Hoops Tonight - Why LeBron James, Anthony Davis & Lakers are ready to WIN another NBA Finals

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specific responsible gambling resources, eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. Terms at sportsbook dot DraftKings dot com slash Basketball terms. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend. We have a jam paged today for the show later on today, we got a video coming out with our power rankings as well as a mailbag.

We do power rankings every Monday, as you guys know. But for this video, we're gonna be bringing on my friend Jovann Buja from the Athletic who was with the Lakers in Las Vegas as they hoist the first ever NBA In Season Tournament trophy. He's got a lot of information from boots on the ground that he's going to give us, and we have a lot of interesting basketball to dive into as well, and that's where I want to start, Yovan. So obviously there's a trophy waiting here,

but there's another trophy coming in June. And what I liked about this n Season Tournament was it was kind of like a miniature, less important version of the playoffs, in the sense that the high stakes environment, the intensity, the good teams, like four of the consensus contenders to start the season, the Suns, the Lakers, the Bucks, and

the Celtics were in this single elimination field. All of that kind of, you know, showed us a little bit of like a playoff lens through everything so that we could kind of examine all of these teams.

championship game. Lebron had one of the most efficient games of his career in that blowout against New Orleans, and then I think arguably the most impressive win of them all was the Phoenix one, considering that's a team that they most likely will have to face at some point in the Western Conference playoffs, and that's you know, all three games have gone into crunch time, all three games have gone really to single possession basketball, and Lakers have

won all three of them. And I think their defense against Phoenix, like you've kind of seen the strengths of both of those teams, and LA has come out on top in all three matchups. So to me, I think again, I was already high on the Lakers, and I think they've been playing better. They've won twelve of their last

sixteen if you include that championship game. But this to me was when the stakes are high and this team is playing for something they can lock in, they have a level of focus, a level of engagement, a level of awareness that we hadn't seen necessarily consistently through the first twenty games or so. But with the money on the line, with the trophy on the line, they really stepped up. And of course a lot of it was Lebron and Ad but again, I thought Austin Reeves looked

really well. I thought the Wings played amazing defense. Darvin Ham deserves a lot of credit for his schemes and his game plan. So to me, this was just confirmation that the Lakers are in that inner circle and might even be a little bit higher than we had initially expected.

You know, the emergence of Cam Reddish and Max Christy as like not just capable point of attack weapons, but like good point of attack weapons has put them in a situation where, even within the context of the regular season, they're more well equipped for that specific problem, which really isn't even a problem now because now it's like when we talk about the Lakers point of attack defense, it's like you're getting Cam off the jump with Torrian guarding

your second best perimeter player, right, and then it's like here comes Max and Van though and and Max is gonna take that or Jared can take that top end assignment, and Max is gonna be an excellent option for the

second best perimeter initiator and a bench group. And so like now the Lakers I think we can say are legitimately good at the point of attack, which is kind of like a bizarre situation to be in, yeah, considering where we were to start this season, And so I kind of move the Lakers above the Bucks into that tier were like just in terms of sheer fire power and kind of factoring in everything that all those teams can do on both ends of the floor, I still

put Denver and Boston ahead of them, and as we're going to talk about later on in the show. I still think like this the upgrade of that specific rotation position they're getting to, like asking yourself the fundamental question, is Cam Reddish good enough to be the starting player on a team that can win a championship in a feel this stacked with teams like Boston and Denver at the top. Those are other questions that the Lakers need to address, but I do think they've proven that they

belong in this inner circle tier of contenders. And like specifically, it's the latest example of the of the simple basketball concept that is fueled Lakers optimism for three years despite mediocre regular season results. And that is in a real basketball game, when the shit's on the line, if Lebron and Anthony Davis are on the floor and they're playing hard, it is like a huge pain in the ass to deal with because of everything that they can do as

athletes on both ends of the floor. And that Indiana Pacers game was such a great example of that because, like you know, the Bucks had all sorts of bullyball options, they weren't able to inflict that on the Pacers. The Celtics had all sorts of size mismatches on the perimeter against various guys, they weren't able to inflict that. It was the Lakers that when the Chips for down, were able to just pay bound the ball inside on the pacers and just obliterate them on the offensive glass and

make everything happen with their size. The other thing that I thought was clear from this tournament that stood out, and I want to hear your take on it. A big shock. This has been the case for this entire era. But defense is the identity of this team that they need to lean into, and so I had to take that. I was bouncing off of Logan Sway, my mutual friend head of content here at the volume, about this defense

versus twenty twenty defense. Now, hear me out, because the twenty twenty Lakers defense was incredible, certainly better at the center position in terms of what Dwight and Javail brought to the table, and obviously better at the guard position defensively because of Crusoe and Contavious Cabbo Pope, two of the best guard defenders in the league. But that team did not have wing athleticism like Danny Green I thought

was slow that year. He was a good help defender, did a decent job in some lock and trail assignments, but he was not the best perimeter defensive option. Kyle Kuzma more like a Ruey Hotcha Mura type, kind of like a top heavy big forward that was good in help, good in rebounding, but not an excellent on ball weapon.

They didn't have guys like Cam Reddish six ' eight freek athlete Jared Vanderbilt six ' nine freek athlete that they could put at the point of attack, And like I think, I'm I'm still on the fence about it, So I want to hear your take, but I think that that specific wing athleticism dynamic gives this Laker defense a dime like kind of a punch that it didn't have in twenty twenty in a different way. And so I actually think it's pretty close.

Max has played some crucial minutes in fourth quarters. Like I thought it was really telling that Darvin went to him as often as he did in that fourth quarter against Indiana, you know, before ultimately closing with Cam, Austin and Dilo and as the three perimeter guys. But like Darvin has shown he trusts Max and those two guys taking the leaps that they've taken defensively and just in terms of their point of attack defense, their screen navigation.

So I would say the wing defense is better. I agree with you. I do think though the guard defense was better for the twenty twenty team, and obviously the interior defense, in my opinion, was better. With you still had Ad playing at similar level, he might even be better now. I think it's close. You could probably make the case either way. But throwing in Javail and Dwight like that was a dominant, really really dominant interior defense.

And they had a game against Detroit where they had twenty blocks and it was just like you could not sc or on that team inside. And like we've seen shades of that with Jackson Hayes can block some shots from the weak side, and like christian Wood has had some solid moments defensively, but for the most part, as we saw the Lakers kind of shift more to a playoff rotation, Jackson was barely playing and christian Wood was

out of the rotation altogether. And that was my initial fear heading into the season was just when the games actually matter, I don't trust Jackson, Hayes, or Christian Wood in big moments, and I think Darvin has kind of confirmed that with phasing those guys out of the rotation

for the most part. So I do think that at the point of attack, like they do have that perimeter defense with some of the wings, but I think some of the speedier guards like Daron Fox is a really tough matchup for them, for example, and of course he's a tough matchup for most of the league, but I think that twenty twenty team would match up better with him. And then we saw Jokic wasn't at the same level obviously, but we saw how Dwight matched up with the Jokich.

We saw you know, eighty and Javail on the weak side and what they can kind of do with that strategy. So I think they were better at defending centers and they're better at defending point guards. Now two through four I would probably lean this group. So it's gonna be interesting to see how they I mean, right now, they're they're seventh in defense. You know, maybe they end up in the top three, top one, you know what we'll see.

But I think overall, peak wise, they're similar, but I would still give the edge to twenty twenty overall as well as with their consistency.

out way was just kicking everybody's ass. Now that Kings matchup in particular is one I would love to see again because the last time they played, they were still down a bunch of their wings, and the first time they played was right at the start of the season. And like, one of the things that's been really interesting with the Kings is they are zero to five against New Orleans and Houston, two teams that have excellent, long, athletic point of attack defenders, and they held them below

one hundred points three of those five games. And so I'd love to see a Lakers Kings rematch where it's actually Cam Reddish and Torrian Prince and then Max Christine Jared Vanderbilt where it's like forty eight minutes of the Lakers ball pressure that we know they're capable of putting on them. But unfortunately they're not going to see the Kings for a few months, so I guess we'll have to wait to see that one.

literally didn't understand it. It's like it made no sense the way he was discussed at the start of the year. He was so dependently dependent great even in crunch time when he was playing poorly, and he was just awesome

in this tournament. Twenty two points per game, twenty eight in the closeout game seventeen against the Pelicans, who cares, they got their butts kicked like it just I thought it was a really impressive showing from usin Reeves is just the latest example of like, they don't need another ball handler. They need if they were to make some sort of upgrade something at the point of attack. But we have another guard for the Lakers that is going

to be returning soon. Your colleague Sean Serrania reported today that he's going to be returning probably in about a week. My question for you is Gabe Vincent's return, how will it affect the rotation.

