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If all of you guys had an incredible weekend, we got a jam pack show for you today. We are continuing our power rankings with number eight the Los Angeles Lakers. We also have a mail bag for the tail end of the show. Today is NBA Media Day, so all sorts of different quotes are gonna be floating around. We're gonna kind of wait and put all of those together for our next episode. So our next episode we will go into anything interesting from NBA Media Day, but today again. Mail bag at the end, Lakers off the top. Also keep that in mind for mailbag questions for the Wednesday show. Drop any questions you have about anything related to Media Day and we'll kind of stay centered around that on Wednesday. You guys are the job. Before we get started, subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jsonlt so you guys don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments. We can keep hitting them throughout the rest of year. All right, let's talk some basketball. So number eight the Los Angeles Lakers, little offseason recap for you guys. They lost Spencer Dinwiddie and Torrian Prince. They added Brownie James, a second round pick that has some NBA potential, but I don't think he's good enough to be a rotation player yet probably a few years away on that front. Dalton connect was their first round pick, does some things at an NBA level right away. He's a lights out shooter off the catch on pretty high volume. At Tennessee last year he got one point twenty four points per catch and shoot jump shot. It's really really good. Has some scoring chops too, just like you know, scoring is a kind of a vague term that I use to describe anything that's kind of in between. So like if you imagine a driving layup or a finish off of a cut underneath the basket, or a catch and shoot jump shot, those are all shots that are more like play finishing types of moves. Right, Scoring is like everything in between. Whenever the offense or the defense I should say, is taking away the rim and taking away those catch and shoot threes, any sort of additional opportunity to score the basketball, I think kind of floats into that category. Right to me, it's a combination of a bunch of different things. Audacity, you gotta be crazy enough to take tougher shots, creativity against good defense. There are like opportunities to take creative types of shots and angles of release and stuff. Like that in that mid range area. Also at the basket when you're running into traffic. Athleticism, the ability to get to your spots footwork, which is the ability to actually get your body moving towards that spot and in there in a way that actually you can flow into a shot that's a footwork element right and then touch right the actual ability to make shots. All that stuff kind of combines into the organic scoring ability that you have, and Dalton has some good natural scoring ability, like he can create his own shot off the bounce when he needs to in those situations where the easy stuff isn't there, and Tennessee relied on him a lot and that specifically. He's also a good athlete in transition, like when you get him running in a straight line, he can hang with the best. But he's a really bad defender at this point. So whether or not he can actually be a rotation player right away, we'll come down to that end of the floor and how quickly during training camp he can find a role that JJ Reddick can trust him to do on the defensive end of the floor. If he can get that up pretty quickly, I think he'll be a big time rotation player for the Lakers this year. If not, they might have to look into another direction. They also had a couple of interesting deals on the margins. They got Christian KloCo on a two way deal. Once upon a time he was an exciting defensive center prospect, and the Lakers don't really have a center that can roughly approximate what ad does Jason excuse me, Jackson Hayes is more of like an offensive minded center, screen and roll guy. Christian Wood is more of like a scoring center, a pick and pop guy. So like, neither of those guys are what I would consider defensive anchors. And so if Christian KloCo can give them some, you know, a different look at that backup center position, that might be useful. And then Jordan Goodwin comes over on an exhibit ten deal. It's a training camp deal. He's the reason why I'm putting him in here is he's a stocky, athletic guard and this is a guard corps that sorely lacks that specific archetype of guard like Jordan Goodwin can pressure the ball well, he's a physical defender, he rebounds well for a guard. He's kind of like a dirty work guy. And in addition, to that. He also shot the ball pretty well last year when he was open. Didn't shoot well when he was contested, but when he was open he shot thirty nine percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in Phoenix and forty seven percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in Memphis. So he kind of fits more of the mold of like a like a role player athlete guard and on a team that doesn't really have that sort of player. I think that's a guy that might be an interesting dude to keep an eye on in training camp to see if he can't grab a start a roster spot. A couple other guys too. These guys were already on the but that didn't play much last year. Max Christy just never got favor with Darvin Ham so never got consistent opportunity. I expect him to get consistent opportunity this year. Jared Vanderbilt was just hurt all year last year. I expect him to get hopefully if he's healthy, to be an addition to the team this year. Gave Vincent was available for the postseason but was kind of a shell of himself and was injured all year. So like just having those guys re enter the rotation via health and opportunity are what I would consider to be basically like kind of changes to the roster compared to last year. Those are all minutes, All those minutes that Dalton connect would play, all those minutes that Jordan Goodwin would