Lakers/Heat Postgame Spaces

out with us tonight, Sir. How are you doing. I am doing good. Did a lot of housework today and uh tempered my expectations as to what we were going to see tonight from from this uh, from this Laker team, considering how many and so I had playing in the background. Uh. And then as soon as they went down super early in the game, by like twenty, I was like, yeah, all right, that's kind of expected. We're in Miami, a bunch of that guys. I'm sure they're not taking it seriously.

And then so how we got a pretty exciting finish. So that was that was kind of interesting, But you know, too little, too late. I guess it's sort of the theme of today. Yeah, we've seen that kind of game a couple of times this season that we come out overmatched and the fight comes, but the fight comes way too late, and at that point the other team is kind of like go of the rope, and at that point you basically have to play perfect basketball, and no

one can play perfect basketball. So that's why you only see that kind of come back once every several thousand tries. Yeah, but you know, I thought the Lakers were outclassed and outmatched in a lot of ways. It was interesting. Um, you know, gravity is a concept that we became familiar with as a result of Steph Curry having to do with the idea of panic chasing shooters around the perimeter

and giving up things around the rib. And since you've kind of seen a similar effect from a bunch of really high level shooters that have come into the league, and Duncan Robinson is one of them. And I thought the story at the beginning of the game was the Lakers because they're an undisciplined team, because they're a team that has had to change defensive schemes a half dozen times this year, because they have personnel groups that all

have to have specific defensive schemes ran for them. They botched coverages uh NonStop to start the game, mostly sending multiple players that Duncan Robinson and then sending multiple players at the role man, which is a recipe for wide open dunks and layups and threes on the back end. Uh. And it was sloppy and Miami controlled it throughout, and even when we came back at the end, I thought it was more product of Miami letting up in us just simply playing harder. So I didn't really take too

much from that. But before we, you know, get into some of the larger scope stuff, because I do want to talk a little bit about just how we move forward from here. But what was your initial takeaway or just your overhead takeaway from the game today? Yeah, so, um, you know, I thought we started off really lax, like just kind of the the attitude of the team. You know.

I don't know if it's because it's we're starting so many vets, like the whole starting rosters, like not really any young guys, and probably the two guys with the most energy are are gonna be are gonna be brawn and like Russ um. But but I thought they started

off really flat. Um. You know, we beat Miami already, right, like we beat him in ane overtime game in in Staples Center at the time, and that was actually without Braun uh and that was of a d But like this was a game where for sure, like playing small ball probably doesn't work because Eric Spoelster sitting there saying, Okay, if you're gonna play small ball, like watch this uh. And and he just kept you know, kind of using his bigs uh, finding ways to to get to the rim,

to to get the Lakers to collapse and stuff like that. Um, I thought we look slow, like really slow compared compared to my and and you know, Miami is not one of those teams like it. You know, they didn't have Tyler Harrow, they didn't have Kyle Lowry, but they have like their their offensive principles are in place. They're like a I don't want to call them a system team because I feel like sometimes the de values like what the players do, but like they know what they want

to run and they know what they want to do. Um, you know, make the extra play, collapse the paint, get somebody to come come over, find the three point shooter, and I mean they ran it to perfection, like the reason they went up twenty. We were chasing like constantly the entire game. And then, um, I think I don't know if you watch the local broadcast, but yeah, on the local broadcast or sorry, the l A broadcast. Um,

what's it called stud lance? He was just saying like, oh, yeah, the the entire goal is to take Dwight Howard away from the paint because they know that nobody's gonna be able to come and help, you know, at the rim and stuff like that once they get it. So it's just you know, I think they Miami came in well prepared with the game plan. They knew what the Lakers small ball was. Um, and you know, credit to Erik Spoelstra and and and those guys for executing it. Yeah. Absolutely.

