The Russ Conundrum With Roosh Williams

the wrong resort. So we got all our gear on yesterday and we walked up to the lifts and tried to get on the lift and our lift tickets didn't work. And then we literally had to go to the the guest services counter and buy a whole trips worth the lift tickets on the day of, which was a total nightmare. Shout out to the staff though they did give us some good pricing that made it hurt a little bit less. But it was definitely an interesting start to the trip.

I'm taking a break from some skin though, because I wanted to watch the Laker game and I got to the film this morning and we're going to talk about it for just about five minutes here at the start, and then my guy Rush out of Houston is gonna come up and him and I are going to talk some some Westbrook definitely have some thoughts in that department. Um, as far as the game goes, you know, we're a bad basketball team in a lot of ways right now.

We had a little stretch there where again some bad teams we were able to put together some good habits. But you know, as as well, as much as I'd love to give the King's credit for the run they went on and at their border last night, when I really dove into the film, it was a lot of bad process. There was a lot of Lebron taking silly early shot clock threes. There was a lot of Malik

Monk and Taylor Norton, Tucker and Avery Bradley making ill advise. Yeah, you know, uh, pocket passes and swing passes and post entries that led to turnovers. And we spent a lot of that third quarter on our heels. And a team like Sacramento that's so athletic, especially with the ball in their hands, they do such a good job of attacking defenders on their heels and getting into the paint, and they were just getting straight line drives. Every time down

the floor. You would see often we'd have a turnover, guys will be on their heels, you have a couple of guys jogging back. It's that semi transition phase that is so dangerous. There's not really any crowd because you have to understand, like, especially when you're guarding guys like Deer and Fox, guys that are really really athletic at the point of attack, you're not going to keep them from beating guys at the right at the start of

the possession. That's That's what their ultimate elite NBA skill is. That's why Deer and Fox is in the league is because nobody can keep him in front. So as a team, you have to do a better job of making them play in a crowd. And throughout the entire second half,

we just did a really bad job of that. You'd see and a lot of this blame I gotta throw at Lebron because even when we would get set in the half court, there were a lot of possessions where he's you know, guarding Marvin Bagley kind of in the dunker spot, and you know, someone like Trevor Rees or Malik Monk would be giving up a straight line drive and rather than offering any help, he would just kind

of stand there and let it happen. And that, you know, that kind of thing snowballs and it turns into now you're trying to score against their set defense every time. Now you're making mistakes offensively, and you're back on your heels again, and it becomes a problem. And so I you know, Lebron he had really good energy there for about you know, five or six games after the Anthony

Davis injury. But his his energy has has dropped off of a cliff in the last week and a half and that's been somewhat frustrating because they need more out of him. And you know, I've seen a lot of people complain about fatigue and talk about how at the center position, he just has so much on his plate

and it's too much to ask of him. And I would agree when we're in a stretch like we were a couple of weeks ago, when you're playing, you know, five games in eight days, but he's getting multiple days off. Now we're in a stretch of the schedule here where we're just not playing that often. I think this is the second time in the last week where we've had two complete full days off between games, and we have another set of two full days off before the next game.

Lebron should be, in theory well rested enough to give more energy than he's giving. Now that begs the question. Is he frustrated with the roster? Probably, and he does have a history of of pouting and making a scene out of those sorts of things, so that very well could be what's happening. But he just has to be better. Um. But in general, you know, I've seen a lot of people talk about defensive personnel with the Lakers, and don't get me wrong, you know, guys like Malik Monk had

a really rough time last night. Malik was getting cooked all over the floor, Guys like Trevor Ariza. I want to give him some more time to get his legs

underneath him, but he doesn't look very good right now. However, we have lineups where we have guys like th Hd, guys like Austin Reeves, guys like Lebron on the floor and we're still not getting stops, which goes to show you that for whatever reason right now, and this may be trickling down from Lebron, it's just we're just not getting enough out of this team defensively right now, even

if you factor in the personnel issues. Um, but the real, you know, the real focus here is Russ and it's the reason why I'm gonna bring my guy Rousch on here in a second. And you know, I think you're seeing this, these two camps that are forming, and among Laker fans, those who are hyper focused on Russ for one reason or another, and I probably am in that camp myself. And then there's the hyper defensive of us.

And it's funny because I think what the hyper defensive people of Russ are missing in this situation is it's possible to be mad not at Russ of Westbrook in a vacuum, but at the situation. Because the situation here is the Lakers, a team that had a clear, concrete identity that was a championship winning type of identity, chipped off three players that were core elements of that identity, two of them in the trade, one of them through the financial crunch up the trade, and Alex Caruso, and

as a result, we're not winning anymore. So it's not just looking at Russ and his struggles, which we're about to talk about. It's the fact that as a Laker fan, you're probably looking at the situation going it's not just that Russ is terrible, it's that Russ is playing bad basketball right now and we are sorely missing the types of players that we shipped out in the trade. So

