't play with the point guards that they already have but Cody Martin is a useful wing athlete on a team that doesn't have many useful wing athletes, and use Off Nurkic was useless, so it cost you to protected first. But it was a nice moderate improvement and there was some real urgency here. Again, it's better than nothing, I guess, but I still don't feel like the Suns are going anywhere.

Mini heat turned PJ. Tucker into Davion Mitchell, a guard who can really defend, and again this always brings value in the modern MBA, the ability to guard the ball, and I like Davion is like a kind of guy that you can deploy that just changes the flow of a game. You get into a game and you're playing against you know, the Nuggets or something like that, or I'm trying to think of, like just let's just take any team in the Eastern Conference that has high level

guard plays. Let's play say Milwaukee. Play Milwaukee and Damian Lillard just lighting up your starters like he's killing Terry Rogier, he's killing Tyler Harro on switches, and it's not looking pretty and you just need to do something to change the flow of the game. You take Davey on Mitchell out. You put him out there and you say pick up Dame full court. It can change the tenor of a game. It can disrupt rhythm. Again, he's not the kind of

guy who's going to be in your closing five. He's not the kind of guy that you want playing thirty minutes a night. But it's a useful rotation player. Is a guard who can defend a kind of guy that can come in and bring ball pressure and change the flow of a game. And last trade we're getting into today, brandon Ingram to the Toronto Raptors. I actually really like

brandon Ingram. I've talked about this before, but I think he is at his best when you put the ball in his hands and you allow him to run a lot of spread, pick and roll. He compared to most forwards in the league, is actually a really gifted passer. I think he's a guy that can raise your offensive floor to a great extent. He actually fits really nice next to Scotty. Like I look at Scotty is like the hammer to the brandon Ingram scalpel So to speak Scotty.

It's interesting because like he's just so physically imposing. At times. I was watching which game was I watching the other day? I think it was Toronto for Chicago, and he was doing a lot of work like posting mismatches. He had a run in the third quarter where he like scored bucket after bucket after bucket attacking from the post. But like he just can run into a little bit of a wall on offense sometimes he has a tendency to

settle for fadeaways in the post quite a bit. Like I think bringing in Ingram to make Scotty's life easier on offense is at least a worthwhile endeavor for Toronto to try. And then guess what you can decide at the end of this year if you want to resign brandon Ingram with some sort of long term deal, and whether or not the deal makes any sense really comes down to what you end up signing brandon Ingram too. It depends if you get him at a fair deal or if you end up having to overpay. And time

will tell in that regard. The team isn't going anywhere, but it's certainly a hell of a lot more fun after this. All right, guys, That's all I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys. For supporting me and supporting the show. I am very excited to get back into it, breaking down some games, talking about these players on their new teams. As of right now, we might be going live tonight after Warriors Lakers, depending on whether or not it's Steah plays, so keep an

eye on my Twitter feed. We might have another episode tonight. If not, we'll be coming out tomorrow. Then we always have our mail bags like we usually do on Friday, and then time to start breaking down games. We plan on covering the Pacers Lakers Luka Doncic his debut on Saturday. I'm looking forward to that as well. Again, I really appreciate you guys for rocking with me and I will see you either tonight or tomorrow morning the volume What's Up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to

and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.