And for the record, you know, going in like talent is a huge issue year. I kind of pointed this out before before for the last game against the Magic. But when you're looking at the starting lineup and it's like, Okay, I've got Lebron James, but I've got Russell Westbrook who is mostly a shell of his former self, and we'll

discuss that a little bit more later. But you've got Avery Bradley, who was literally cut by the Golden State Warriors earlier this year when buying for the fifteenth roster spot and is an extremely I would call him like a one dimensional basketball player, Like he has one elite skill, which is strictly ball pressure, and even that you know, comes with a bunch of downsides, and and obviously offensively,

he's he's very hot and cold. And then you got Trevor Reza, who I actually, this is one of the big things I've been wrong about this year. I thought he'd be better than he's been, and he's been and he's been really bad. And if you watch him now, we're not gonna get too far into him, but he is actively hurting the team on both ends of the

ploor right now. And then you have Dwight Howard, who's a backup sent uh, you know, a guy who definitely belongs in the league, definitely can play that backup center role in a championship level team. He's definitely not over underqualified for that, but he is overqualified underqualified to be a actual, you know, um starting NBA center on a good team. So you're looking at that starting lineup and it's it's basically four really limited basketball players and Lebron James.

And then you go to the bench and it's like, you know, we we've been advocating for the young guys a lot, but it's like Austin Reeves, undrafted free agents, Stanley Johnson was out of the league. Molikue Monk Lakers were the only team that offered him a contract th

ht second round pick. You're looking at this and there's just not a lot of talent on the roster, so you have to cut the team some slack in the sense that you're not going to go on the road into Miami and just beat the Miami Heat like that. But at the same time, we also functionally look like a disorganized, bad basketball team. So I think that, like I think even if with our adjusted expectations, they're not

performing up to that level, if that makes sense. So what do you make so even even the Orlando game, right, like, like like you already mentioned that, you know we're gonna get into rust a little bit later, um so so um, we can do that. And but like you know, the general theme of some of these losses and a lot of the conversation about the losses to the playoff team.

The teams has been you know, the the up and down on Russell Westbrook, what version do you get and so like the last two games he's been okay, um, yeah, but the defense has been so bad. What what do you make of that? What do you make of Like, so, how did we go from being a super terrible defensive team even though Braun and Rust shot well in the first half of that Orlando game. We figure it out in the second half of that game, and then we show up in this Miami game and they were completely

lost yet again at the start of this game. What what do you make of that? What do you think that is? Is it? Is it just talent? Do you think it's preparation? What are your thoughts on that? So

it's I think it's a bunch of things. But like, for instance, if you've got a team, like a really smart defensive team, a team like the Miami eat, I think you can run really advanced schemes, Like I think you can do things where you're switching certain actions which are also you know, running traditional traditional pick and roll coverages on other actions, or maybe you might keep a lock and trail defender on a shooter and not which those screens like, you can mix all of that up

when you've got personnel that kind of fits into that identity of a smart defensive team. But we certainly don't have that. Like when you look at the personnel down the roster, we have too many guys where defense has been on the back burner during their career. Doesn't mean they can't play defense, it just means you have to simplify things for them. I think that's really important. So for instance, like what did the Brooklyn Nets do last year?

Were they asking Kyrie Irving and James Harden and Kevin Durant even who's a player who has been lacks of days go on the defensive end for a lot of his career. You know you're not gonna ask those guys to do anything super advanced, And so they broke it down to something outrageously simple. Guys just switch everything and if they beat us one on one attacking a specific matchup will live with the results. But that way it's

super easy. There's it's it's it's a there's no like having to decide what coverage you're running when something gets run your way. It's just we're switching everything and when and if you lean into that the way they did for the entire season, then you get good at it. You get pretty good at it, and you know, and

one of the biggest things of switching is communicating. This is one of the big things that fell apart today as you see multiple Laker defenders run to an open three point shooter or to an open roll man instead of just one guy going in that direction. And that's just fundamental sloppiness. You're not talking starting from the basic like entry levels of basketball. When you're educating like a six or seven year old and how to play defense,

you teach them to talk. When you're on the ball, you yell ball, why so that everybody around you knows that you're guarding the ball. When you're one pass away, you yelled deny, Why so that everybody on the court knows that you're guarding one pass away. If you're in help site underneath the basket, you always yell midline or help or depending on the program. It's it's those kinds of things. Those are basic basketball things that the Lakers

just aren't doing right now. They're not talking, they're not even like letting each other know what they're doing while they're on the floor. So it's it's a combination of sloppiness and an over complicated scheme in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, so that's that's been like the biggest thing, you know, Like, um, I think if you follow, if you follow the Lakers on the on the timeline and stuff like that, especially without lost is obviously are low lights? Are are what