I don't blame Laker fans for getting upset. And I'm confused as to why there's so much pushback on the anti Russ sentiment, because it's not anti Russ sentiment in my opinion, it's anti Russ raid sentiment. People are frustrated at the situation, as they should, and like I talked about in the podcast the other day, it's just so important for the Lakers to identify that they let go of what made them good and make the shift. Now. There is no bonus points for the pride of going

down with the ship. There's nothing to be gained there now. I I spent the entire morning canvassing UH teams around the league because I am at the point now officially where I don't think this can work. I think that the Lakers have to find a way to get off of Russell Westbrook. I held back trying to get to

this point for as long as I possibly could. But the reality is, even if Russ, even if what Frank Vogel said is true and Russ is in a slump, the reality of the situation is, even if he gets out of his slump, the best idealized version of him right now doesn't work against good teams. He might be able to play better against the Sacramentos of the league, against the Houstons of the league, against the Orlando Magics

of the league. But is there really anything that Rust brings to the table that generates positive basketball impact against the good teams in the league right now. I racked my brain for it this morning, and I came up with rebound rebounding. He's a very good rebounder that absolutely helps, and he does generate rim pressure. But as I've laid out in the pod, often I'm worried about his rim pressure only functioning against bad teams because the good teams

are now really really well prepared for the Rust. Put my head down, barrel into the lane. All they have to do is take away the corners. He has no passing angles, and then he ends up picking his dribble up around the block, and he's so small down there that he's unable to find openings even when he is in the crowd down there. You know when I had someone specifically reach out and they said, what happened to the Lebron Russ pick and roll? Why isn't Russ being

the screener. And the truth of the matter is is teams are starting to put bigger defenders on Russ. Why because he doesn't move as quickly as he used to, so he's not toasting people into the lane, and so they just put a bigger defender on him and play way off. And so as a result, that Lebron Russ screening roll is now a like size screen and roll.

Even if they switch it, you're getting another big guy on the Lebron, So you're not even getting the same advantage from a big, small pick and roll that you want from that situation. That's why they're not using it as much. That's why they're going to Bleak Monk because Malik Monk is still so good as an offensive player, they have to put a smaller, quicker player on him, and so the Lebron Monk pick and roll is getting

you better stuff. But what Russ is a basketball player right now just doesn't bring enough to the table good to make him worthwhile. And I'm of the opinion now that a change needs to be made sooner than later. I know that's gonna get me a lot of flak. I know I'm gonna have a lot of people saying I'm crazy, and I know that that trade is an absolute catastrophe. I looked through the payrolls of the lower league, the lower teams in the league. There is not a

really good option out there. But at this point, if there's a team out there at the deadline who's willing to take on a first round pick to take on some sort of asset from the Lakers in exchange for eating Russ's salary, they need to look in that direction because come playoff time, this guy is gonna be a problem. All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna get rush up here and let's uh, let's see what he has to say. Heybody, can hear me? Rug can hear me? I'm getting back

up here in one second. Sorry about the technical difficulties, guys. I'll get rush up here and then we'll get going. Anybody can hear me? Can you hear me? Jason? Can you hear me? Say hey there you are all right? Cool? Sorry, can you hear me? Yeah? I can't. Um, yeah, thanks for having me. Man, I always love words talking about rust like some people might be sick of it, but uh, it just is what it is, you know. I want to start by saying that because I've seen this across

like Lakers Twitter. We had the same thing with Rockets Twitter when when Russ was on the Rockets. Uh, there's just two camps, like you said, right, there's the people that criticize him and then there's the people that like fervently defend him. And by the way, it feel free to cut me off and jump in if you have any like questions or comments or whatever. But I just want to start by saying that from a basketball perspective, man, we just gotta call a spade a spade, right, we

gotta call it what it is. When someone's not playing well, there shouldn't be this like weird blowback or this cheerleader mentality where you can't just call it what it is. I mean, I watched James Harden in Houston for eight years, second best player in franchise history. One an MVP almost took us to the to the ship but when he played bad, you know, I criticized him accordingly because he deserved it. You know, there were times where he faded

and he still gets criticized for those moments. So so I think Russ deserves all the criticism coming his way. I wanted to point point some things out, and obviously I agree it's not all on him. There are bigger issues than him, but clearly I'm you know, focusing on him right now. So I wanted to bring up some numbers. Man.

First of all, his usage, which if you don't know, it's basically usage percent is the amount of sessions that end with the ball, either you're shooting or a play being made off of you, you know, passing the ball or whatever. So basically it measures how often you're using the basketball when you have it. Uh, it's for us, which is the lowest of his career since he was one years old in Oklahoma City and in like two

thousand ten. Okay, that being said, he's still averaging four and a half turnovers per game, which is right around you know, his career averages four point one, so it's above his career average of turnovers, but it's it's just about where he's been for turnovers since the two thousand

fourteen two thousand fifteen season. And it's kind of interesting because in the two thousand four fifteen season he led the league in usage at thirty eight percent and had the exact same amount of turnovers he has right now at four point four. Um So, I think that's number one that's alarming. Like you saw at the end of the third quarter last night, right, he comes down, takes that three bricks it, it goes the other way for

a transition bucket because he doesn't get bad. Then he comes right back down, drives to the middle, jumps, passes it like deflects off of one of the defender's bodies, gets stolen, goes down. Buddy Healed catches at three, and all of a sudden the Lakers are down eleven entering

the fourth quarter. Right, um So, it's like those back breaking turnovers because he gets he gets to the rim, he gets all the way in there, but he can't finish anymore and he can't elevate the way he used to, so it generally results in a turnover or a missshot. And you know a lot of times he just kind of hangs his head, right, and so he didn't get back, and then it results in just the other team fast

breaking the other way. In addition to that, his two point percentage, well, his field goal percentage is um, you know, towards the bottom half of his career. His two point percentage is toward the middle of his career from from two UM. But the Lakers have gone small, right, And when the Rockets went small, he actually was optimized because he still had some of his bursts. He had I think the best two point percentage of his career, and

that's why things were able to work. But obviously, as you saw, when when the Rockets ran into a good team and a team that was able to kind of corral him, um, it just didn't work anymore. And it's interesting because the Lakers have Lebron and hopefully for you, Anthony Davis, whereas the Rockets were just running with like