potentially play if he made the roster, Max Christy, Jared Vanderbilt gave Vincent. Those are all minutes last year that we're going to Tory and Prince Spencer Dinwittie like, those are the types of Cam Reddish was getting a lot of those minutes too. Those are minutes that are going to be shifted towards different players this year. Now, looking at the Lakers and their outlook for this year, the strength of this Lakers team as their starting lineup, it's a seamless offensive fit with those With those five guys, again, we're talking Austin Reeves, D'Angelo Russell, Ruey Chamura, Lebron James, and Anthony Davis, who JJ Reddick has basically come out straight up and said, these are the guys I'm starting with. Right makes a lot of sense offensively. You have these two really skilled guards with these two really versatile forwards that can function both on or off the ball, like screening and rolling or post up Folkrum's Lebron and Ady can both attack out of the posts, that can both attack in ISO situations. But they're just very versatile forwards that kind of counter what the skill guards bring. And then Ruy Hachimura has kind of found his little niche as a master of weak side scoring, meaning like a lot of attacking and spot up situations. He got one point one to six points per spot up possession last year that was in the eighty third percentile. He also scored on a cut sixty times last year, which was by far the most in his career to this point. Just we kind of did a breakdown of this when we did our JJ Reddick video the other day, But the gist of it is knocking down three point shots on skip passes, but also identifying when they are opportunities to cut along the baseline. And one of the other things you'll see that happens with the Lakers is if you've got let's say you've got big, strong players in your starting lineup, where are the first two of them going. They're going to Anthony Davis and Lebron James, so Ruy Hachimura is going to be guarded by your third best ford defender, and that usually is a player that Ruy can look to attack in matchup situations. It was mixed results on that last year, but it was something that they went to quite a bit. The Lakers switched to that starting lineup on January twenty first, after not using it all season, not even for a single minute. That was one of the many things that went south for Darvin Ham last year. But from January first forward, that team with the starting lineup intact, so with all five players playing, they went twenty three to ten. That's a seventy percent win percentage, or another way of looking at that as a fifty seven win pace. As a team overall, including the games where guys missed time, they went twenty six and thirteen from January twenty first. That was the fifth best record in the NBA, and they were third in offensive rating behind only Boston and Indiana. So really scored the basketball well, really found their groove as a basketball team last year. The Lakers were also one of the best teams in the league in high leverage matchups, so whenever they played really good teams, so the teams that were in the top ten in point differential. They had seventeen wins against teams in the top ten in point differential that was tied for the most in the NBA with the Boston Celtics. They also had the sixth best net rating in games against teams that were in the top ten in point differential. So when they needed to get up for good teams, Lebron and ad were always great. The role players stepped up, and they were actually were very successful against the NBA's best last year. Now, the season obviously came to an end in the first round. They had a weird playoff series against the Denver Nuggets, very different from the series two years ago. The series two years ago, it was like the Lakers were hanging on for dear life, but they would somehow just kind of keep it close and then Denver would just consistently out execute them at the end of the of the game. Right this year was much more of like the Lakers actually controlled the series. They led for the vast majority of the time in the five games they led for I can't remember the exact percentage of the time, but it was like three fourths of the series they led and then just in clutch time, the Lakers could not get a stop. They gave up a one to sixty three offensive rating in clutch situations to the Denver Nuggets. Jamal Murray hits two game winners and Denvers dispatches them in five. So it's kind of a weird series because Denver wins in five, which is kind of what most people saw happening before the series. But the Lakers were way more competitive in that series, and I actually thought in a lot of ways led to some of the wear and tear, just with their paint on slot that kind of led to them eventually running out of gas in that Minnesota series. So the Lakers have a strong foundation if two of the top ten players in the league. They were great offense for the second half of the year, devastating paint attack. They were second points in the paint per game, which is interesting because Lebron is the only player on the team that really drives to the rim. But it's a great example of how you don't need to drive to get paint attempts, like posting up is the way to get paint attempts. Rolling to the rim, cutting to the rim, offensive rebounding, those are all these different ways you can get rim attempts right now, the Lakers, it was mostly cutting, rolling, and posting, but they use those three things to get a lot of shots in the pain. But the Lakers have some major weaknesses, and there are three of them that I want to get into today. First of all, the starting lineup does not have a professional two way player next to Lebron and ad d Lo is incapable of filling an on ball defensive role, and he's mediocre at best off the ball, so he not a whole lot you can do with him defensively. Ruey is pretty much bad at everything on defense. He doesn't rebound well for a forward, which is disappointing because he's bigger and stronger. There are a lot of players at his position. Doesn't rebound well, he does not chase perimeter players around very well. And then if you need him to defend bigger players, he's not really good at, like actually using his strength defensively. Gives ground too easily instead of holding his ground and absorbing contact, which players will just go right at him and get a lot of and ones and stuff like that. Like Rui's just doesn't really know how to use his physical gifts on defense, yet I think he's a pretty bad defender at this point in his career. Austin is solid, he does his job, he competes, but he's currently slotted as their primary point of attack defender. He is guarding the other team's best guard every single night, and that's just not a smart way to use Austin, And that's the main reason why they couldn't get stops against Denver. They actually did a good job in the large sample that lineup. The starting lineup had a one to ten defensive rating in almost four hundred minutes in the regular season. That's a solid defensive rating. They defended Denver well statistically, they held him below one hundred and fourteen points per one hundred possessions. For against a team like Denver, you're holding a well below their typical offensive output. That's solid, but it was mostly fools gold in the large sample because ad was just cleaning up a lot of messes and helping keep the metrics down a little bit. And it's a reminder of why metrics in the large sample can only mean so much. Metrics in a large sample will help us understand some concepts, but at the end of the day, we have to look at what actually is going on on the floor to see where the specific matchup weaknesses are. And that's the thing is like whenever Denver needed to score, they were immediately able to comfortably get wherever they needed to get on the floor and get a good look. That's why they had that one to sixty three offensive rating against the Lakers in clutch situations. Even further, going beyond the Denver matchup, they always struggled against teams that had a lot of perimeter speed. So like the Warriors torched them one twenty six offensive rating in the regular season, the Pacers a one to twenty two offensive rating in the regular season, the Kings a one to twenty offensive rating in the regular season. All three of those teams combined to go eight to two against the Lakers. So teams that perimeter defense is like a prerequisite to be able to contain the ball, they really struggled with right so to put it nicely, like I just don't think the Lakers are good enough defensively right now to get to where they want to go, similar to Milwaukee right like Milwaukee right now is not good enough defensively to get where they want to go, which is to win four playoff rounds. So for both of those teams for the eight and nine in my power rankings list, and I would even extend that to ten with Phoenix. They they're not. They just at some point this season, either via trade or by in house development or just a certain young guy popping, they need substantial improvement in their defensive ability and versatility, meaning their matchup resilience. All three of those teams need to now. For the Lakers specifically, I think it's more so going to be via trade, but we will get more into that later. Second major weakness, can they withstand an injury to Anthony Davis? Lebron in the regular season is kind of inconsistent with his effort, so I think they can kind of live without him some nights. The skill guards, I'm not too worried about, Like as long as two of those three are available, Like if Austin's out but Dlo and Lebron are playing, or Lebron's out but Dlo and Austin are playing, Delos out but Austin and Lebron are playing, I feel like they've got a chance to score enough to win games. But as of right now, if Ad were to miss some time, they have like basically no shot of putting together even an average defense because they're so weak on the perimeter and they just don't have the interior kind of like backup centered guy that kind of mimics like I talked earlier about like roughly approximating, I don't mean an impact Christian KloCo would never in a million years be able to replace what AD does. But if you have a guy that is the rough approximation, then at least you can run the same scheme and at least hope to have a certain floor defensively. And Jackson Hayes and Christian Wood are just not those guys. And you know, we'll see you Christian Cloco, but he's a complete and total wild card at this point. So, like, I think it's more of a regular season issue. I don't think the backup center spot is as important for the playoff context, because if you're healthy and you're in the playoffs, AD's playing forty two minutes a night, and like I think if you had to play Jackson Hayes six minutes a night, I don't think that's gonna make or break your playoff hopes. But in the regular season if Anthony Davis has to miss a chunk of time. That's where I'm concerned about their lack of depth at the center position. Now, encouragingly, they have acknowledged as much in the last week that that's something they need to do. My guess is that if they ended up making a deal, it'd be more of like a combo deal, either like two deals or one deal with one team to bring back multiple players where they look to upgrade at starting spot and bring up a backup center. But we'll talk about some options there down the line. Their third, big, biggest weakness is there enough talent on the bench to carry the Lakers through eighty two games. Let's take the starters out for a second, because that's how the Lakers were winning. They were winning because they had this great starting lineup that was the driving force of the majority of their success. If you took a look at their depth chart after the starters, it's a little thin ball handling guards, guys that can run action. Gabe Vincent. He's a good player in Miami, but he was hurt all year last year, so he was a little bit of a wildcard, right. Jalen Hood Shafino. He didn't look like an NBA player last year. