Lakers/Knicks Postgame Spaces

mailing it in. And it kind of looked like it was headed in that direction as another one of those nights where the Lakers just we're gonna get out classed in every facet of the game from a give a ship standpoint, And obviously they started to show some fight and we got to learn some interesting stuff. Um. But first of all, Roger, how you doing, man? I hope you're having a good week so far, and I'm looking

forward to into the bottoms of stuff tonight. Yeah. So, like full disclosure disclosure, I was dropping my mom off at L A X and it's an international flight, so I was just staying staying there and I peeked at the score and we're down like twenty already. I think with what like five minutes gone, So I'm gonna need you to kind of film me in on that part. I walked in around the third quarter, I think like eight or nine minutes still left in the third quarter,

But walk me through. What what the hell happened to start? Was it the starters? Was it Bradley DeAndre Jordan's just not bidding? Uh? Did Russ turn it on? Kind of? I know he had eighteen in the third Was there some aggression showing? So film me in there. So I kind of have a it's weird, I'm looking at an incomplete game to me, like the Lakers were in the close game the whole time. Like I started from the third and it was like a three point game or something.

So for me, I saw a good game. I don't know about you guys, and I saw a pretty good game. You should be you should be thankful that you missed the beginning. I mean, so, I thought the story at

the beginning the game was transition defense. And you know, there's kind of two there's two parts to that because um, part of transition defense has to do with like your overall foot speed as a lineup, right, So when you go with Anthony Davis, who you know, as we've frequently talked about Anthony Davis's strengths as a as a as a basketball player primarily have to do with his size and length in conjunction with his defensive instincts and his uh skill set, you know, is his ability to be

more coordinated and and and you know, his ability to do things offensively that most bigs are are don't have the touch or the basketball like you to be able to do the truth of the matter is that he's not overly fast and like a linear you know, just running wind sprints up and down the floor. And then obviously when you run that in conjunction with DeAndre Jordan, who's flat out slow, you can have a situation where the overall foot speed of the lineup is is problematic.

And obviously the Knicks were just running up and down the floor and shooting the lights out and getting anything they wanted. But you know, there are there are dead giveaways to me that associate transition defense with effort, and a good example of that is like, for instance, there was a play, you know, there were several plays early

in the game where the trailer was wide open. If the trailer is wide open, that's an example of guys not running back because typically in transition defense, you sprint, all five guys sprint, try to get a foot in the paint, and then from there they spread out too shooters. And so if you get to the rim and you take away whatever the easy runout is, and there's only four guys there, or there's only three guys there, then naturally there's gonna be somebody trailing the play who's wide open.

And and like the Knicks got a lot of really good three point looks out of that. There's another play in the second quarter, early in the second quarter when the when the wheels were really coming off, where Dwight

Howard was guarding New Orland's Noel. New Orleans Noel was jogging down the floor and Obi Toppin got wide open on the back end for a like a half court lob and he ended up dunking on like Wayne Ellington, and Wayne Ellington jumped up and tried to not get free, and Obie Tompa just kind of dunked over the top. If you're like, if the big man runs back and puts a foot in the paint and he turns around and he looks and he sees near Land's noel and

he thinks he's good. But the other guards and forwards in the lineup are just simply not running back. That's laziness. That's not lineups, that's not personnel. That's laziness. And then the other big part of it was rim pressure. The game turned around. You know, we talked all the time that the the the You can't just to ask someone to drive to the basket every single time because it's too fatiguing. It's not realistic to ask an athlete to put in the physical labor it takes to drive to

the basket every time. That said, there needs to be a certain amount of balance there. You need to at least attempts to frequently put pressure on the rim or your shot quality will go to hell really fast. And in the late second quarter and progressing through the rest of the second half, both Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis put a great deal of rim pressure, actually made a conservative effort, concerted effort to get to the basket, and

the Lakers started getting good shot quality. They started making shots, which allowed them to set their defense, which allowed them to get stops, which allowed them to get out in transition. It's that same you know, snowball effect that I always

talked about. It's the thing that defines Laker basketball. Getting stops, getting out in transition and getting easy shots, and that all that all starts with them being able to put pressure on the rim, which is the biggest strength of this lineup, and early in the game they were simply not making that concerted effort. And so those two things, to me, the transition defense and the lack of rim pressure,

are clear indicators of poor effort. And it's confusing to me because this is back to back games now where the Lakers have shown a lot of fight when they got down big, but but them coming into the game, this lacks of daisical. Them coming into the game without belief in their system is to meet another indictment of the coach. And I think guys finally kicking it into gear and finally starting to put their foot on the gas in attempt to fight back and win the game

is more indicative of just competitive nature. You're in the game, you're getting your butt kicked. Guys on the other team are talking trash to you, they're playing up to the crowd. The crowd's yelling at you. Finally your competitive nature will kick in and you'll fight back, and I think that's

what we saw in both games. But them coming out the gate without that, to me, continues that trend, that theme that I've been preaching about for the last week, which is, I don't think this group is bought into the coaching staff, and I don't believe. I don't think

they believe in what they're doing, which is problematic. And obviously there's a bunch of other stuff that we're going to get into, like that you saw in the third quarter, in the fourth quarter having to do with problems with the zone and having to do with the manual quickly getting going. But that was the story at the beginning of the game. Story the beginning of the game was

no rim pressure and no transition defense. Yeah, this is another game where when I look at this, or kind of at the end the end of the first quarter, I thought like, this is a game Maybe Vogels just fired after this one lose by thirty to a NIXT

team that's down. I think Derrick Rose and and someone else I was thinking about it, though, Like we talked a lot about scheme and scheme combined with effort and that stuff you have to get to but you can't get to scheme without effort, right like, and like an analogy I was kind of thinking of. It's like when you start to like a long time ago, when I was starting to work out, go to the gym. You do all this research track, like, oh, what's the best work out to do? What's the best like meal plan

to do? And I read something that like stuck with me. I forgot where it was from. This was before like you know, it's like a billion dollar business. Now you have all these influencers who are fitness influence and stuff.