Harden and Robert Covington as center quote unquote center. UM. But the Rockets had shooters, and obviously Russ isn't able, you know, to shoot the way that people would hope he can from three Almost a quarter of his attempts are coming from three UM. And so all of that I think kind of Oh, and then the biggest point, right is that I don't think he gets talked about enough. But he can't compensate for any of this by getting

to the free throw line. I noticed in Houston. I honestly I thought in Houston he got a bad whistle because I kind of noticed, like I thought, Hey, he gets fouled a lot at the rim and it doesn't get called. Um, And that resulted a lot of times kind of in what I just talked about, right, he gets to the rim, gets fouled, doesn't finish, falls, and then all of a sudden it's a five on four are going the other way, which is which functions basically

as a turnover. Right in my opinion, Um, But in in l a Man, he is getting to the line five point four times per game. That is again in line with his turnovers and usage, or with his usage.

It's the third lowest of his career since he was years old in two thousand eight to nine and two thousand nine to ten, and his free throw percentage is tied for the worst in his career at sixty five point six percent, So he's not compensating for the lack of ability to shoot and the lack of ability to convert by actually getting to the line, and then when he does get to the line, he's not catching it in He's shooting a career career worst from the free

throw line. So when you put that together with the amount of turnovers that he has, despite the fact that his usage is the lowest has been in a decade, honestly twelve years, and you combine that with the fact that he doesn't he doesn't compensate for any of that with just pure hustle. Right his hustle is focused on like you know, jumping a passing lane or gambling for

a steal. It's not focused on, hey, I just break this three in a momentum situation, let me sprint back and make sure that my guy doesn't beat me for a layup. Or you know, hey, the balls on the weak side right now and I'm just ball watching and my guy in the corner is either wide open and I'm not gonna close out in time, or he's gonna

sneak behind me to the rim for a basket. When you combine all of that together, and then obviously you add it to the high profile that he has, which is former m v P, former superstar forty four million a year. That that is why I think you have

this this kind of storm. And then of course you add in what you mentioned, which is the people you lost in the trade, right Quintessential three and d Wing k CP Kuzma for all his flaws, could rebound, defend, worked well with Lebron, seemed to come up big in moments where he was needed to come up big. Obviously, Carusoe walked um, which you can blame the Lakers management. Four.

So when you when you factor in all those players that were lost and how their chemistry worked with Lebron and a D and then you bring in Russ and how the fit's not working, plus the fact that he's got all these weaknesses that he's just unfortunately doesn't compensate for in any way unless you count trouble doubles. I think that's the perfect storm for what's happening. Yeah, you know again, we have to First of all, I loved your description of Hustle. That was so that was super,

super interesting. I'm glad that's a conversation that needs to happen more often, Like Hustle is not grabbing an offensive rebound and screaming and yelling or diving on the floor. The hustle is never missing a responsibility that's laid out

in your job description. That's what hustle is. Hustle is I have these six responsibilities on any given defensive possession, and I never miss one, or if I do miss one, it was something that's out of my control because maybe an elite offensive player was able to make a move to get past me, but even at that point, I

stepped into my next responsibility. Like that, to me is hustle, Like Austin Reeves is the perfect example of hustle in my opinion, in terms of like do making sure that your job is completed, but against clips before of him, like just switching, you know, knowing the personnel, knowing who the shooter is, closing out on them, and then scramming right back to whoever he was guarding before that. Like that that is what you need to see from Russ,

that type of hustle. Yeah, exactly. But again like and this is the again I have to add, this is important context. Like when I'm discussing the way Russ is playing, I'm discussing it relative to what he needed to be in order for this trade to have made any sense, because you're right, in a vacuum examining the situation, the team has a lot of problems that are not associated with Russell Westbrook, So putting that all on Russ's plate

is unfair and in a vacuum that should not happen. However, Laker fans are looking at this through the lens of the Russell Westbrook trade, which involved shipping off a bunch of core players that fit directly into a championship identity. So that has to be factored in here. If you're wondering why people are looking at Russ, it's because of the trade. Okay. In order for the trade to have made any sense, Russ needed to hit a certain baseline

of his contribution to the game. Now, what you'll see a lot of Russ's apologists bring up is the good things he does on the basketball court. To be clear, Russ has always made mistakes. That's always been the case, right. He's always been reckless, He's always been loose with the basketball. He's always barreled into the lane when he shouldn't, or taken a bad shot here there. That's always been a

part of his game. The difference is these negative things that he does become exacerbated when the good things he does become more limited as he ages, Right, Like you have guys like CP three, who you look at their numbers and you go, oh, he's averaging fourteen points in tennis. It's doesn't seem like a ton of production, right, but the guy makes damn near zero mistakes. So when you're looking at Chris Paul's impact, it's like fourteen and ten,

but it's like fourteen and and net. Right, So when you look at Russ and you go, okay, he's averaging eight, or you look at any particular game and you go, oh, my goodness, he had thirty twelve and twelve this this game, it's never a thirty twelve and twelve net because there's a lot of reckless rust that comes with that, a lot of mistakes that come with that on the defensive