gets the individual low lights? You know, rush shooting the ball off the top of the backboard and stuff. I got that stuff will be highlighted and you'll just think to yourself, like, oh man, this team just sucks. But there's like a fundamental issue I feel like with this team when it comes to not just efforts, but it's just like what do we do? Like sometimes I just

sit there and watch what are we doing? Like I'm so confused as to why is it that we switched on this time but then on this time we didn't switch? When were we in dropped? Like why did why did we spend the entire possessions switching every single thing and then at the very last moment we dropped? Like it is that? Is that a player thing? Is that a

coverage thing, you know, what is it? And so I think that's been sort of the sign Like I don't I don't know how to kind of explain it um going from game to game, but you know, the talent

disparity is definitely one of those things. The you know, even more than the talent disparity, the athleticism disparity crazy for this team, like there like consistently, if we play a young team, a young physical team at like that wants to like even even Orlando that wants to get into your space and stuff like even the Indiana game, like Tory Craig is trying to press Lebron the second half of that game from full so that he can't

get his rhythm or anything like that. If we play against teams that are athletic and and just kind of want to press us and stuff like that, this team seems to like basically bold, like pretty much like it just allows itself to get out of rhythm and stuff

I got. And I don't know if that's because we got a bunch of old guys that you know, they're just not gonna do that kind of effort in the regular season, or if it's because that's just kind of what we are, like, we can't keep up with these sort of teams, maybe at least not until the playoffs. And so that's why we're seeing this sort of thing happen over and over again. It's it's it's mind boggling to see the inconsistency um game the game when when

it comes to these situations. Yeah, you know what, It's interesting because the name over the course of the summer, the entire Laker fan base was on the same page, like when are they going to sign someone who's taller than six four? Like like that was the thing because you look at you look at a team, like you look at a team like Miami and you're like, oh, there's Max Struss. He's six ft six two fifteen pounds

and built like a truck. And you're like, you're like, that's not even what a top seven or eight player on their team, but like he's just a big athletic player. So guess what, Like if you're running a smart defensive scheme and the guy knows how to do his job, like he's not an easy guy to run over and

get to the basket. And we used to have a bunch of those guys and you know, this is where you know that when I when I talked about the rush trade, which we're gonna get to into more detail later, I talked a lot about what was lost in the process, Like you know, because of the mismatching salaries, you know, there was more money coming in, so that had directly affected the Alex Caruso thing, which then you're talking about losing Kyle Kuzma, Alex Crusoe and KCP like three really

high level NBA athletes with size you know at their position that went out the door. But like a lot of that have been undone. A lot of that damage could have been undone with if with the veteran minimums our general manager actually approached that replacing those specific archetypes like that was we we literally brought in because Carmelo Anthony is tall, guys, but he's really like Carmelo Anthony is a lot more Shanning Fry at this phase of

his career than Carmelo Anthony. So yeah, his his lateral like there there should be even even this is this has been an issue with even also like like Arizona since he's been back, like to his mobility, like the mobility from some of our wings, specifically Carmelo specifically, like Aresa has been really really bad, like like there must have been at least two I'm trying to remember off the time, maybe two times where a Reason almost like god, his ankles broken just off of the jab step, like

because he was trying to trying to guess which way, like Caleb Martin, which Cody Martican, I don't know what joint is, Like you could tell like he was he was gonna be in trouble, like he didn't know what

was going to happen. And it's purely because the guy that he's going to go close out on is much more athletic, much more aggressive, and these guys know, like the opposing team knows, Hey, if you make you know, a misdirection cut, if if you jab right and go left, or if you jab left and go right, Carmel is gonna bite. He's gonna put it in one of these plays and you're gonna get a lane or Reason is gonna bite and you're gonna get one of the things.