But I saw like a quote that really stuck with me and goes, the best workout is the one you actually do right like and the best meal and the best meal the best meal plan is the one you actually stick to, right And there's all these extremes, And that's kind of how I'm seeing this team as well. I think we're better as a switching team, but again, the effort. If the effort is not there, I thought I saw DeAndre Jordan Avery Bradley again getting killed and

I'm sure that's again the drop coverage. I don't like that on manual quickly. But again, that's a you can't get to scheme without effort. And I think you're right, this team is really coming out. Lack of daisical and it's been clear my position. I'm not on the fire Vogel because I think that solves maybe some issues. I feel like that's a short term solution to a bigger

issue this team has. But if that's the only way they'll wake up, like to me, firing Vogel is the same thing I keep comparing it to like taking DeAndre Jordan now the starting lineup, like that helps, but that that's a band aid, that's something that has other unintended consequences. But maybe the teams just there. I didn't get to watch the first half. I don't know how ugly or how bad that effort was. Um, but yeah, that's kind

of my thing here. You can't even get to you can just go ahead and make a mental note that it was really bad. Yeah, I figured, yeah, again and again Russ picked it up in the third quarter. Um, I got to see that. I would like to see that a little bit more in the first quarter. I know it's tough with the two big line up. Eighteen points of his twenty four I think at the time was in the third So let me know, like, how

did Russ pick it up? Did it start a little bit in the second quarter, a little bit ending that ending that half, or or was it just a third quarter? Kind of pushed by him because I saw we were down twelve at halftime, which to me, a guy who didn't watch the game, dial that's not too bad. But obviously they were down, like I think it was, it was like the second quarter, but that was just you know, so they got down. I can't remember exactly how much it was off the top of my head, but they

were down right around there. And like I said, there's a there's a you can only sit there and and watch your team get railed without you know. It's one thing if you're the Orlando Magic and you're going into Milwaukee and Milwaukee just has better guys than you, and when they're trying, there's nothing you can do to stop them.

That's that's a completely different vibe. It's different when your Carmelo Anthony and you're Wayne Ellington and you're you know, Anthony Davis, and your Russell Russell Westbrook and you know, you're good, arguably better than the guy across from you and he's whipping your ass up and down the floor. At that point, something is gonna kick into your competitive nature and you're gonna start to see some fight. And that's what you saw. And again it all just like

it all started, in my opinion, with rim pressure. And obviously anytime you score basket, it makes you feel better about yourself, it makes you a little bit more willing to do the dirty work. Um. But so getting into the the part of the game, because for the record, guys, we're not going to dwell too much on the Frank Vogel thing. We got into that really deep on the Sunday Pots. So for those of you who want to hear our take on the Frank Vogel situation, I'm pro

firing Frank Rags pro keeping him. Go to my Twitter feed and scroll down a Roger Twitter feed you'll find a link to the show. Or just go on any of your podcasts uh feeds and search for State of the Lakers and listen to our last episode. We do a real deep dive into Frank, what it would look like to get rid of him, the reason why I think it would work, and the reason why Roger thinks

we should keep him. But diving into what was the problem, because once they started trying, there are a couple of things that that stood out to me because I think this is a same team too, and the reason why is because they're lazy on defense. Okay, however, you know when they do buy in where does try, they are capable of doing a certain amount of work on the defensive.

So if you ask them to do an extremely difficult job, which is Frank's original defensive scheme, which is a drop coverage which requires guards to fight over the top of screen. He he really really wants the guard and the big to be able to shut down the action through back pressure from the guard chasing over the top and the big man kind of disrupting things at the point of attack while also keeping enough distance to where he can

deter the lob and deter the rin. So from that standpoint, that job is extremely difficult, and most of these guards can't do it, and so they don't believe in it, and so they don't do the work, so that coverage doesn't work, and so you have these other two defenses that Frank has been going to, which is switching, which takes the physical labor of defense and turns it into a mental labor. Instead of having to chase over the top or or run or be physical and and and

do all of the dirty work. It's a mental job. All you have to do is communicate and pay attention. If you're paying attention to what's happening around you, you see screens coming, you see where they're coming from, You see who it is. You talk to the other defender. You you plan a switch, you talk a switch, you make a switch. You're good. That's an easier job, so

the guys are more willing to do it. And then you have the zone defense, which is obviously a lot easier physically because you're not asking guys to fight through screens, and you're not asking guys to cover a lot of ground. They're just responsible for an area on the floor, and generally speaking, you're willing to give up driving lanes because there's someone behind you. And the problem with it, though, as you saw, was and I'm sure you saw this when you checked in in the third a quarter, the

Nicks just flat out solved it. And the big part that they figured out was if they rotated the ball on the perimeter, the weak side corner would eventually be wide open for a backcut and you saw be you saw it will be top and get a bunch of dunks out of that. And then they were also starting to get some really high quality three point looks out of it as well. The point is is the zone is jenky. The zone is jenkie. It's gimmicky. It's not

gonna work. The zone has to go. If you're gonna use the zone, it needs to be in very short spurts two or three possessions, or maybe after a made free throw here, or they're just to confuse the other team. But it cannot be your bread and butter. It cannot be a thing you run seven eight possessions in a row because guys are going to solve it. The switching defense is a thing that you can actually run consistently. Everyone says, we don't have the defenders at the point

of attack to run a switching defense. That's true, but we also don't have the defenders at the point of attack to run a traditional drop coverage or any other traditional man to man defense. The switching defense, at the very least, even if it does give up matchups that will hurt the team at the very least, it stagnates the other. At the very least, it turns them into

an isolation team. At the very least, you can offer help on the backside and hope that your rotations on the back end will cover from some of that ground. I think they need to go into more switching and less zone and and kind of do what the Houston Rockets did in two thousand eight. Teams switch every single day for the rest of the season, and by the time the playoffs come, you'll be very good at it.

They the Houston Rockets ran that defense strictly to be prepared for that Western Conference Finals matchup, and a damn near worked. That wasn't They weren't running it for the regular season. They weren't running it for a first round matchup, for a second round matchup. It was strictly a game plan for the Warriors. It was strictly a game plan for the postseason. And that's kind of the way that

I look at this. They're going to have to switch because they don't have the personnel to run anything else. Lean heavily into it. Now, get good at it, and then maybe that can be something you can lean on, like the Brooklyn Netts last year to defend well enough so that your offense can carry you in the big moments. Well, I mean, to be honest, they might just not have

their personnel for a good defense. Like, just like with with what I'm watching, I might agree with you, like switching might be the answer, but again that there's other issues with that. To me, you can't switch with like two to three players that are unswitchable, you know what I mean, Like you can't switch with Carmelo and Malik Munk and Wayne Ellington on the floor and a D as your backup as as the only center right Like, there's it causes way too many problems. We went to

a D at the five a lot tonight. I thought they hunted Milik Monk. I thought they hunted Carmelo Anthony in that second half, our defense did pick up. I don't like, like a lot of people say, go to that zone and it's a nice switch up. I just think NBA teams are too good to run that too consistently. To me, a zone is kind of like you're not forfeiting, but you're kind of showing that you can't defend and as if the zone is the only way they're they

compete and they give effort. Like to me, that's another issue. And if of itself, like I don't like the zone, Look, that's not something you can build in identity do with it. And it's also something our coach obviously is very much against. Frank Vogel came out against his own and it's just not a way that he likes to run. We have to find some way to play. And maybe again it's just personnel. We're playing a lot of guys. To me, where it's a lot of trade off basketball and that's

where this team is. This team might just be a five team right now, Like that's that might just be how good they are right now. They're gonna win and lose some back and forth. Russell Westbrook put him back in the game again tonight. We'll see how many times he can do that. But with the defense, I don't really see an answer here. And this is why to me, Vogel is starting Avery Bradley, and I know that drives

people crazy. It's starting DeAndre Jordan's who might not have a job in the NBA if it wasn't for this team. It should an archetype of defense that he likes and I think he would rather, you know, have a guard kill you in the mid range or a guard scoring over DeAndre Jordan's than being able to get picked on or have Anthony Davis at the top of the key. So I don't really know where we go with this until I guess Lebron comes back. Lebron needs to be the defensive kind of he needs to play at an

all defense level, and is that realistic? So I'm not really sure where we go with this team. And it's just the team. I thought. Domin, who's uh, one of the dominant one of our friends, he said something interesting. Is this the team that gets down five or is this a team that came back? And I think they're both right there. This team is both. They're both yeah. And again like blaming this on I keep harping back

on this. I know we don't want to talk about Frank Vogel very much, and those those are the Frank Vogel rumors and stuff will continue to get louder. But like to me, I don't know. I can't see Russ who's been a coach under Frank, who's been coached by Frank voga less than a couple of months, um, just already already going into the Yeah, I can't play for

this coach, you know what I mean. Like that's and we have a bunch of new players on this team where it's Frank Vogel's first time coaching them as well. I think Tanna that their tanta of the fourteen new players or something are new. Like so, like that's where that's where the separation to me is in the in the Frank Vogels lost the team. He has barely coached this team like this, He's coached a D and Lebron

and maybe losing them is everything. But like that, that's where I can't get to that they're just they just sucked because of they're not buying it. That that's where I can't jump to, if you know what I mean. But yeah, with the good, it's it's it's a combination of three factors. And this is something that I've preached

about this entire season. It's it's it's it's three factors. Equally, it's the it's the inability of Frank to be able to understand modern offensive concepts well enough to put these

guys in position to succeed. Because again, that's that's one of the little pieces of the pie because again, if you look, the Lakers are a bottom third offense, and regardless of what you want to say about personnel and regardless of what you want to say about effort, there's a lot of of offensive talent on the floor for the Lakers. That's not where the talent shortcomings are. And they still can't score. They still can't score. So to me, that is indicative of a coach that doesn't understand how

to use his offensive personnel. And then the second little chunk of the pie chart is that buying concept that we talked about were we won't get too far into, but for whatever reason, if you're if you're ranking, you know the the the willingness of of these players, these stars, these role players to do the job the coach is asking them to do. They're very low in the league in terms of their buying Okay, so that's the those are that's two of the three pieces, and I would

argue both of those are associated directly to Frank. Now that doesn't mean that the players don't share blame for the effort, but they but for whatever reason, Frank isn't able to get that out of it. And then the third piece of the chart is The third piece of the chart is personnel. They they have personnel shortcomings there. They have a lack of forwards, they have a lack of um, they have a lack of of defensive personnel, guys who are willing on their own volition to do

the defensive job. That's a whole other issue that you can't put on Frank. That I agree with, But the other two thirds you can't. And you know, here's the thing with the DeAndre Jordan thing. And I think we've gotten to the point now where this absolutely has to be said. Okay, Frank plays DeAndre Jordan for two reasons. He believes it improves them defensively. He believes it helps them with defensive rebound. Though the numbers don't match. Yeah,

the numbers very clearly state the exact opposite. With the with DeAndrea on the floor, with Lebron Russ and Anthony Davis, they rebound less than a third. They rebound less than two thirds of of of opponent's misses. That would rank dead last in the league. With DeAndre Jordan on the floor and with Lebron, A d and Russ, they give up about a hundred and fifteen points per a hundred possessions that would rank dead last in the league. So I in the film matches it. So I, honest to God,

don't know what he's thinking. It's like it's it's a concept that's in his brain that doesn't match up with what's happening on the court. And to me, that's an indictment of him in his ability to bring the best

out of this group. And and I don't saying how that keeps getting glossed over and all of this because because it and it goes even a step further, even beyond the defensive rebound, and even if beyond the defensive end, they get run off the damn floor every time in transition because the over the overall foot speed of the lineup is too slow. And so like if you're spotting a team twelve minutes like that every night, it's no wonder.