Because for me, I think there probably should be a trickle down effect where you potentially reconsider the star lineup now that you have Gabe Vincent available because if you went back to the Austin de Lo backcourt, you know, there's obviously some problems with that didn't work earlier in the season, but you don't have a backup guard who can handle the ball right now, and I think bringing in Gabe, while he's not necessarily a traditional point guard

or primary ball handler, he can give you some of that. He had given them some of that in the first few games off the bench. So I would I would like to see the Lakers revisit, you know, and we've talked about it, potentially the Van do Oh Austin Delo starting group. I think, you know, that group was so

dominant in the regular season last season. I think they were effective in the playoffs until they ran into the Denver Nuggets, and you know, I don't know if it's sustainable throughout the whole postseason, and you probably have to reevaluate some things, and of course we'll see what they do with the trade deadline, but I would like to see them, you know, potentially go back to that group, just because again Austin remains their third best player, and

I think by virtue of you know, while he's still closing games more often than not by virtue of bringing him off the bench. There have been plenty of games where he's played fewer minutes than d Lo just because of the way that Darvin likes to have the rotation and keeping the starters together for a certain amount of time. So even in certain games where Austin is closing over del he's still playing fewer minutes just because of kind of the starter bench dynamics.

off the bench. But it just put it puts the Lakers in a little bit of a bind here because you kind of have the blueprint now of skill guard at the point with Delo or Austin, a bunch of wings, and then you have Ady and Lebron as the center pieces. Either together, or you know, one of them is on the bench and you're you're going with multiple wings. You

put Gay Vincent in there. Now all of a sudden you have a lot more Delo and Gabe, Austin and Gabe, and you know, it's just it changes the dynamic, It changes the perimeter defense, you know, potentially, I think he regains the shooting and that's something that helps. But and Gabe is a plus defender, but he's also six foot two and that you know the difference between him at the point of attack versus Max Christi or Cam Reddish

or Toryan Prince, like, those guys are just bigger. And that's been the Lakers identity over these last few weeks as they've had success. So for me, I think there is a trickle down effect of Max Christi probably plays either.

Torrian is the starting three. With van Do as a sub. Lebron is the starting four, with ruy as a sub, Ad as the starting five, with Jackson as a sub.

So the simple answer here is Max is out of the rotation and Games takes a spot like that, that's what's most likely going to happen, And I think I don't think it'll have any sort of meaningful effect overall on on the way the team is performing, just because Cam is still going to get significant rotation minutes and I don't think it's going to make too much of a difference. But there's a simple question to be asked of, like, right now, out of that role, what do you like

Max actually has been an aggressive shooter. He's knocked down some big shots, He's had the ability to put the ball on the floor and attack close out. So I think there's a little bit of a give and take there. To me, it just is a gigantic spotlight on the roster imbalances here. And what I mean by that is like, ideally, like you'd want that same mold you referenced skill guard, point of attack defender, taller point of attack defender Lebron or ruy Ad or Jackson right like, essentially that was

where the turning point of the season was. Now, we disagreed about Austin being essentially the tool with which to make this happen, but the Lakers went from playing two skill guard lineups to one skill guard lineup in the season turned around the defense. In their last fifteen games, they have the third best defense in the league and the second best record in the league. That's right around the time this change took place. It's been basically where

things turned around for the Lakers. And so my thing would be Ruey Hotchemura played nine minutes in the Pacers game, because he's basically viewed now as the guy who plays when Lebron's off the floor, and that's it. I played twenty one minutes each in the Suns and Pelicans games, so he's not even playing half the games.

by making a better use of your resources? And so, in my opinion, like Gabe is like the perfect example of a guy that could take a Delo's spot in

the rotation. If you can imagine if if Delo got traded and Austin became the starter and Gabe actually based took over Austin's role on this team as the guy off the bench, and then if you were to bring in an upgraded version of Cam for that two spot, right or somebody along those lines, then essentially now you're much more balanced and you don't have a guy in d Lo that you're not going to ever play in crunch time.

perfect segue into this. Do you think the success of the defense in the nd season tournament will have any impact on the team's strategy at the trade deadline?

do on the wings when healthy. Of course, there's the offensive end where I think all four of those guys have some level of question marks in terms of their shooting and you know, Toryan has been shooting the ball much better recently and I think played better, but overall

just sort of like those four. I don't know if you want ideally any one of the four starting on a championship team, like I think they're all probably better suited coming off the bench, although Vando, I think with his body of work, especially last season, like you know, you can make the case he's at least a good regular season sort of placeholder starter. But I think the other three ideally probably want them coming off the bench

with an ideal lineup. So I think it's gonna come down to how they perform, honestly, like the next four to six weeks, and what that looks like, because I don't think they're gonna really change their strategy at the trade deadline, holding on to well, we won the n season tournament with these guys, so that means we're gonna win the playoffs, Like I think it's gonna be how do we build off of this? What does it look like now that we're fully healthy? We ad Gabe in,

how is he adjusting? Do we have the confidence? I think to your point, you know, if you end up trading d LO plus something else. You can't go back to starting Austin at the one. You can have Gabe as the backup, and then you plug that new player or players potentially to the starting lineup and then somewhere you know, off the bench, depending on what.

that them probably playing slightly better than him. I think his rebounding has been an underrated part of his games, so like you lose a little bit of that. That's been something that the Lakers have actually excelled in over the last few weeks, has been their defensive rebounding, no longer having some of those second chance points woes that they had earlier in the season. So I think there's a lot of questions right now. We're not really going to have an answer until we see what this group

looks like fully healthy. But I think their recent success with these wings is a factor for them. But I don't think it's going to necessarily be We're just satisfied

with with Cam and Vanda and Torrian. I think they're still going to be aggressive of trying to get that type of guy, but I think they do have a level of if we stay put or at least, you know, look to fill a different role, we're confident that these guys can rise to a certain level and play well in big games as they just did in the end season tournament.

gets into a complicated situation. It feels really weird talking about being aggressive as at the deadline when I'm talking about a team that I genuinely believe is the third best championship contender right now, like so like it feels it feels like a miss placed kind of look to the future, right But at the end of the day, I want to just put it this simply for Laker fans, if you end up in the Western Conference Finals against Denver, it's Jamal Murray, like literally one of the top twenty

players in the league. It's KCP one of the best starting role player guards in the league. It's Michael Porter Junior one of the best starting role player wings in the league. It's Aaron Gordon one of the best starting power forward players role players in the league. And Nicole Joki is the best player in the league. If you play Boston, it's Derek Quite a above average NBA starter, a damn good player. It's Drew Holliday and above average,

like literally a fringe star. It's Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. It's gonna be Chris tops porzingis. Like the point is is, like when you're talking about the top levels. Now, now let me pretend the Lakers are going to start Cam Reddish. And Cam Reddish has been a really like a really a feel good story in a lot of ways, because this is a guy who like legitimately has been very

good this regular season. He's been a very good point of attack defender, and like this is three three NBA franchises wanted nothing to do with this guy, like straight up wanted nothing to do with him. Let him go for nothing, and the Lakers have gotten real use and value out of him, revitalized his career. He will be on an NBA deal next year somewhere, and he's gonna be a guy who's viewed as like a three and D wing based or a D in three wing, I

should say. But like the reality is is stack yourself against Denver and stack yourself against Boston and ask yourself if cam Andrean is going to be a legitimate week point in a series like that, And the answer, in my opinion is a pretty clear yes. You're you're going to be giving a significant advantage up in those situations at the highest levels. Again, to win four series, you're

probably gonna have to go through Denver. You're probably gonna have to go through Boston or somebody who beat Boston,

or somebody who beat Denver. And so again, like I just I look at it when you have that problem, and then an internal problem, which is ruey literally is this incredible player that you can't play because Lebron's on your team and he plays the same position, and so he barely plays Indiangelo Russell a guy who you cannot play alongside your other skill guard, Austin Reeves at least

not often. They did it a little git against Indie down the stretch, but like, for the most part, he's a redundancy with a better version of him that's on the bench, and for the most part he's going to be on the bench in big moments, and so like to me, it's just a simple question of resource management and trying to give yourself the best chance to win, especially when you got a thirty nine year old Lebron James.

But I'll get off my soapbox now, So before we get out of here, bo, I guess we have two more things I don't want to hit before we get out of here, do you. Let's actually start with the legacy talk. So obviously we are not a ESPN first take here, we are not a debate show. But I am curious just to hear your personal experience as a basketball fan. What does winning this tournament and winning this tournament MVP mean for you in your fan experience watching Lebron James.

best player on the floor. And the fact that we're still saying that in year twenty one at you know, he's what less than three weeks away from being thirty nine turning thirty nine, Like that's just insane. And the way that he just eviscerated the New Orleans Pelicans with an assassin like efficiency of just I'm gonna put this

game away. I'm gonna hit three straight threes, I'm gonna be playing to the crowd, the you know, getting the pro LA crowd into this as kind of turning it into a home court advantage.

have a big fourth quarter. And you know, sometimes I feel like his numbers don't always reflect the impact he had over the full forty eight minutes or however minute many minutes he played, but like in a single elimination format, and we've seen it in crunch time too, Like you put Lebron in a situation where he's like, I have three to five minutes to manipulate this game, extract all the juice offensively out of our you know, our sets and run the lebron ady pick and roll and find

mismatches and hey, Austin's got you know, Austin's got to go and give the ball to Austin or you know they're overplaying this, like let's you know, Cam reddish you cut here?

his general defensive effort. But I thought he was great in the tournament and a big part of the reason why the Lakers were able to stifle the Pacers the way that they did was not just Anthony Davis and his incredible defensive dominance, and not just the point of attack defense with guys like Torrian and Cam, but it was also Lebron playing that middle linebacker role and intercepting passes, deflecting passes, making really smart low man rotations and like,

there just aren't many guys who could do what he does on both ends of the floor when he's fully engaged, and we've seen now he can still get to that level when it really matters. So to me, this is just confirmation that Lebron can still be the best player on a championship team, and not only that, he can really be the best player on the floor against just about anyone. Like I think, with the exception of maybe Jokic, that's the one guy who his peak is still higher

than Lebron's. But otherwise, Lebron is as good as anyone when he's playing his best right now. And to say that in year twenty one, about to be age thirty nine, like it's just it's ridiculous.

of thing. And it's like, no, he just comes back with a vengeance this year, and he's just like literally not just better than last year, but probably better than the year before as well. Like, this is the best version of Lebron I've seen since when he won the title in twenty twenty. He's having the a career year from two point range, a career year from three point range.

He's been incredible in crunch time. I thought this week was kind of a perfect encapsulation of, like of all the levels you need to hit in order to be like a top tier superstar, which is like Tuesday against the Suns, it's like shootout dual in crunch time against Kevin freaking Durant, and he literally does better and wins, like and he was so incredible down the stretch of that game.

early in the second quarter, which is crazy. And then we go to the Saturday game, which I thought was another interesting type of game where it's like literally Rick Carlisle's just having Aaron Ese Smith play a pest all game long, just up underneath him the entire game, foul in the hell out of him, super physical everywhere, and he just does a bunch of little things and impacts the game and leads them along the way, and also a lot of deferring and force feeding Anthony Davis who

kind of had the best advantages in that game. And so to me, that was like all of the little checkboxes that you want to see from a top tier superstar. Now, as far as like an accomplishment here, it's really hard to measure this to other championships simply from the standpoint that it's never happened before. But let's just lay it

down as a simple matter of fact. It was a single elimination tournament that every team in the league, had an opportunity to qualify for with a clear cash prize of five hundred thousand dollars per player, which is a lot of freaking money, right, and a big old trophy at the end of it, right, And four of our

top contenders were in there. Boston was in there, Milwaukee was in there, and Phoenix was in there, and the Lakers were in there, and the Lakers ended up comfortably winning, and Lebron was the best player in the tournament.

describing it. But before we get out of here, you had mentioned that you had some anecdotes that you wanted to share from your time at on the ground at the tournament, So I wanted to give you the floor to share those stories for us.