And that that's the part that like, um, that's the part that kind of concerns me. You know, like they're minimum players, so we should probably not be uh, you know, putting them under such a microscope, because that's why they're minimum players. But the part that bothers me, jays, is why are we putting minimum players in this position? Like

it seems almost unfair to those guys. It's like, why are we asking these guys to guard athletes and then getting mad at them for not being able to guard athletes? Like there should be some some foresight or some just kind of common sense from from our front office that these guys just can't do it. Like Carmel is a great specialist, Like if you just stick them in a corner or you have them doing the trailing the trailing three, he's like he did like towards the towards the end

of this game. It's great, but he can't be like a core. I gotta make four rotations or four coverages in a single defensive possession, you know what I mean. Like you're not gonna you're gonna get more breakdowns and you're gonna get um, you know, positive stuff out of it. So it's it's it's very interesting to see this kind of what happens and and um, you know, I think it's putting a lot of pressure on even guys like Braun, even guys like Russ. At least, I ant Davis comes back.

So I'm hoping he comes back next game so we can see how things sort of work out. It will certainly help with slotting, although it'll be frustrating at the beginning because of the fact that he's probably not gonna play a ton of minutes. But this is a perfect setup for the question I'm gonna ask you, because, like, I think that that, like that fundamental approach to the

off season was where this went off the road. Even again, looking accepting the Rush trade for what it is, because we're gonna get into rust later, then looking at the moves they made around that, I fundamentally disagree with the approach. So I'll give you. I'll give you two examples. So Kendrick Nunn, so you, from what I heard, Rudy Gay would have signed with the Lakers had they offered him the mL E. They absolutely would have done. So that

was in the works. Then I guess Rob was like, no, actually, we're gonna be the veteran minimum, and then the Jazz swooped in and got him under some pressure from Mike Conley.

That's what I've heard, So essentially you fundamentally decided that you thought Kendrick Nunne because I don't know if it's it's because he fits the archetype of guard that Frank likes or because you underestimate what Rudy does offensively, but that is that basic approach, like instead of getting this versatile wing that can guard multiple positions and do things with the basketball offensively, We're gonna go for this versatile guard who can defend a little bit at his position

and uh and uh, you know, do some things with the basketball. But that size difference that kind of went down the line with all of the signings. So for instance, like instead of getting guys like Wayne Ellington, you know, or Malik Monk's actually worked out okay, But in said of that archetype, like why wasn't it more guys like Wesley Matthews, who everybody in late in the Laker fan base was clamoring for. Why wasn't it guys like James Ennis.

Why wasn't you know that that archetype of Stanley Johnson, that type of player who's a fringe NBA player but brings an elite skill in the form of their athleticism. Like that is where the Lakers went off the rails. Now you could argue that we could argue when it comes to Russ as to that trade off and whether

that was worth it. But even with the Rush trade, they had the ability to be bigger and more athletic than they are and they chose not to be because, for whatever reason, they told themselves that Carmelo, Anthony and Trevor Rizzo was enough, which is which is outrageous. So so yeah, it's it's it's it's sorry saying I don't want to you're good, They're good. Well, I was just gonna tee you up. I was gonna say, so accepting that this is the reality, what would you do if

you were robbed at this headline? What would you do? Yeah? So so my biggest my biggest thing about the team is, um, there's like they have to raise the athletic profile of this team, like especially on the wings, Like there's there's should be no confusion from any Laker fans about the lack of size when it comes to just the perimeter and wing guys that we have. It's very clear that Carmelo and Trevor Reaso are not are not the guys that that can consistently say active on the wings for

this team. And they're not even if you put them in just three and D roles, they're not even doing the D part, you know what I mean, Like they're they're just they're just like it's not consistently good, like at least with Avery Bradley, Like and I know we don't like it, but at least with Bradley. You see

the effort with Bradley and and and he's trying. Even how our Lando game the second half of that game, he got a bunch of deflections, he got a couple of dig dig plays where he just kind of pulled the ball out of the post of guy's head and stuff I got. So it's just like that, like you could see the effort and stuff I got when it comes to this team. Are certain players on the team, but on the wings outside of Lebron, especially without Anthony Davis,

like we have no size whatsoever to match up. So you know, like the cascading effect of you know, trading for us and all that sort of stuff. I'm acent and agree with you, like I went on, um, you know, with our our fellow friends like at Temple of Hoop Jason and and Cage like I went preseason, I went on a on a had a conversation with him where we talked about, you know, who the Lakers should try and get and what moves they should make and should