They get off to a bad start, and then the guys don't believe in what Frank's doing, and then the effort tanks, and then they find themselves down by twenty or thirty points, and then suddenly they give a ship and suddenly, without DJ on the floor, they go on a run now tonight. They actually did go play well with DJ on the four in the second half, but

that was largely because the effort. It was just they finally turned it up and the Nicks let their foot off the gas because they thought the Lakers had quit. But but that that the DeAndre Jordan thing, to me is like the final nail in that coffin it. I don't know how you move on from them. I think part of the DeAndre Jordan's thing too, that we don't

discuss enough. A D wants to start a powerful like That's clear, right, you would agree with that like a D if it was his preference, if it's a perfect world, if he made all the choices. He likes starting at power forward, that's very clear. I think that's also part of it. Vogo likes it too big, and I don't it matches what his second superstar wants. His second Sart wants to start at power forward. A D has talked

about how more comfortable that is. He's talked about the rigors of starting at center, even though you know, you talk about the benefits of it um even to him physically. But he obviously feels the guy who's out there playing basketball the guys is that actually out there playing thirty five minutes of a game he feels starting at power forward helps in whatever way. Secondly, with the vote with

the Vogo offense thing, here's my question. So in Oklahoma City in two thousand, whenever they went to the finals that first time, their coach was Scott Brooks, right, and I have do I have that right? I believe they were. They were coached by Scott Brooks, and everyone was wonder telling Scott Brooks, you need to change your late game offense. It's all just Kevin Durant. I. So it's all Russell Westbrook, I sells, right, you remember that that moment. And then

they brought in Billy Donovan. Right about who's now I believe the coach of the Shark Chicago Bulls doing a great job with Chicago Bulls. They brought brought in Billy Donovan. And what happened it was the same late game offense, same thing. Russell Westbrook got to do what he wanted and he went to Katie and got to do what

he wanted. To me. This is offensive. Yes, there's complications, there's better offensive coaches, there's some there's things you can do there's more awful actions that I would like to see. But to me, this is like, to me, this is a Russell Westbrook fit trying to fit him into the

offense type of situation, like find Frank Vogel. To me, bringing in a new guy is a new guy being gonna be able to set up a whole new offensive system in the middle of the season with Lebron missing the games that he does, Like, we're lucky right now, Russ and a d are healthy. Like that's I'm not like a Frank Vogel super apologist where I think Frank Vogel is the best coach or you know, he's some

amazing coach. I think that's my whole point. I think you kind of lost me there, but like that's that's my whole point. There's like, to me, bringing a new coach brings in other issues. Yeah, So, I mean, the late game offense is separate from the rest of the game in my opinion, because for starters, late game offense, there's a reason why it devolves into isolation basketball, and there's a reason why it devolves into letting the stars run the show, and it's because of the fact that

in general, it takes on a playoff like nature. Okay, the reason why in the playoffs switching works so well. The reason why in the playoffs the guys that are able to attack matchups do so well is because when defenses are really dialed in, they can shut down just about any action. There's no sophisticated way two xs and oes your way to quality looks at the end of

games against the top tier defenses when they're really dialed in. So, from that standpoint, like the reason why Billy Donovan couldn't convince Russ and k D to do better in crunch time is because you can run the best pick and roll, you can run the best you know off ball action, you can run whatever in the world you want to run.

They're just gonna switch everything, and at the end of the day, it's gonna come down to can Rust create an advantage against this guy in isolation, Kim Kevin Durant create an advantage And and so that's just the reality of late game offense. The reason why I think it's so important in the beginning of the game or the rest of the game, I should say, is because it has to do with confidence and comfort and bringing the

best out of your players. So I think we can all agree that Russ, Lebron, and a d could all be better offensively than they have been this season. I think we can all agree with that Anthony Davis is several levels below what he was in the bubble in terms of a versatile three level score. The dude basically doesn't have a three point shot anymore. Okay, Russell what Russell? Westbrook has his own slew of offensive issues, and then

Lebron his percentages are down across the board. Now, a lot of that has to do with him getting cut out of that game early, a lot of that has to do with him trying to fit in Russ, and

a lot of that has to do with injuries. So I don't want to over get into that, but the point is, with this group, with all the shooting that they have, you should be able to bring the best out of these guys offensively, And to me, that starts with from the opening tip, letting them, allowing them, setting them up to feel comfortable, so that they feel confident, so that throughout the game they're in a rhythm and they play their best basketball. That's where the xs and

os come in. That's where running sets matters. That's where stopping, that's where getting away from the offense where you just dump it into the post to a D every single time, or dump it in the post Lebron every single time, or ask asked Russ to cave in the defense by just putting his head down and getting to the rim. That's where that doesn't work when you're when you're when you're asking those guys to do that, inevitably, that's easier to guard. It's harder to guard at the end of games.

In crunch time, Lebron and a D and Russ and their athleticism will overpower teams in crunch time. But at the in the throughout the rest of the game, you've got to find a way to get them easier looks. You've got to find a way to get everybody easier looks. And to me, Frank has shown that he's basically incapable of doing that. And and you know, I think the guys from l FR talked about this on their last part, and it's something that I'm such a huge believer in.