won the championship. It was just it was kind of this anytime there's a championship situation, it's surreal and like the T Mobile arena is not really designed like a traditional NBA arena, typically things are kind of on one side of the arena where you can go back and forth between the locker room or the press room or

everything's within a pretty close walking distance. This was the exact opposite, where you know, you had the media room on one side of the arena, you had the press conference room on the other side of the arena, then you had the.

go for this. I'm gonna give it my all. And like again we're talking like trying on defense and and doing things that is you know, sounds simple, but for a guy who has played more minutes than anyone in NBA history, like, he really gave it his all in that game and really throughout the tournament. And I thought that was just like, you know because at that point, there was there's sort of like a security line around Lebron, like he wasn't doing media, uh, so you could kind

of just focus on him. There was no one within a good five to six feet of him, and I was just watching him. Uh And then I love the little joke that he threw in. He'll always kind of throw in some some subtle like MJ.

this money. But I thought Lebron and Ad at the podium were very It was very much like Kobe, like job's not finished, and for them it was just like, yeah, this was nice, but it's early December. We've got another six months until where we want to be. Like a lot has to happen for us to get back here in a championship setting. Another thing I thought was quite telling was I don't think people realize how close Lebron

and Ad actually are. And of course, you know they're both that clutch and they've been teammates now for five years, but after the podium, you know they always typically go together. Post game, they're kind of stepping to the side and there's some NBA PR people there and some Lakers people there, and so they're kind of waiting for the traffic to clear, and Lebron just leans in and tells him, I love you, bro,

like I love you. And he had just been asked the question about what Ad has meant to his career of you know, he's now played with Ad longer than Dwayne Wade, longer than Kyrie, longer than Kevin Love, longer than Chris Bosh. This is his longest tenured Superstar teammate, and he said, like it's meant everything, Like it's it's been nice to have an alpha male who can take over games and like help me at this point in my career, like not have to do everything and and

really kind of be my equal. And you know, for I think just that bond that they have h and just the way that those two guys mesh, Like I think for a duo that's only won one championship, like they have to be in that conversation for her greatest duos ever that have only won one championship, Like it's getting to that point now where like they are such a special duo in the way that they compliment each other and just give your team, you know, in this

case the Lakers, and a clear physical advantage against basically anybody where Like when when Lebron and eight are healthy, they're gonna play smash mouth basketball. They're going to live in the paint, they're gonna live at the free throw line, and defensively, they're going to be physically imposing and they're gonna play a certain style.

They like the way they run on made baskets. But like the funny thing is is dealing with Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the other end is a different kind of pain in the ass for teams to deal with, and I think that's been a big part of their kind of like identity in this era is like probably the most physically imposing one two punch that has been in the NBA in recent history.

really want to win this tournament every year. Ideally, you'd have, you know, your big playoffs and then you'd have your small playoffs, and every year there'd be these two kind of like you know, you know, kind of like focal points where everybody kind of coalesces around these as kind of iconic NBA moments, and like, you know what helps is if the second or first best player of all time runs in there and starts popping bottles and really really wants to win the damn thing.

any deterrence in the paint. Like, you know, maybe not as impressive as some of the games in the twenty twenty run. But to me, just eighty, like this is peak eighty, and sometimes people need to be reminded of it. And I know that we see it, We see the

nuances within his game when we watch the Lakers. But a lot of people still, you know, every game, really every quarter is a reassessment of Anthony Davis's legacy, of his standing in the league, and you know, he's really become kind of the superstar punching bag for a lot of people of just you know, his best games are held against him for whatever reason of just why can't

you do this every night? And I don't think you know, there plenty of stars who have their own inconsistencies or weaknesses or shortcomings that don't get held to that standard of this is your best game ever? Do this every single night. So for me, I wrote about that and just the reminder that eighty is a special player and you know, maybe he's not as consistent offensively as people want.

He doesn't have the big forty twenty game every other game, but he still is one locked in really as great as anybody, and there's I don't know who else on planet Earth can do the things that he does defensively. And then go out and score forty points as well. It's just it's a really short list if there's anyone else at all. So wrote about that and you can check that out on the Athletic.