they trade for us? And I was just like, look, if the only trade you could ever make was to get Russ, then that's fine, but that shouldn't like be like our first move because he costs and he costs a lot of money, and be we're gonna have to trade a lot of players away likes mos cruises and that sort of stuff. But I mean, Russ is here. You know, you and I are not Rob and Kurt,

so we're not the ones making the decisions. We don't know how that how that went on the back end, but it's like very clearly if I'm robbed, I'm looking at the wings on this team and I'm thinking to myself, DC guys can't keep up with like the like the best teams in the league. Like even if we just go down the list, you have the Warriors who have Wiggins, they have the young kids, Jonathan Flamingo, They're gonna have Draymond if he's healthy. They're gonna have Andrea Goodala if

he's healthy. Uh. For the Jazz, you're gonna have Royce O'Neil. They have Rudy Gay two as well. They have Eric Pascal, another young guy that they just kind of added last second that's been getting minutes for them too as well. Uh. Then you go to the Suns, they have Michael Bridges, they have Cam Johnson. Uh, they have Jay Crowder. Like if you take our two wings outside of Braun, like you're assuming Braun's playing the floor, where do our guys

even rank up? You know? And then in the top three, I could argue that when are the wings that we're relying on. They don't even like they may not even have roster spots on some of these teams that are

on the Western Conference. And and and I think it's really really difficult for me to put two and two three two together when it comes to this team, Like what was the logic behind going super small on the on the perimeter and then going super slow you know what I mean, Like with the guys that we would have used as in small ball situations. And that's that's the part um that that just doesn't match up. So

it's like that's what they have to do. Like they really really have to find guys that are six six six seven, six eight, and we need those guys to be able to be athletic. You know, if if they can't, if they can hit the occasional three, great, but we need guys that can defend badly or else. What you're gonna have is is teams do exactly what something like Eric Sposa's did. They'll take a D or they'll see a D at the five and they'll put a put

a floor spacing shooter or something like that. They'll drag them out all the way to the top of the key, the top of the perimeter, and they'll say, all right, it's a free run. You get by your guy, you're gonna get a lay up because no one's gonna be able to help you on the backside. And that's just not gonna work. I don't care, I don't care any excuses anybody's making about them being vets in the playoffs. That is going to be the go to strategy. Every

playoff team has done this civilators. And look, whether it's because of the players or because it's Frank Vogel, we have no counter sport even with a D. We don't have counter sport because we don't have size on the wings. So I can't keep getting mad at Malik Monk or Tayleen Horton Tucker for not being able or even Russell Westbrook for not being able to guys because there are four inches five inches shorter than everybody, you know what I mean, Like they're just getting the ball shot over them.

So it's it's gotta be we have to balance that out. We have to get size, We have to get athleticism on the wings um because I don't think he's realistic to expect Broun to have to do it like this

the way he has in the regular season. Well, what Frank asks guards to do is extremely difficult, and I think the idea coming into the season it was kind of the same idea that that was functionally what happened in Like, we have all this size, so if we get guys that are willing to scram around on the perimeter and chase guys over the top of screens and stuff, then our size will clean everything up on the back end.

But they I think where they fundamentally uh misread the room so to speak, was the fact that we did have so much size on the wing and at the guard position in and yes, on that initial action when the guys chasing over the top of the screen, like it helps to have a little pest like Avery Bradley in that spot or and and I think Frank probably convinced himself like, hey, I can convince Malik Monk to run over the top of screens, or I can convince

Wayne Ellington to do this. And I think he underestimated just how difficult that job is and you know, to consistently do And one of the things that was the strength of the Lakers was that flying around in rotation because the Lakers, especially in that postseason run, they would flat out trap pick and rolls a lot of times, especially with James Harden and with Damian Lillard and even

with Jamal Murray in that series. So like what was really happening there was you were asking three guys to guard four, and when you're asking three guard guys to guard four, it just is it helps when the smallest guy on that back line is Alex Crusoe and he's six six and put his elbow above the rim, like he can just cover more ground. Kyle Kuzma could just cover more ground, KCP could just cover more ground. There was just that overall length and athleticism is what allows