end and on the offensive end. That limit is impact right, Well, as he's aged, it's gotten to the point now where that scale has tipped a little too far in my opinion, Can I can I elaborate on that? Yeah? Go ahead, so, because I think that's a great point. So the we measure turnovers, right, and like I said, he's averaging four

and a half turnovers per game. But we don't measure wasted possessions like that, right where like you can't measure the hustle or where you know, like I said, he just makes a stupid plane, crashes to the rim and throws it up, doesn't get the call, and then effectively that's a turnover, but it doesn't count as one in the box in the box score. Or you know, a play where he falls asleep on defense and it's just an easy backdoor bucket. Like you you don't count those

as turnovers. We just count, you know, obviously what they count as turnovers. But in the game where possessions mean everything, he is very casual with possessions. You with him, you waste a lot of possessions, and then you get into this game where you gotta start winning possessions back. But because he can't convert threes and because he's not really getting hand ones, you're not winning those possessions at the rate that you need to win them at. Like in

Houston when the Rockets traded a Capella. Okay, Russ played in fifteen regular season games, including the bubble, after that trade. His numbers after that trade were astronomical, Right, if you just looked at the numbers purely, you think, wow, oh my god, that that's incredible. The average thirty a game, uh, seven and a half rebound, six assists, a steal and

a half five turnovers. Did all of this on from the field twenty three attempts and thirty seven percent from three on two and a half attempts, and he even got to the line seven times a game. So those

are pretty pretty incredible numbers. But you can't quantify how many defensive possessions he wastes wasted and the Rockets are only nine and six in these games, by the way, And you can't quantify how many possessions on offense get wasted with stupid decisions like the ones last night, like I just described, where he, you know, in a momentum situation where the Lakers are kind of cutting into the lead and they need to finish the quarter strong, he just takes a pull up three or aten with the

minute left in the game, he takes a pull up three. Like those are wasted possessions, but they will not reflect on the box score as a wasted possession. So well, what's super interesting about it? Too, is is like you can see the team starting to try to pull back from Russ offensively, right, Like you can actively see that happening with all of the emphasis on Malik Monk and

Lebron James actions. And you can actually see this starting to manifest in Russ's demeanor as we saw in that really awkward postgame presser against Memphis where he started to super passive aggressively address how he's being used in the offense. And that's the crazy part about all of this, right, So, like you make this trade right in theory, like, let's let's pretend instead of Russ it was Dane. Why would

you make that trade. You'd make the trade of all of those role players for Dane because what you're thinking is, hey, I might be able to replicate some of those players impact as role players through the veteran minimum market. And Dame is such an amazing ceiling raiser that in the big playoff series is against the best teams, he's going to bring so much to the table that the tradeoff is worthwhile. Right, That's the way we look at that. That's the way you look at that trade. This is

where the Lakers got caught with their pants down. Russ is at his least effectiveness this year against the good teams. So and he's shown an inability to to win the minutes without Lebron, which was one of the main reasons why we've gone in this direction to begin with. So now it's this awkward situation where we've downgraded the guys in the role player positions and now we're trying to

rep urpis. Russ is like this off ball player. You know, there was another key possession last night where Lebron hit him in the weeks side corner and he missed the three, you know, but it's like a lot of him just standing around off the ball and then you know, maybe we'll toss him a possession here or there. So even with whatever the idealized version is of us, even if even if for us was peak Russ, we're not actually using him like that anymore because we know he can't

do that. So now he's being you know, basically demoted to an off ball player where his where there's a massive diminishing return because if he's going to be off ball all the time at that point, it might as well be Wayne Ellington, right, you know, we're gonna get more off ball out of Wayne Ellington than we would

out of Russ standing in the weeks side corner. So that's where this is such a conundrum, And like that's why, like guys like I know, there's there's no universe to where you could make a trade of Russell Westbrook now and it's some idealized impact. I get that. But what you're seeing, especially against the good teams in the league right now, is that when he's on the floor, he's ineffective. And the reason why he's ineffective against good teams is

because he's easy to guard. And the reason why he's easy to guard is because he can't shoot. And you know what he's gonna do. He's gonna put his head down and try to force his way into a ton of traffic and against big athletic defenses that rotate well and take away what Russ likes to do, he gets caught, he turns the ball over a lot, he misses a

ton of shots. He's very ineffective. And so you know, the even when when we're talking about what this team is going to look like projecting forward, so a D comes back, maybe you make a great trade. Maybe you bring in Jeremy Grant and you have all that talent. Still, when we get to these situations against the good teams at the end of the season, he's ineffective. He's going to be relegated to a guy who can grab the

occasional offensive rebound, make the occasional play and transition. You know, he's gonna have some positive plays, but with all of the negative that comes with it, with him getting lost off the ball, with him making poor decisions from time to time, all of that's gonna come with it. And so then that's why I ask you guys, like, do you think against the Warriors, against the Suns that Russ is going to be a huge positive player in a

playoff series against those teams. I don't, And like I I'm trying my hardest to try to see the other side of it and to expose myself to dissenting opinion and to try to see I I really struggle as a basketball mind, and I'm I'm I'm not always right, I'm not even right a lot of the time. But in my view of the game, I really struggle to see what other people are seeing there. Well, I really struggle. Let me let me interject to things that I think

could be positive. Um, they're both obviously gonna center around Anthony Davis coming back, and and I will say, don't don't lose sight of the fact that a d is out right. One of the big problems I think for the Lakers right now is the defense, and Anthony Davis fixes a lot of those problems simply by being on the court. So that's that's part one, right. Um, Offensively,

the Lakers have been getting by. They're just gonna need to be better defensively, so Anthony Davis can shore up some of those weaknesses, especially some of the weaknesses that that Russ gets exposed to. In addition, on the other end of the floor, I think having a D out there will help us have a bailout partner, right someone he can throw lobs to, someone he can run a pick and roll with that he can trust to get

the ball to and finish. He's still gonna be Russ, He's still gonna have his issues, but I do think it gives him another dimension of effectiveness because he you know, you can actually run action with him just to pick and roll. Like I said, Um, if he if he's able to penetrate into the defense. He's got a d in the dunker spot, dish it off, throw it up, whatever,

so you will have those options available. Um. But I do agree against the better teams, right, you know, against Golden State, you cannot waste possessions, and if you do waste possessions, they will stump you. Against Phoenix, they're gonna have DeAndre Ayton, and they're gonna have smart, tough defenders. You know, Jay Crowder mcaal Bridges, Chris Paul, so on

and so forth, and everyone's big, everyone's big. When you get to that point it's Drew Holiday that's guarding him, you think he's gonna get an advantage on Drew Holiday. I do not know. I do not, but yeah, I mean it's like it's almost like like a football offense that's predicated solely on going five out. Like you know they're not going to run it. You know, when you have Russ out there, you know there's no catch and shoot threat and if they try it, you're just daring

them to do that. Um. And and I also wanted to say the unfortunate thing about him his mentality wise, Jason, I don't know if you were listening to the epic spaces from last night where you know, his brother and Kendrick Perkins hopped in there. But if you listen to his brother, it kind of gave me some I mean, look, I don't know them personally whatsoever, so maybe I'm just off here, but his brother's insight was like he was just bringing up the triple doubles. It was almost like

a carret conture of itself, right. He was arguing against what the other people were saying by by bringing up the triple doubles as if that mattered. And it gives you the sense that that stuff really does matter to Rus. And the only reason I bring that up is because he seems to have this this kind of theme of everything being internalized through himself, right, Like you remember against against Utah in the first round a couple of years

ago when he was with Okay. See, he took that Rubio matchup personally, like that one on one matchup personally, to the point where he was trying so hard to like steal the ball from Rubio or shut Rubio down that he would either over gamble and shoot a gap and give up a bucket, or he would foul him, or he would kill the flow of the team offense by just trying to rock the baby on Rubio or shoot one of those like bank shots, you know, and and and everything starts running in his mind through him

because he's grappling with the fact that he used to be the man and he's you know, no longer the man, right, And that's why I think he even like last night, he took that big shot, right because he wanted to be like, no, I'm Russ, I still hit these and he took it, and obviously the game was over after he bricked it, so I wanted to add that as well. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's funny because I was I talked about this in a podcast like three or four

days ago. But you know, the Lakers this experiment. I know, it's hard to properly evaluate it with all of the injuries that have happened. However, this season, even in minutes where Lebron Russ and Anthony Davis are on the floor with no center, they are less effective than they were with Schroeder last year with the center, they were you know, plus I think they were plus twelve per one hunder

possessions last year with Schroeder. And so for whatever reason this season, even the idealized situation hasn't been as impactful as we were in previous iterations of this team, which takes me to the Golden State situation. Golden State was a team that thrived off of the attention that Steph Curry draws from the defense and guys playing four on three on the back end, and had so many smart players that they executed that four on three so well

all the time that it worked. And then last season they got away from that and they wait young, and they signed guys like Kelly u Brad Jr. Who would instead of taking that extra dribble for the dribble handoff to Steph running through after he gave up the gave up the ball, he jack of three or run into the lane and take a one dribble pull up. And as a team they were too young. They didn't have

i Guadala that year either. You know, they had the same Steph and Draymond, the same incredible Steph and Draymond that you have this year, but it wasn't working because they got away from what made them good. And then this year they brought in all these smart players, you know, Auto Porter Jr. And Andrea Guadala and Nemanja bi Elicia and and they're just all of a sudden vaulting back into contention, even with Steph not playing nearly as well

as he did last year. And to me, that is the decision that the Lakers have to make, because what you have to ask yourself now is is this not working because of an A D injury? Is this not working because of Kendrick Nunn? Or is it just not working? Because if it's just not working, I know of a method of winning basketball that occurs with Lebron and Anthony Davis on the floor, and that's finding guys that like to do the dirty work. And I know that works.

And I know that they can make that change at this deadline and get it together in time for the playoffs. I know they can. It'd be difficult, it'd be hard to find trade partners. But this is where the the Lakers have a little bit of a decision to make, because they can either go down with the ship and just say, oh, well, it never worked out because we never got fully healthy, or call a spade a spade when we traded off Westbrook. When we traded for Westbrook,

the fit wasn't great. He doesn't bring the upside that was needed the trade to make any sense. We need to go find guys that fit or old identity, an identity that worked. And I'm I'm really curious to see if they go that route because I think if they go down with the ship, this team is gonna lose, and they're gonna lose early, I think. So first of all, to to talk about Dennis Schroder, right again, it's like that trade off of possessions that I was talking about earlier.

