Role Player Grades

out of town still for my grandfather's funeral. So Roj is going to be hosting our postgame show on Wednesday night, so I hope you guys all go check that out with him and continue to support the show as always. I'm super thankful for you guys rocking with us so far this season. It's been really excited to see this whole thing, bro. But let's go ahead and get started. So again, for the as you who missed the last one, these letter grades are all relative to what the expectations

were for these players coming into the season. I don't think it's fair to grade, you know. Dwight Howard on the same scale that we grade Lebron James or Anthony Davis. That's just not the way that we should evaluate these guys. Um. But let's start with Milik Monk. So I give Leak Monk and a minus. He is a veteran minimum guy. I actually think, if I'm not mistaken, he's on a smaller form of the minimum contract of don't quote me on that, but I think I saw that when I

was researching over the off season. So again, when you when you actually talk about what we're getting for the money out of Malik Monk, he is knocking it out of the park. We're getting spot creation. He can run second side. Actually, he can run a pick and roll. He can beat guys off the dribble and spray out too shooters in transition. He's flashed a lot of high level playmaking. He had that awesome blob. I believe that he threw to DeAndre Jordan's the other night against the Magic.

He's shown spot creation, He's shown high level clothes out attacking. This is something that has always been a very important skill to me because I think in the postseason, these really really elite, high end defenses are they're just really really good at chasing guys off the line and funneling you into a guy at the rim who can who

can defend the room. So if you can make floaters, if you can make one or two grivel pull ups, if you can make creative finishes around the rim, when there's already a shot blocker there, that brings a ton of value. And Malik Monk brings that to this team. Um, you know, it hasn't been all good. He's he's turned into somewhat of a good play bad play guy, which is typical for a young player. I do think we're

trending in the right direction there though. For example, what I'm talking about is like I'll see him, uh, you know, come flying in and make a huge defensive rebounding play to to to you know, close out a defensive possession, but then on the very next possession he'll miss a box out, you know, and that that is a habit that you have to instill, and it's a habit that's been bad down the roster for the Lakers. So I want to cut Malik a little bit of slack there.

The whole team is literally the worst box out team in the entire league. So I don't want to put that all on the league Monk, but he's one of the guys who struggled with that, and so over the course of the season, it'll just be important for him to continue to establish those habits so that in the long run, in the playoffs, you can count on him to not make those kinds of mistakes. The irony is he hasn't shot the ball that great I can. I think over the course of the season he'll continue to

shoot better. Unlike Mellow and Wayne Ellington are both shooting over wide open threes, Malik Monk is shooting below wide open three. So he's got another level that he can get to as a shooter that I think is in there that I just don't think he's tapped into yet. That could It could be a bunch of different things. Could be more defensive responsibilities than usual. Uh, it could be just him finding his role on the team and

trying to determine where his shots will come from. But I think he'll eventually shoot better, but when he establishes those good defensive habits, when he establishes those good rebounding habits in contu oction with what he's already doing well, which is creating in second side actions and his high level close out attacking. I think we're gonna see a player who's going to be a solid role player for this team down the line. So a minus firmlik mug.

DeAndre Jordan's uh the one that I'm in most trouble with with people on Twitter. So I give DeAndre Jordan a b um that's gonna sound insane, but I'm not evaluating him based on, you know, his contractor even the way Frank was using him to start the season, which I thought was outrageous. I always thought of DeAndre Jordan's as a guy that would play strictly when either Dwight or Anthony Davis had to sit for whatever reason, so that the Lakers could have scheme consistency in those games.

And you saw that literally for the first time in this last little stretch of games here. He was awesome by his standards. He was awesome against the Magic the other night, just as a guy who came in for a few minutes as a break glass in case of emergency, end of the bench big He had a couple of big block shots. He had that awesome dunk in transition off the leak monk Pass. He was just a lot more active, and the main reason why, in my opinion,

is he's finally in the right role again. I gave him a B because I'm evaluating him relative to an end of the bench veteran minimum center, and in that role in recent days, he's actually been what you expect or would hope for from an end of the bench veteran minimum center. So a B for DeAndre. Moving on to Dwight, I also gave him a beat. Now, Dwight has been clearly better than DeAndre this season, but I also expected more out of Dwight than DeAndre this season.

I actually think Dwight is a rotation level center. He is actually, in my opinion, one of the better backup centers that you can get in this league. And really in this last two three weeks, he's finally starting to play the consistent role that he should have been playing all season. That he was kind of in and out of the lineup as Frank was trying to get herman.

You know the Frank. You know, he's Frank has been a lot better lately, so I want to cut him some slack, But it was completely ridiculous for him at one point to go to a one traditional center rotation and for DeAndre to be the guy he went to their Dwight definitely caught the short end of the stick in some of those areas, but he's finally getting his opportunity and he's doing a good job. You know, I don't even really need to dive into the Dwight thing.

He does exactly what you expect him to do. He screens and he rolls hard to the rim on defense. He's active, he does the He's I think our best drop coverage big in terms, you know, uh, Anthony Davis and in his ceiling should theoretically be that, but a d has been kind of lacks of daisical in that role this season. Dwight is our best drop coverage big at bothering the ball handler and dissuading the lab. I think that that's a great weapon to have in Frank system.

He is really the perfect big to have in Frank system. Still same Dwight stuff, like lost his cool a couple of times. He's had some technicals. He commits stupid fouls. He's a tendency to wrap guys up. He's always a flagrant foul waiting to happen. So that's all part of the Dwight experience. But relative to what my expectations were for him this season, he's done fine. Reeves, I gave

an a plus. So anytime you're an undrafted free agent andrew a rookie and you come into the league and you're playing minutes for a team that has legitimate championship aspirations, I think that automatically gives you an A plus. That means that relative to what you were expected to do this season, which would be a two way player, maybe maybe not even be a two way player, maybe just end up on the G league roster, for him to be in the situation that he's in is a huge

win for the team. Now, what was really interesting is they signed him to a real NBA contract immediately after Lebron's minicamp, which tells you that Lebron picked up on Austin reason what he could do right away. And I think Lebron has always had a soft spot in his basketball heart for guys that have basketball i Q. And that's Austin Reaves is biggest strength. He understands how to win basketball games within a team concept. He's a great

connective tissue player. He is the kind of guy that has way more value playing alongside top tier talent than he does playing for a bad team, and so he's been a perfect fit he I've talked a lot about how he errors on the side of making the extra pass and how that's contagious, and how that really really helps the culture of making the extra pass with for the rest of the team. He's very, very good attacking closeouts methodically and slowly, making reads and making plays for

his teammates. And then defensively, he's the only Laker this season that has consistently shown a willingness to put his body on the line to make plays. You can't possibly be any happier with the player given where they found him. A plus for Austin Reeves can't wait to see what he turns into as a Laker. Moving on to th h T, So I give t h T a b um. The only reason I have him that low was because his offensive struggles lately, which have been borderline problematic and

really really hurt their spacing. However, the reason why the grade is still so high, as again we're talking about a twenty one year old here. You can't expect the twenty one year old to be consistent. You can't expect the twenty and one year old to not go through offensive slumps. This is all kind of part of the deal. The reality is that he's defending at a much higher level now than he was over the course of the

last two seasons. You're seeing way fewer off ball mistakes, and you're starting to see some of that on bald disruption, that Kauai esque on bald disruption that makes me so excited about his ceiling. You know, if you guys remember last year when Roger and I were talking, I was one of the guys who was pretty down on th h T. I. I thought that he needed to be traded. I I thought that he was way, way way away from being able to contribute to this team. And he's

proven me wrong. He's so far ahead of where he needs to be offensively or excuse me, defensively, that he's already contributing and you're seeing him start to trend in the right direction offensively. And the main thing is the main reason why he's starting to have some offenses successes here in the last week is we're getting out of using him as an on ball creator. And starting to use him as a guy who's attacking with an advantage.

We did a ton of this against the Magic the other day, where we would have him started the weak side corner and curl off of a pin down and now the defenders on his hip, and he's just too strong and too long an athletic to not finish when he has that advantage, when there's not a big guy in the lane clogging things up. He's had a lot

of success with that. He's had a lot of success attacking closeouts, you know, you know, having he's made enough threes, or he's at least he convinces people that he's dangerous enough as a three point shooter that they will close out on him. And he's ripping through getting into soft spots in the defense, and he's either you know, going to one of his finishing moves around the rim, or

he's making plays for his teammates. He had a lot of plays against Orlando where he was reading the defense on the backside, finding out where that low man was coming over to help, and picking them upon art on the backside, hitting guys for threes. That's way ahead of what you would expect to see from a twenty one year old. You know, I want to say it was Jordan's Schultz, who I think is with bleacher Report. I'm not sure who reported today that seven teams have inquired

with the Lakers about trading for th HD. That doesn't surprise me at all. Everyone thought I was crazy. I absolutely think that th h T is a bona fide trade asset and that teams should want to have him on their team. He doesn't fit great with the Lakers timeline, but I think he's going to be either an All Star or something very close to that, because he trends.

He projects to be a guy who will make all defense teams and will have a season where the averages twenty points a game or maybe more so to me, inherently, that's that's Drew Holiday, and Drew Holiday is an All Star in my opinion, So I think you have to place a certain amount of value on that with th HT. Now, again, a lot of it has to do with how the

Lakers look around the trade deadline. If the Lakers look really of good and th HD is a big contributor to that, then you can't trade him because he's helping you now and he projects to be you know, an

all star level player in the future. But if he is still showing the young guy in consistency and Trevor Reas is playing now, so he's getting fewer minutes and it's not really coming together, that's where you need to capitalize on the fact that his value is higher elsewhere in the league than it is here with the Lakers. Moving on to Avery Bradley, I give him a B plus. Again, any time you're a non guaranteed contract, veteran minimum claimed offf of waivers and you're being relied on as much

as he is, I would call that a win. In terms of his performance, his huge workload. He's basically Frank's go to perimeter, the team's top perimeter initiator. He's the guy who's ball pressuring him up, up and down the floor. He's been guarding bigger forwards, he's been guarding small quick guards.

He's been he's been doing everything. Now. He frustrates me in a lot of ways because he can be overly aggressive at the point of attack and give up a lot of straight line dry His offensive shot selection still is mind boggling to me because he just just is so trigger happy with that midrange pull up jump shot, and it's never been a high percentage shot for him, and it's never been a good shot in any offense ever, especially early in the clock, and he keeps going to it.

I'd like to see him cut that out eventually, but he's shooting from three. That's one of the top guys on the team, so I can't get too upset with him. Offensively. He is turned into a quality rotation piece for this team, and they basically got him for the NBA's version of free so you can't complain too much. I think he fits well in the long run of this team too.

It'll be interesting to see if they cut him because of his contract year and t date to try to save money on the luxury tax I hope they don't. I think he's important for guard depth. I think he's a guy that is a good fifth starter, a good fifth guy in the lineup who knocks down enough shots and does enough of the dirty work that he's another one of those like connective tissue guys that I was talking about. So I hope they don't cut him. Um but and he fits into the long run, long long

run plan in my opinion. But it'll be interesting to see what the Laker front office decides to do with him. All right, Carmelo Anthony, I gave Carmelo an a. He brings what I call aggressive spot up shooting. What makes aggressive spot up shooting so important is in a playoff setting, there's not really as many wide open shots as you would think, and I'm talking like wide open feet set take a second to think about it type of threes.

Usually these really really high level defense is the only thing they're willing to concede is a contest, lightly contested three off of several rotations. So when you have short guys, guys like Avery Bradley who are uh, you know, not gonna be able to get his three point shot off unless he's wide open, or your Austin Reeves who's not really very aggressive as a spot up shooter, or Wayne Ellington who was a little bit shorter, those guys are gonna have a harder time in a playoff setting getting

high qualit at the three point shots off. But mellow at six ft eight as a as a flat out gunner who has a does a really good job of using weird body language cues to tempt guys after a close out to still give him a little bit of space and he'll just rise up and then he has

a lightning quick release. So that type of aggressive spot up shooting is so valuable, especially in a playoff setting, because a mellow three that's mildly contested kind of has the same effect as a wide open three, and so that gives you a great deal of a value in a playoff setting. He's another one of the guys, two of them this season, him and Wayne Ellington who were him, Wayne Ellington and Lebron who are over a wide open threes this year, which is incredible. He's you know, moving

to the defensive end of the ball with Mellow. He his his season has kind of looked like a Bell curve. He was terrible to start the season, the anyone on this run there in the middle where he was defending at a high level, you know, compared to what you expect from Mellow, and then in recent weeks he's kind

of started to trend back back down. Um, I'm hopeful that similar to a guy like Malik Monk and what I'm hoping for with Wayne Ellington, that over the course of the season, especially as this team really gets rolling, that he will feel a sense of accountability, build good habits, and become just a passable defender. They just need him to be a passible defender. And in the long run,

and this the same thing goes for Wayne Ellington. I think the Lakers are going to play a lot of wings at some point with Trevor Reason coming back, and if they decided to make a trade or a buyout move for a wing, and I think you're gonna see, especially in the A D at the five lineups, a lot more wings out there. That will make it so that having just a passible defender in that fifth spot or in that fourth spot is enough for the defense to function. And I just need mellow to get to

that point. Last, but not least, I have Wayne Ellington. I gave a B plus. The only reason I put him a little bit below Mellows. He was a little bit slow to get started this year, dealt with some injury stuff. So obviously that's an fortunate when you sign a guy to a contract hoping for him to start, which was the original plan. If you guys remember this offseason, as was reported by the Athletic and for it might

have been Chris Haynes. I'm not sure but either way, Wayne Ellington was expected a certain that he was hurt, and then when he came in he was a cold shooter for a while. Now he's really humming. That's the only reason I have him as a B plus instead of an A like Mellow. But he brings that movement shooting element which is so incredibly valuable to this team. When you have guys like Anthony Davis, like Lebron and

like Austin Reeves and Phdre setting off ball screens. When you have a guy who can come off of those actions and is a real threat, it warps the defense in a way that is hard to associate with the value. You know, he's actually talking with Rage about this on a pod the other day and he's like, oh, you know, Ellington has only taken four or five six shots a game. I'd like to see him take more shots. You know. The thing with Wayne Ellington is teams around the league

scout for him as a deadly shooter. So it's not really necessarily about his shot attempts. To me, it's about his minutes. I want to see him get more minutes because while he's on the floor, you know, if he goes a five minutes stretch without shooting. That just means guys were sitting in his lap the whole time. Guys were glued to him. That directly will relate to spacing and opportunities for the Laker Stars to get into the paint.

That's a huge value add there. And then one of the things I think Ellington has actually been pretty okay defensively, even better than Mellow. He because he is a shooter. He knows how to guard shooters. He's really really good at getting low and in a lock and trail position and not getting hit by screens and staying attached to shooters.

He has shown that he's another one of those guys that I think, especially in the long run, when the team has better habits and when they start playing some more wings, when wings get healthy, and when they inevitably add one in the trade deadline or in the buyout market, I think he's gonna be a serviceable fifth defender. So I have him as as a B plus. Al Right, guys, that's all I have for today. I raje. Like I said, we'll be covering the postgame show h tonight against on

the road in Dallas. I hope you guys will tune in for that one right after the final buzzer, and then I will be back for a pod on Thursday. Thank you guys as always for supporting the show, and i'll see you in a couple of days