you to clean up messes. Because this is the dirty little secret. There's no such thing as a perfect defense. You're not going to just shut down that first action, and then the possessions over Chances are they're they're gonna move the ball around and someone's gonna get beat off the dribble. And it's really about how you cover for each other. And you can't cover for each other when everybody on the floor is small, and I think I

think that's just where they went wrong. Now I'm a little bit more aggressive about this than you um in terms of what I would do this deadline, because I would trade everybody that I could not name, Lebron and Anthony Davis. I think fundamentally the culture in the locker room is got this weird, stale like, kind of nasty like nature to it that I don't think can be

fixed by moving one player or moving two players. I think that was the beautiful thing about the teen like Calves is when they made that trade to kind of just change the area of the locker room, and that's why I keep using in that as an example is like sometimes you send out guys. Now, the big the big thing that that Cavstin did is bringing athleticism. You know, you turn Jay Crowder into Rodney Hood. That's just a

more athletic version. Even though JAD think Larson athletic and then Larry Nz and Larry N's looks so good in that regular season, he basically took Trisan Thompson's job in that stretch. So but the point is is like, like the point is there are going to be teams in the league that are willing to do trades because they're in a similar situation. They don't like the guys that they have in their lockerm and they want to mix

things up, right. And so the way I look at it is like I would I would I would move Russ, which we're gonna talk about later, so I'm gonna save that, but I would trade Russ for basically anything other than

John Ball. But then when it comes to the veteran minimum contracts and when it comes to th h T and Kendrick Nunn, I'd flip t H T and Kendrick Nunn for somebody that is in that classic wing archetype, and I would even be willing to take Eric Gordon, but I would also be start looking at flipping some of these veteran minimum contracts for other veteran minim contracts around the league that better fit what we need. Better attitudes,

better effort guys, if that makes sense. Yeah, And the thing with you know, one of the things when the Lakers sent out that first that first rounder to Washington Um for that Russell Westrop trade, like you know a lot of people are like, oh, why we give it up? Well,

in return, we've got three second rounders. And this is kind of where those second rounders sort of helped, because you need more picks to be able to move incentivize moving certain guys as opposed to just that one first round pick um when it when it comes to that

sort of situation. So now, if you have a guy like let's say down to Jordan that you can't play well, you can attach a second rounder to him and then look at a better minimum guy that may be around, you know, on another team somewhere, who the Lakers can actually use and then offer that second round pick because the other team, it's really all they're getting is the second round pick. That's what they want. They don't really care about the vetman because it's a vetman, so they

don't think much of it. So when you have two or three of those, and we have three of those from the Washington trade, um, you can move some of those guys at the very back end of the roster around, uh, using those second round picks. Um. So I look, I'm not I'm not against. I think people get it very confused when they're when they're on my timeline and stuff

like that. Anybody who wears the Laker Laker jersey, whether it's the Prown James or former Celtic Region Rondo, U root for them to be successful because they're wearing the Laker jersey. So my thing is I only can be positive, right and so, um, but you have to also be realistic.

If the only way for this roster to improve is to move Russ because of a salary, and there's a team out there that says, hey, I'll send you these three guys who are role players that we don't want, and um, you know you can have them, you know, and this is just hypothetical, like I'll send you Harrison Barnes and Buddy healed and Damian Jones, um, because I don't want their you know, I don't want their contracts or whatever it is. Um And yeah, sure send me

those second round picks. Uh. And you can swap Damien Jones for Deando Jordan, you know that sort of thing. And the Lakers kind of add a little bit more athleticism. They add a little bit more, you know, um, youth to the roster because that's all that matters. Russell gets ring anyways, it doesn't matter, you know what. Like we gave a ring to DeMarcus Cousins. He never played a single minute for the Lakers. He came up, showed up to camp, got hurt, and then he never played. But

he still gotta ring. So I'm not I'm not worried about anything. You know. Obviously, we want the Lakers to win the championship. That's that's the entire goal to begin with, and stuff like that. So it's it's it has to be something that adds depth, because I genuinely think guys like Carmelo, guys like Trevor, they need to be the fourteen, like the twelve, fourteenth and fifteen guys on our bench.

They can't be the sixth, seventh, and eight most most important guys on our teams, because I think that's putting us in a position we're we're going to be very unsuccessful because teams are going to look to attack those guys um over and over again. And that that's kind of what my idea is. My thing with THHD is, UM I have a bit of a conspiracy theory about this situation. UM. I think Kendrick Nunn was brought in.