You have to look at their production, how much they occupy the ball, how much they make up for their weaknesses, and so on and so forth, right Schroder, I mean for starters, he shot thirty three and a half percent from three Russ shooting under That makes a huge difference. He turned it over half as much as Russ is right now, his usage compared to Russ is um so right, more efficient, less usage like that off the bat that's

saving you possessions. And then he you know, he gave you what three less points per game, but he took three and a half four shots less per game than Russ. So like that's the other thing with Russ. His field goal attempts are usually proportional to how many points he's scoring. And if you're scoring about as many points as shots taken,

that's typically not good. Right Like if if you can't make up for it, like I said, by getting extra points from the three point line, or by getting extra points from going to the free throw line and converting those, then your efficiency just drops. And I don't mean the nerd out. I'm sure there's some people listening that think I'm nerd ing out. But if you really just look at it on a possession by possession basis and then you factor in the turnovers, that's kind of where you

get in my opinion. Now, the question is I agree with you, because look in Houston, we a lot of people have the same thought. At certain points in times, we were thinking, look, let's just bench him and just go hardening for shooters and just see what we can do, because at least we know that the turnovers will be limited, the efficiency will be there, and we can at least, you know, have an advantage from the three point line instead of relying on just a drive in a bucket

and a drive in a bucket. And people also forget that ship is taxing, like, it's not easy to just drive every single plane and finish at rey single play. Lebron makes it looks easy, makes it look easy, but it's not easy, especially when you lose your lift like russ Is, and especially when you're thirty three years old and getting older like russ It. So that was his game, was just bullying and bolting to the to the hoop.

But doing that over and over gets taxing. So we had the same idea, man, just go five out running through Harden, try to win from the three point line, and try to go small, switch everything and just corral everything you can and and make up for what you lose with Capella with Covington's weak side shot blocking. Again, fortunately the Lakers have Anthony Davis, so I think they're better equipped to run that type of game. And you're

already seeing Lebron can play center when he needs to. Defensively, it hasn't really worked out, but offensively, there's absolutely no drop off if if not a fucking improvement. So you run a D back, you run Lebron back. But the question becomes do you have those appropriate three and D guys? I think in a vacuum in a seven game series, the Lakers can definitely compete with like Wayne Ellington, Austin Reeves, get th Ht some run. You know, maybe if if you get the ghost of a Reza back and you

can get him useful that type of approach. But the issue is you still got half a regular season to go, and the reason Russ was brought in obviously was to carry the load so that Lebron could chill and to shore up some weaknesses for if and when Anthony Davis was going to be hurt, which he is, So now you got to go all in and exhaust your resources early, uh and ask for a lot more from those vets. Then then you may or may not get Malik Monks

stepped up. So I think Malik Monk is like definitely a worthy kind of third fourth candidate for the Lakers if they get that a d Lebron line up, A guy that can just go out there and towards you give you twenty a night just catching and shooting and playing off of Lebron um. But I'm a little worried about Malik defensively, but yeah, his his offensive fit with Lebron has been a really nice you know, cherry from this season it just he he was really bad defensively

against Sacramento last night. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing we talked about this preseason, or maybe I've talked about it with rage, but the Lakers never got that, like like the best three and D option they got. I think, unless I'm missing somebody, he was Wayne Ellington, and you know, Wayne Ellington's cool. But if that's your best, just kind of tough, you're going You're still there. But yeah, can you hear him? Yeah? I watched you for a second,

but I think we're good. Yeah, Now, I was just saying that. I finished by saying that the list of three D players starts with Wayne Ellington, and then I think it goes to like a reason who I was, you know, describing I think he's fallen off. And then after that it just becomes like a crapshoot of of

who's who. You know, there's really no three in D. There's no size, um, there's no like all the guys that you have are reliable on one end of the floor but not necessarily both, you know, like that identity. Even even markis Morris, right, who I never really thought was that good, he became a really reliable, dependable three and D guy for the Lakers in the Bubble Championship run. Obviously we already talked other guys. I just don't think

they have those pieces right now. Yeah, so the the moving forward with the regardless of whether or not they decided to dump br Us Outside of that specific equation, the Lakers, in my opinion, need to acknowledge the fact that their vision for shifting the identity towards offense was a mistake. And the sooner they acknowledged that, the sooner they have you know, if they if they address that need at the trade deadline, I believe this team can

get back on track now. The Warriors are such a perfect example because they did so with literally veteran minimum contracts like all up order the elites Andre Gudalad, these are all guys that um that costs the veteran minimum, and simply because they actually fit into their identity, they were able to immediately make an impact and help that team vault from fringe playoff contender too probably the favorite

to win the championship. And I think that's the situation that the Lakers are in because with as great as Lebron looks and he's really declined defensively in the last week, But like we said, we think that's more maybe associated with his demeanor and his attitude as more so than fatigue because the Lakers have had a lot of days off lately, so his defense is inexcusable in my opinion. Um that said, we know that there's an engaged version

of Lebron in there. That's still a devastating to a player. Anthony Davis coming back, Let's say he gets back to a reasonable fact similar of what he was in. If those two guys are on the war and they're engaged, which they weren't really to start this season, which is a big part of why they struggled even when they were healthy. If those two are back together and engaged, everyone becomes slotted properly that they achieved. They all are

assigned then a very achievable role. Their jobs on offense and defense are simplified down to a point where even veteran minimum quality players can succeed. So from that standpoint, the goal at the trade deadline and in the buyout market has to be to locate any and all options to try to recreate the types of role players that

we had in season season because again the shift didn't work. Now, maybe you can get lucky and build a coherent enough defense, are competent enough defense around those guys that Malik Monk can stay around and still be you know, the weapon

that he is. But outside of him, I think every other person not named Lebron in a D that's in the lineup has to love the dirty work and has to be willing to do what Frank Vogel asks them to do in their defensive assignments, in the rebounding assignments, so on and so forth, because again, there is no bonus points gained for being prideful. There is no bonus

points gained in going down with the ship. Okay, like I what I really am not interested in hearing is a postseason press conference after they get eliminated, where Lebron sitting at the press are going, you know, we just never had our full team this year, because as we know, that's just not how it works. No one ever has their full team the whole year. Even in the season, a bunch of role players were in and out of the lineup with injury frequently, you know, except for Lebron

in a D thankfully. But the point is is like, at a certain point, a lot of these teams around the league, even when they've had guys drop out with COVID, even when they've had guys drop out with injuries, they been able to succeed because from the top down to the roster there's a certain amount of an identity that they can lean back on even when guys are out. This team doesn't have that. That's entirely missing, but we also know it's there. It's a proven method of success.

And even beyond that, it's about matchups. The Lakers size when Lebron and n D are healthy is a real problem for the Warriors. It's a real problem in that matchup Phoenix. Same thing we saw last year. A D just back from injury, Lebron just back from injury, neither player really in their rhythm. Their physicality on the front line is a real problem for Phoenix. So this is salvageable. It just it needs to be salvaged and it needs to not involve Okay, well we just never had Kendrick Nunne,

so we just had bad luck. It needs to be acknowledging the reality that's slapping you in the face. So one last thing and then I'll let you talk version and we'll get out of here. Just a should probably goes game. But the h the thing with Russ if he is gonna stay, which is the most likely scenario because it's going to be extremely difficult to find a trade partner in the middle of the season, Russ needs

to wake the hell up. What we've seen out of him in press conferences recently demonstrates a person who lacks any self awareness in terms of what the team needs from him. The fact that he thinks, you know, it's about him not putting up fourteen and fourteen the way he used to the fact that he thinks it's about

the way he's being utilized in the offense. You know, I've had a lot of people bring up the Mellow comparison and Mellow learning through his departure from the league to change some parts of his game that needed to be changed. Well, Russ needs to do the same thing within the confines of this season. He needs to understand that he is not the same offensive player he was in his prime, and so he's going to be utilized different offensively, which just the thing he's been complaining about

in the pressers recently. He needs to embrace that and understand that the team needs him to contribute everywhere else. We always talk about Russ being Russ, and one of my consistent themes with the season is Russ cannot be Russ. Russ being Russ is bad for this team because in his role, especially with Lebron and Ad be healthy, it's

about him confining his mistakes and limiting his mistakes. So the Russ brand of bowling a china shop, I'm gonna make ten mistakes but make fifteen good plays doesn't work anymore because offensively, he's not going to be utilized enough to make fifteen good plays on this team, especially when

they're healthy. So if Russ is gonna stay, the only way this is gonna work is if he has a wake up call individually and understands that he needs to adapt to the same way that everybody else in NBA history who when they reach the second the middle of the second decade in the league, where they've got to adjust the way they play. And if he can figure that out and get to the point where he cuts back on mistakes, cuts back on the things he used to do, and try to because even at this point

in his career. Even with his diminished athleticism, he's still a good NBA athlete at the point guard position with great size. So if he can find a way two adjust and adapt his game to his age, there's a

version of this where it could work. But that what I what I worry about, and the reason why I've advocated for trading him today for the first time this season is because I don't think he's going to learn that lesson, and everything that I hear from him impressors everything I see from him in his demeanor tells me this is a guy who thinks he's not getting enough touches. Tells me this is a guy who thinks it's and

everybody else problem, and not a hymn problem. It's it's a guy who's defiantly going down and and that's that's discouraging. But I mean, if he's gonna stay, the only way this is gonna work is if he makes some changes. Russ can't be Russ anymore for the same reason that Mellow couldn't be Mellow when he was with Okay. See, Mellow had to become spot up shooter Mellow in order to maintain his spot in the league. That's where Russ

is at. Russ needs to be more like Drew Holiday, a player who devotes the vast majority of his energy to the defensive end of the floor and offensively finds a place to fit in alongside two superior offensive players through limiting mistakes and taking advantage of his size as a power guard when he has the opportunity. That's the way that I see this thing working. But I'm just being honest with you, guys, I don't see it. I

I that is such an idealistic vision. How Like if you had to ask yourself if Russ is gonna make a significant change in the way that he approaches the game, do you think that's going to happen? Like I don't. But anyway that that's where I'm at. And like again, it's it's hard because there is a This team is not as bad as they look. When you tie up all of your talent and Lebron and Anthony Davis and

one of them goes down, it's gonna be ugly. This isn't like the Sun's You don't have tons of death, but lack that top tier star power so that when Devin Booker goes out, you're still pretty good. That's not how it works, because if you make a trade for someone like Anthony Davis, you understand you're top heavy, and when you're top heavy and someone gets hurt, this is part of the problem. So I understand all of that. However, even acknowledging that this isn't working, and I struggle to