When you ask someone to do a scheme, and you asked them to do a dirty job and it works, you're more willing to do it. For instance, if you have a day job at nine to five and you show up and your boss tells you, hey, if you do x y Z for me, you're gonna get a raise. You do x y Z for me, you're going to get a promotion. And you do it, and you get the promotion, it all feels worth it, and you're willing to continue those habits. But what if you do all

those things and the race doesn't come. What if you do all those things and you don't get the promotion, all of a sudden, you're gonna buy back out, You're gonna disconnect again, and you're gonna stop caring. And that's the problem with this. In Frank asked these guys to do a job, and it was a hard job, it was a dirty job. And when they did it, they went twenty four and three to start the season. And so every single guy on the team was bought into

the concept. They believed in it, and they were willing to do it. This season, Frank tried to run the same scheme with some players that were physically incapable of going it. When when he did so, they lost a lot of games. Now, obviously there were other factors that play there, and I'm not trying to gloss over that, but the point is that that that concept there is what has this team not bought in. They don't they don't believe in what they're doing because they don't see

it working. And so in a lot a large part of that is there. They made a shift in personnel to offensive minded personnel, and the offense sucks. So when you have offensive minded personnel and the offense sucks, you're gonna lose games. Guys aren't gonna believe in what they're

being asked to do. If this team was scoring a million points and was top five in offense, which they absolutely should be with Lebron, a d and Russ on the roster and with all of this shooting, if they were top five in offense, they'd be sitting with a much better record, and they'd be much more willing to do the job that they're being asked to do because

they would believe in it. They'd be bought into that coach, and it would be it would be that same culture building that you're seeing from all these good teams like the Sons and Warriors this year, and that you saw from the Lakers back in. So from that stand point, I just I just think getting someone in the door that has the ability to maximize this offense at the very least, will allow them to do what Brooklyn did, which is defend well enough to win, which they absolutely can't.

This team will defend better than that Brooklyn team because they'll have Lebron and a D on the floor. But they've got to get to the point where they believe in what they're doing, and right now they don't. Yeah, And and it doesn't matter what I think or how I feel about it, Like I can kind of see the writing on the wall. It just feels like this is where it's going to get to. This is just how the NBA works. The coach gets the even if it's right or wrong, he gets the he gets the

first act right, the coaches cut first. But to me, like anyone can do stuff when things are going well, right, Like, that's not the point about this. Lebron and Nady know this works even if the personnel is kind of jankie. Even if the personnel is not working. I haven't seen like this comes from the top down, Like this should be leadership. That's the whole point of your superstar players. They're supposed to be bought in first, right, how many

games have you seen Lebron defend this year? And again I said, it's not fair that he has to be the defensive guy this year. That's just what it is, like he has to be that Anthony Davis as well. I think his effort has gone up in the last few games, but to start the season it wasn't. It wasn't defensive player of the year type of stuff that he can do. So again, this might just lead to Vogo getting fired and we get a new guy in. To me, like, that's a band aid to a bigger

issue that we have in the offense. It's ugly, Frank, Vogo's offense has never been pretty. You talked about it a lot over the summer. Lebron has the key, Lebron has the keys to the offense. Lebron has Lebron runs the offense and Volgo runs the defense, and you talked about how beautiful of kind of a partnership that is. Right, you have a guy offensive genius in Lebron and they say, look, people have said that David Fislow actually runs a lot of the offense, But I mean the post up offense

isn't eight. But also like Frank's not Frank Vogels probably like double teams is what's coming to a D. And it's not his problem that Ad is not a good pastor out of double teams. And we'd like to see more pick and roll. But if you're telling me for us and a D to Russ and a D, come to Vogel and like, hey, we want to we want to spread pick and roll, He's gonna say, no, run

a post up. Like that's that's the kind of like I'm trying to get deeper into the conversations there, like I feel like it's too easy just be like, yeah, the coaches telling them runn post up every play, or the coach doesn't have any complicated actions. That's that's sure, Like that that kind of that can be true. But I like I was there at the Minnesota game where we went to a D at the five and spread around with shooters. We got destroyed defensively because we just

don't have the guards that can keep up. There's a balance that Vogel is trying to play and and I feel for him there, but like that's where I'm at here, Like maybe bringing a new guy helps. I just think that's bad process to get to the result, even if it gets the result we want, that's just not the good process to get to it. But it looks like the writings on the wall, it looks like that's that's what we're gonna get. I just I'm not sure that

solves the main issues tough. Maybe that solves it for like a couple of weeks and then and then maybe the are back to you know, given the effort that they want to playing five basketball. I just I just don't think that's secure in the middle of the season. But we've kind of gone on that for for a way too long. Probably. Yeah. Like I said, if you guys want to hear a deeper, to dive into the

frank vocal thing, just listen to our last episode. I was curious, R, what have you What have you thought about th h t s massive falloff over the last three games. Uh? Such a such a stark difference right from the from the first podcast we did on th h D. After his three games, I think teams are starting to really scout him. Um, he's still not confident enough with his jumper to me, like it looks better

it looks cleaner, but he's not confident with it. When the ball swings to him, he has to be wide open to shoot it, and that's just not gonna work right now, especially with the spacing spacing issues that we have. If he's on the floor next to Russ and a D and Avery Bradley. To be honest, like, he has to be willing to shoot. He has to be a shooter. He can't be a guy that's also like, he can't be Russ, right, He can't be a guy that just can't shoot. We have one guy in us already like that.

Every valley is another guy that has to be kind of open to shoot. T HD can't be in that. Teams have scouted him very well. Teams are ready for the drive every single time, and his finishes are becoming more and more wild. Uh, he's still kind of a good passer out of it. But I think I saw he's like three for three for twenty or something the last three games. Just it's really dropped off again. Like

it's another thing. Is THD the guy in those first three games or the THHC this guy probably somewhere in between, right, Like he's probably not this probably not this bad, and he's probably not that good yet twenty years old. You're gonna get fluctuating games. That's just how it is. He's just on a good team where him being bad actually like impacts impacts the team a lot more. You know, Like on a bad team, he can lose and it's fine. But on this team that's trying to win every single night.

When you have he he can't afford to have the games that he's having. He has to have some kind of impact, especially um, even if he's not starting, he's playing a lot of minutes where we need him to be impactful. But yeah, it's been it's been a really tough stress for him. I expected him to turn around, but he needs to start shooting, like he can't be a guy that teams can just lay off like they are right now. Yeah, I think shot selection has been a big part of it. This is something that I

preached about a lot. I used to talk about a lot with Kyle Kuzma, and then I talked a lot about with Anthony Davis early in the season. One of the reasons why I think Anthony Davis has been so much better as of late is he's gone away from the super difficult shots at the beginning of the game. That's that's to me has been abundantly clear. He's made a concerted effort to get higher quality shots closer in the rim early in the game to build his rhythm.

So PhD comes in and a couple of I think they've lost each of his first three, right, or the lost two or three, I can't remember, but they were Yeah, that's right, that's right. So they were two, there were one and two in those in those three games that he averaged over twenty points or whatever. And the reality was he was taken and making a lot of difficult shots in that game, uh, in those games. So the reality is is like he kind of tricked himself into

thinking that that's good process when it's really not. You know, especially with this group, with all the talent that he's playing with, he needs to kind of adopt that approach

that I was constantly preaching with Kyle Kuzma. Let the games come come to you, make sure your first couple shots are good, and then from there you'll have a better opportunity to feel confident and then go to your one legged fade away, then go to your step back three when you feel comfortable, and when you feel confident, it's like, you know, it's impossible for a shooter to get out of their own head. That's just the reality

of it. A jump shot is a total mind f for lack of a better term, You're gonna miss a lot. And so from that standpoint, it's really really hard for shooters to contextualize misses. So if you go into a game and you take your first three shots, are you know, one open three, but the other two are a step back three and a one legged fade away from ten feet, the reality is is in your head, you're gonna tell yourself, oh,

I just don't have it tonight. It's like, okay, do you actually not have it tonight or you're taking bad shots, you know what I mean. And and from that standpoint, it's like if if you if your first three shots are good process and they're balanced and you're open, then you can at least you're probably gonna make two or three of them, and then from there you go into the rest of the game feeling comfortable, feeling confident, feeling

good about yourself. With this group too, he doesn't need to take as many of those extremely tough shots now tonight he was in the predicament of no Lebron, which obviously adds a whole other element of offensive creation need in his role. But with Lebron in Detroit, he was doing the same thing. A lot of forcing the ball into crowds of people around the basket and a lot of tough shots. So with him, he's young, it's so hard.

We got we gotta remember he turns twenty one, literally, I think in two days, So we've got to we've got to contextualize this as a guy who has a lot of growing to do as a basketball player. But the reality is is what he what he did is he tried to continue a bad process from his first three games into his next three games. And you add in, uh, and you add in the circumstances surrounding Lebron, and this is what you get. Obviously, I don't think I think.

I think there's been some fluctuation with his role to like you, you go from not playing basketball at all since the Sun series. Uh, you know, at least NBA basketball, NBA regular season meaningful basketball to suddenly you're in a game with no Lebron where you're giving a lot of a green light to suddenly Lebron's back and you're starting, and then suddenly it's we're in Detroit and we're going back to DeAndre Jordan. Now you're coming off the bench. Oh,

and then now Lebron's gone again. So he's had a massively fluctuating role here over his first couple of weeks back. So that's the the other bone that I would toss him. It's just some some consistency, some some sort of chemistry that he could build in a consistent rotation pattern would go a long way, I think to helping him feel more comfortable. I'm still a believer in what he can do.

Like you said, the reality somewhere in the middle. The reason why I asked you about that, I hopped on UH spaces before the game to talk about this concept, and I was curious on your opinion. There was a proposed trade that was thrown around having to do with Jeremy Grant with the Detroit Pistons. So the way that this would inevitably end up looking with salary matching is it would basically be centered around um th h T

and Kendrick Nunn for Jeremy Grant. So I am a huge proponent of that trade if the Lakers nearing the trade deadline are trending towards looking like a bona fide But if there, if the wheels are coming off and they're twenty three and seventeen, I'm against it. So I wanted to I wanted to hear your before I get too part further into giving my opinion. I was curious

what you thought about that proposed. Yeah, well, just to close on the th h T point, he's such a rhythm player right and he needs the basketball in his hands, which is kind of counterintuitive to this team, like he's gonna have to work off the ball, But just right now, his skill set is totally everything basketball in is in his hands, running ball screen actions where he's the one controlling. There's a lot of stuff right now where he's just in the corner. It's like Malik Monk running actions or

Russ running actions. And you talked about him playing with Lebron tonight with Lebron was obviously out, but just a lot of that and he's getting comfortable with that. I'll give him time. You you said it right there. To me, it's the what's the team looking like in February, Like if they're looking like a title contender. If they're looking like they're ready to compete, then yeah, then you know,

make that move. It's just to me, trading th HT for a minimal kind of like to me, Jeremy Grant is not the difference between a team that's five hundred and then going to a title you know, like, would you kind of agree with that, Like, Jeremy Grant doesn't change you from a middle team to a title contender like that. That's not the jump to me you get with Jeremy Grant. The other rumor I guess was also Miles Turner, But yeah, with Jeremy Grant, Like that's my

position on it. I think Taylan has shown enough to me where you know, you don't trade him unless at least right now we'll see how the season kind of progresses. But for me, right now, like Taylor has shown too much to me to where like I don't want to trade him until we kind of see what this season is before we get get to that point. Are you on that? Are you on that path as well? Yeah?

So you know, first of all, I'm higher on Jeremy Grand than everyone else in terms of the role that you know, what people keep forgetting is, you know, I've had I've heard a lot of people bring up his shooting percentages in Detroit. Who the health cares about his shooting percentages in Detroit. That shot profile will not even remotely resemble his shot profile with an amazing and then yeah,

the fit to me is is a no brand. And you know, the key to running a D at the five is having players in that six five to six a range who can defend multiple positions, either up a position or down a position, and on the offensive ent, don't hurt your spacing, you know. And that's where it helped having a Kyle Kuzma, you know what I mean, That's where it helped. Having an Alex Caruso. That's where it helped having the k CP, even though he's a

little smaller. But you know, the point is is when you you when you have those guys, those hybrid guys, those wing guys, they are what make a D at the five work. One of the big reasons why a D at the five struggled this year is Lebron has been out, so it's been a lot of guards and a lot of Carmelo Anthony and that's just that you're putting too much physical responsibility on guys that are physically incapable of doing it. Now, in terms of the trade,

there's a couple. There's a basic basketball philosophy that we all have to come to terms with, okay, and it's the it's the reality of the Anthony Davis trade. It's kind of it kind of sucks to watch Lonzo Ball succeed. I mean, you're happy for You're happy for Lonzo, but it sucks as a Laker fan when you remember what it was like when he was with you. It sucks watching Josh Hart turned into a solid role player. It sucks watching I was always been super high Brandon Ingram.

I think he's more number two than the number one, But I think he is the closest thing we have to a modern day Kobe Bryant in the terms of the way he um, the way he's structurally puts his offensive game together as a three level score. I love those guys, but I understood the obvious gamble when you put your chips in for Anthony Davis. There was a chance that was gonna fail. There was a chance Ad got hurt, or Lebron got hurt, or for whatever reason they lost in the bubble and you have no title.

That is the game that's gambling. That's what it looks like in real life when you when you make a big sports pet, you know like that, that's just that's just that's the reality of of of of You can't have any you can't win anything if you're not willing to risk anything in a lot of ways. And that's what the whole Lebron James experience has been like for

the Lakers. When you brought Lebron on, you understood there'd be a certain amount of chaos, a certain amount of turnover, but you you have the potential to win an NBA championship. That's the way I look at this Jeremy Grant thing. You have to understand that there's a chance that you could be sitting you they could go on a fifteen

game win Street, be sitting in really good shape. Trade t HD for Jeremy Grant and be make a run for the tie, don't and come up short, and the next season you're watching th HT look like an All Star with the Detroit Pistons. That is a potential outcome, That is something that could happen here. That's the game. But the flip side of that is, look at how

talented at the top of the league is. I'm not trying to denigrate the Lakers NBA title, but I'm sorry that Miami Heat team nowhere near as good as this Miami Heat team from this season. That Denver Nuggets team not even in the same stratosphere of this Golden State Warriors team, this Phoenix Suns team not even in the same stratosphere as the Houston Rockets. This year is going

to be tougher. Your margin of error is smaller. You're gonna find yourself in a game five against Phoenix or against Golden State, and you're gonna be staring across the line at Draymond Green, Andrea Guadala, Andrew Wiggins, Clay Thompson and Steph Curry. That is going to be an extremely difficult game to win on the road in Golden State.

Do you like your chances more if the lineup is lebron A d and Jeremy Grant with Russ and one of the good guards, or if it's two kind of iffy players in that lineup, or maybe it's Trevor Risa who doesn't do anything as well as Jeremy Grant does it in that spot, and that's that's the way you gotta look at this. It's a basic philosophy you have if you cling to multiple and the same goes for

the Warriors. What if the Warriors lose to the Lakers in Game five and lose the series, but hey, they got James Wise, Wiseman and Jonathan cominga like, that's that's the curse and the blessing of having young talent and right now talent at the same time. You have to tow that line. You have to make that decision. Am I willing to risk it all and potentially have to watch those guys succeed elsewhere to get the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

That's that to me is the risk. And for the record, Lebron and n d might be enough right now to do it without making a move. They might, but although right now it doesn't look like it look like And then really quickly, the last thing I'll say is in the bubble, Lebron is the best player in the world, and Anthony Davis looked like he might have been the second best player in the world somewhere else in the

top five. Maybe right now Anthony Davis looks more like the tenth best player in the world, and right now Lebron James looks more like the seventh or eighth best player in the world. So that that same that they both might, through rhythm, get back to where they were in the bubble. I certainly hope they do, and I kind of believe they will, but that's not guaranteed. The

margin for error is different this year. And so as much as I loved HT and I genuinely believe he'll be an All Star, one a fringe All Star somewhere in that, a guy that not an MVP candidate but an All Star. I genuinely believe that. But you straddling that line more often than not will leave you unsatisfied. Yeah, and you know you don't have to push me too

hard to compliment brandon Ingram. I feel like me and a few other people were the first people to uh to put our flag down on Ingram Island, and what's going on over there is it's kind of sad for him, But look, Anthony Davis is Anthony freaking David's like you understood that looked at Lakers over pay maybe, but you do that for a title. And I'm of the belief if you have a chance to win, you go all in, like that's just what you're supposed to do. That's the

whole point of all this. The whole point of this is to win. There is lines to draw that like this is the GM's decision, No, this is on this is Rob Blinka's job to kind of decide where that where that line crosses. Jeremy Grant again, to me, a great player. He was one of the best players to me that defended Lebron and a d in the whole bubble, Like I thought he was great on them. And that that Denver series to me is a lot closer than

people remember, just because it did end in five. Like you talked about the teams who are good right now compared to those in the bubble, the Golden State Warriors, maybe that's one. But like the Milwaukee Bucks ran through the regular season, they got beat by the Miami Heat. Farren Square, you can joke about the bubble. Miami beat them. That's the team the Lakers beat. That's just there's good teams every year. I think the Lakers, like where the was it was the lead bad or the Lakers just

really dominating that run. Sixteen and five is sixteen and five. You can calm about the teams that they played, but I don't really want to go back and forth on that tailan or Jeremy Grant. That's such a that's such a tough thing to get to. It's funny if you look at the Lakers account today, I think they tweeted something like invest in the future with the tailing with tailor shooting around. I thought that was kind of funny with the with the rumors swirling. But it's a tough

line of job. But to me, if the Lakers are close enough, they look like real title contenders and let's say like th hd s in the rotation, but it looks like they've kind of found something with Kendrick Nunn and League Monk, and they found a rotation that like maybe he can go somewhere else and they'd be fine. They have enough ball handling off the bench to score and you can trade that for Jeremy Grant. Yeah, that's fine,

go ahead, do that make win. Now moves to the whole point of the Lebron era, like you're here to win, you got one already, Like this, the whole point of it. We'll see what happens after. But the whole point is to win now, and the Jeremy gran move would be a sign of that. Just in my opinion, I want to see the team processing upwards enough to to get there. Like to me again, Jeremy Grant, exactly, don't go down with the ship. You don't go down with the ship.

You read the cards because they can't trade to they can't trade t h right now anyway, with the terms of this contract. I think if you have to wait till December, so you make the read at the time, don't go down with the ship. But if it looks like the ship has a chance, exactly, don't hold your car, don't hold your chips if it has a chance. Yeah, but I mean I've seen stuff like this. Again, I'm not comparing Jeremy Grant to Michael Muscala. That's not fair.

Like Jeremy Grants a hundred times way better. But I just remember we traded Zubach for like Bach, who is now the starting center for the like Clippers and one of the best room protecting bigs in the league and

one of the best contracts in the league. YadA YadA, YadA, Um for you know, Michael Scala, who is the Laker for a little while, and Jeremy grat seven, it's not like, you know, he's like he's an old player as well, like if you can get but to me right now, like with the Pistons, take th HD for Jeremy Grant, like I don't, like, I don't think they've seen enough from t HD to trade their you know, a guy that they invested in a couple of seasons ago. So

there's the two sides of this. I think THHD has to show a little more to get to that Jeremy Grant level as well. But like, yeah, oh, I think Detroit and but I mean it's irrelevant. I I think, I think that Jeremy Grant move was fine, but I don't think. I don't think Detroit used him as part of their future are But I mean, obviously I don't have voices in the front off Jeremy Grant. The Pistons aren't close to anywhere where they need to care about,

you know, winning and all that. They they just got the number one pick and trying to build around him and how I don't want to get into how Kate and t HD fit. That's where a Pistons kind of podcast. But but yeah, that's where I'm at with it. If they can show on our process that they're going up, and yeah, go ahead, do a win now move. But I just don't think Jeremy Grant changes the five dred team to a UH to a title contender and this team like Lebron's played by eight games nine games now, Like,

we haven't seen this team yet. That's the positive, that's the positive, heere, I guess, but but yeah, I don't don't know us to go with that. That's we haven't seen You're right, we haven't. We haven't seen Lebron in a D in a lineup with another forward yet. And the reality is is their most successful lineups in the championship season involved for a forward, usually either someone like

Alex Cruzo or someone like Kyle Kuzma. You know, Alex Cruzo isn't traditionally viewed as a forward, as viewed as a guard, but he could guard forwards and he played like before, he rebounded like a forward. He had a physical presence on the floor like a forward. So you're right, it's hard to draw too much. But this is the other thing, like fundamentally let's let's pretend they come back and they have Trevor Ariza and it looks and it

looks good. Do you feel comfortable going on a playoff run where you're gonna have to play games of high, high, high intensity intensity basketball with the only forward you can play being Lebron, Trevor Ariza and whatever you can get out of Carmelo Anthony Or would you feel more comfortable if that was a reason and then someone like Jeremy Grant and Lebron and Carmelo Anthony. To me, that just change it. It gives you margin for in that regard, you know. And and because like this is there's a

reason why the Lakers have been so incredibly shorthanded. It's because dropping a reason was enough to put them behind the eight ball. Then when you lose Lebron for half the season, now you have nobody that's that's the lack of death rearing its ugly head. Sure, and also Reeves being out I think is big shockingly with it with

the team that's that's playing Reeves. And I think even Bogo mentioned that he's trying to just find defensive lineups until Trevor Reason gets back, So obviously he believes the reason is a big part of this defense, and maybe that's you know, not that's not the smart, smart thing to hope for from a thirty six year old. But we'll see when when a reason gets back that they need a power for Carmelo still playing way too many minutes and God bless Carmelo, who has been has been great.

I think it was like three for fourteen tonight, but hit some big threes. I just can't defend enough. To me, we can't find like you talked about, the team he's to need. The team needs to find a defensive identity.

Like to me, there's not enough defensive minded players to get to that until we get a whole here, and maybe they won't get there when they're even hold, but like we need to at least see that Kendrick Nunn, Austin Reeves, Trevor Risa Lebron has to play at a defensive label for this team to to raise above water because I just I think they're gonna be a five hundred team until we get those guys butt. Yeah, alright, guys,

we're gonna call it tonight. So the tomorrow is a little funky because it's a tail into the back to back. I have my season opener for the high school team that I'm coaching, so I will not be able to watch the game live. But Raj is still going to watch the game and he's going to host the post game spaces. We plan on taking a lot of colors tomorrow night, and then I'll be able to join about

halfway through the show. Obviously, I'm not gonna be able to offer much because I didn't I will not have watched the game at that point, but I'll come hang out with you guys. Bring your questions, bring your rants. Rog is gonna be holding the space right after the game ends. I think it tips all at uh four o'clock to Civic Standard time, so it's a good early start. I should be joining, you know, towards the end of

the show. But again, from the bottom of my heart, I sincerely appreciate all of you guys for supporting us and coming to hang out. We sincerely appreciate. This is gonna air on Dash Radio tomorrow morning at seven am, and it will be on our podcast feed here in about a half hour. That's under State of the Lakers. Thank you guys so much, and have a good