He is hurt. I don't think that he's not hurt, but I think he was brought in to replace th HDS role if th HD got moved for somebody else. Uh, sort of that sixth because he's been a six man before, right, he understands that role and stuff like that. And we kind of tried to shoehorn tailing into the starting lineup and then eventually we moved him on the starting lineup.

And now we're playing him with with the you know, the he's our what fourth highest paid guy, but he's coming on the bench and he's kind of been up and down himself. Um, he had a nice stretch of basketball and now he's kind of had like a you know, blah kind of stretch. Of basketball and stuff like yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, and so um that that's been my running conspiracy theory. Um none also switched to clutch. I think he switched a Rich Baul right before the season started to after

he joined the Lakers. So that's you know, that's just me being conspiratorial. But I would move this. That explains why they wanted him over Rudy Gay. Yeah yeah, I mean I would move up. To be honest, I would really move him for wings. Like I've floated the idea of like if you can, if you can trade th HT for like two wings on a team, like right, So the example I gave is like to Indiana, Like we just played Indiana. They had justin holiday six six um three and the kind of guy, same same kind

of role that k CP sort of played. He runs a lot of the same sets that come off the d H O and and just kind of pull up sort of sets that you know KCP would run or or you know Allington would run or and and then they have another guy, Tory Craig, another six six nine wing guy likes the hustle, will scrap. Uh, we don't have to ask bron to do that. He was the one who was guarding Lebron in our last Indiana matchup that entire second half, pressing Braun to make sure that

he couldn't get involved. Like if you can, like financially, you can trade just th hd and and maybe a second round pick or two second round picks, and you can add those guys. I'm not saying that's what we should do, but there's ways to go about improving the depth on this roster. That's that's a great example of a less flashy trade that finally improves the team, right Yeah, and then and then you know, like if if we're trying to slot guys down, now you can change Mellow's rotation.

Now you can play maybe Melow and Tory Craig, you know, hypothetically together. Um, and and now it's not as much of an issue because you have a guy who's in isolation score can shoot the three kind of like you know, in that Bron role, and then you have a dedicated three and D defensive guy will get pushed the pace like you see Stanley Johns like we haven't, we haven't

mentioned it before. Look at Stanley Johnson, like, look at how much of an impact he has just with his energy at times like that Orlando game we couldn't score for crap, and then he's just grabbing the rebound and running. You know, he's just running down the floor, putting pressure on on the Magic defenders and stuff like that. Like we need energy, we need youth, and and that I really really think that's the direction of this team has to go in because these other teams they're not going

to look to outskill us. They're just gonna try to beat us up. You know, they're gonna try to out athletes,

and that that just that needs to be the general approach. Um. And I would have a kind of an order of operations, right like I think I'd look, I'd throw everything at Jeremy Grant, and then what I would do is I'd set up backup of like backup deals, you know, of the of the Yoka you just described that, there's one that Crane just has thrown out that I actually like with ken Ridge Williams, where you you just basically throw Kendrick Nunn at and get to bring back Mike Mistal

and Kendrick Williams. Even though I'm not as big on Mescal as he is. Kendrick Williams is another one of those guys just big and athletic and plays really hard and you can put him in that situation and it can be better. I think that, you know, just kind of to put a bow on the on the trade deadline concept. The idea of of resetting this season, I think is is really important. There is, like I said before,

there's an energy around this team that isn't good. They there's been a lot of like saying the right things to the press um you know, from specific characters that think Mello did a good job of that the other night to try to cool off the Russell Westbrook thing. And everyone's been handling well. Even Lebron, who has had a history of being super passive aggressive in moments like this, has been pretty good in terms of his overall even his body language, when always had some bad moments, hasn't

been that bad. So like everything everything looks good. But like as we know as as fans who have watched this team every night, that lack of consistent energy to me is like indicative of of a fundamental flaw within the chemistry of the roster. So the way I'd look at it is like, you know, Anthony Davis is coming

back obviously a big deal. But if you can somehow, you know, use the men in Black, you know, flashstick things to just kind of like to just kind of like reset everybody's psyche going into this last stretch where it's like, hey, look we got Lebron Anthony Davis back, and here's all these new players. Even if they keep us, just by resetting everything around the situation, you might be

able to trigger just kind of like that. It's kind of like that new It's it's that New Year's resolution type of mentality, like be we trick ourselves because it's January one, that things are new, when really it's just more of the same. You know. That's kind of the idea that I would go with here is like that this team just needs to hit the reset button. Obviously,

this concoction of players isn't working. Even if you kept a baseline talent level but just brought in different talent, you might have a better chance of reinvigorating this because effort has been an issue this season. Obviously it's one of many issues, but this consistent lack of effort coming in like guys not communicating on switches, just not being willing to do their job on defense. Guys, you know that like that, that's not something that that's that that's

not something that is an outlier experience. In this season, it's been like the opposite of the Lakers. When you see them have a lackadaisical night, you look at it and you'd be like, that's strange, and then they come then they come out the next night, whoop someone's ass. Whereas like this team, this team, this team has been

the exact opposite. We we have these unusual games like the Utah game where it's like, man, I don't even recognize these guys, But more often than not, it's like tonight, or like it was against the Nuggets, or even like that Magic game, which was a travesty of a basketball game in a lot of ways. But I just think I would go with a reset. Yeah, no that I'm I don't disagree with you, like I think anything is

really on the table right now. The well, I guess the only reason why I do I do give a little pushback on the Rust thing is because I think Braun and a d maybe um advocating to keep him like kind of behind the scenes because a lot of you know, it's been well documented that they're the ones who had the conversation with them about telling them how

things would work and stuff. I say, if they move him, you know, that kind of looked bad on them, um and and you know, obviously we we juxtaposed that with the conversation they had with Damian Lillard Um earlier in the season too as well, where they you know, like they basically told Dame this is what it would be like, this is what it's like playing for the Lakers, and then he basically said, you know no, and then he basically, this is one of my things where I was trying

to explain the liquor fans, like Dame had a conversation with with Russ and a d Sorr with with on in a d and then he you know, obviously he was thinking about it, but when the going got tough, per Dame, he turned around and used that conversation as like pr spin like you I mean like and so I'm not saying that that's that's that we should give Russ more credit, but we should kind of give Russ a little bit of credit, Like if anything goes wrong

with the scene, he could shoot fift the entire season. But if we don't win a championship, it's obviously a failure, right like that that's the way Laker fans look at this sort of thing, um and and that's my thing, Like if we look at if if, our measurement is just are we going to win a championship or not, regardless of how much depth we have, how much talent we have, how well as specific player is playing versus

some other player. And obviously as analysts, we want to see some kind of consistency like we saw with the championship teams that we can at least look at and say, okay, you know what, I can at least count on this team to be consistently good defensively. We can figure out the offensive stuff, you know, like hey, when Rondo comes in that the offense goes to crap, you know, like hopefully that can get fixed in the playoffs, and they did. We won a championship, but there's no consistency with this

team anywhere. Like like Jason, there was a stretch of basketball where it was where it was Russ and a D and Lebron was out and the Lakers were like a top ten defensive team and a D goes out and Lebron comes back, and all of a sudden, we're like, I forgot what we saw that we were like a number five offensive team, but our defense is super garbage. So it's just like, what is going on with this team?

There's no consistency anywhere, and and that's I think that's we have to find some sort of consistency if we're if we're gonna be making any trades. That that's just what that's just what we need. Yeah, there hasn't been one thing this year that they've consistently done well. Um, I would say if I had to choose someone to say, maybe Lebron's offense, you know, he's been he's been unbelievable like that. If nothing else, Lebron has been out of

his mind. I even I didn't think like I thought, I knew he would be good like Evan and seven good, you know what I mean, like, but not not. Hey, I'm about to win the scoring title and and we don't have Anthony Davis, but we're still basically a five team with a bunch of you know me rush and a bunch of minimum contracts basically, so that that's that's been kind of nuts. Alright, guys, that's the end of

part one, Part two of this podcast. I'm going to post on Monday at five o'clock Mountain Standard time in the afternoon. Thank you guys again as always for your support. We will be back with our normal postgame show on Tuesday after the Brooklyn Nets game as well