see how anybody thinks it could be. But that's just my opinion. Yeah, man, I'll end by saying, um, I think you're right. I think the making ten mistakes but making fifteen good plays to make up for it is kind of what I was trying to talk about when I was mentioning wasting possessions. And he's at a point where he's not making ten mistakes but making up for it fifteen times. It's like more ten to ten or even you know, ten mistakes to like seven plays they

make up for it or whatever. So exactly, I think that you know, and I told you all this before before or during the off season, before the season, but man, he is focused. His game is centered around where the basketball is, and that's on both ends of the floor. Right He's not making reads off the ball, he's not seeing the play developed two plays ahead, he's not considering

what's going to happen on the defensive end. You know, when penetration happens and the ball gets kicked and then the ball starts moving around the perimeter, he's not looking for the skip pass like, he's just looking at where the ball is. And on offense, when he's got the ball, he's just thinking about, Okay, I have the ball, and

so Arena bring that up. Is because when you get older, you adjust by seeing the plays developed ahead of time, because that's how you're able to compensate for the lack of athleticism or the loss of athleticism, and then you can use i Q and skill. Skill. He's not really a skill guy, right, he doesn't have touch both at the rim, jump, shooting, whatever. He's just always been like, if he wasn't a supreme athlete, he probably would not

have made the NBA. He made the NBA and and had success because he's an incredible phenomenal athlete um and we're seeing what he's become with without that. But I know for a fact when he was in Houston, I will give him credit for trying to adjust his game, because in Houston, he tried to adjust his game and it worked in in l A. Right now he's trying to adjust his game, but it's not working. But the flip side of that is that adjusting it's no matter how you slice it, it's all about him. It always

comes down to him. It has like everything revolves around him. It has to be changed for him to feel comfortable, for him to operate optimally. Right, the Rockets fucking traded Clint Capella so that he could rust could get his numbers. Um, the Lakers are obviously made the trade they did, and they're now trying to go small and they've moved and shifted the lineup around, just trying to accommodate. Nothing is

really working. But I know for a fact in Houston, once ship hit the fan and Harden was getting out of there, that he had a conversation with the Rockets brass that basically the message he sent was, Hey, I don't care about being on a winning team. I don't care about playing Rockets basketball. I want the ball back in my hands, So do what you gotta do get me out of here. And they did. Um, And I

think that he viewed so crazy to me. Yeah, And I think he viewed that that season at Washington as a huge victory and like vindication for him, you know, like, hey, russ ball works. Like I told y'all, I still got it.

I'm back watch me work. You know, I just took the Wizards to the play in to the playoff whatever and so and if again, if you listen to that space last night where his brother was talking, people were bringing up, you know, statistics, how he finishes at the rim, where he ranks against other other guards in terms of finishing at the rim, all these things, and their responses to that. I remember one was, yeah, but who's counting all the layups that you know, rim in and out?

That was one response, and then the second response from his brother was, yeah, do you know who leads the NBA and play off triple doubles for the last ten years? And that was the retort, right, Like, that's how they processed and viewed his contributions to the game. And I think it only makes sense that those are the voices most likely around him, and they're probably echoing his sentiments and how he thinks. Right, so the whole if he can just do X y Z, I think you got

to throw that out the window. The only caveat is that if he magically becomes like a thirty five three point shooter on high volume, then you're working with something. Otherwise, I think you're just gonna have to, Like I said before the season started, you're just gonna have to shore up his mistakes as best as you can, because he does ball watch right, you can't. There's no way you can make up for him for his defensive lapses. There's no way you can make up for his lack of

what he does off the ball. Um when he when he has the ball in his hands, man, he moves first and thinks second. I think Roger said this last night. He passes to he passes the ball two spaces on the court, not to people, and that's because he's moving first and expecting the help. And then yeah, that's for the record, that's not making a read. That that is not making a You're not making a read if you pass to an open to pass to a spot on the floor and most most importantly there, any good team

is going to take that away. Any good team, right, And they do. And that's why you see some of those like Garrant passes that just like float out of bounds to nobody or whatever, right because he's expecting someone to be there without actually making the read. But but he moves first and he thinks second, and that has always been his m O. And now that his body is not what it used to be, he's not adjusting to that well. So I really don't see I just

don't see the middle ground for him, you know. I mean, I think you're gonna keep seeing what you're seeing. Hopefully Ad shows it up, maybe a roster, you know, maybe a trade or a reason comes back healthy or something like that shores it all up, or eventually hands up on another team where they just give him the ball and he can play Russ Ball and kind of do what he did with the Wizards. I think it's it's literally one of those two. There's really knowing between. But yeah,

it'll be really interesting to see Um Russ. I appreciate you coming to hang out, man, Um, Yeah, thank you guys for coming to hang out. I'm to get back out with the family and do some skiing. This was interesting. It was like recording a podcast at ten thousand feats, like recording a podcast power walking. I swear I was like out of breath half the time. But anyway, I appreciate you guys coming to hang out. I'm gonna post this one on our podcast feed, probably at midnight tonight

since we have rash Raja's out from last night. This will also air on Dash Radio tomorrow morning at seven am Pacific Standard time. As always, I appreciate you guys the support. We will be back for the postgame show on Saturday. Thanks Ruce, We'll see you next time, Buddy yep, And if I could plug real quick, Ball is Life the podcast, the number one podcast on Ball is Life. We just did an episode with Nikola Vukovich of the Chicago Bulls that I put out today, So check my

feed and give that a listen. And thanks Jason, I appreciate it. All right, guys, have a going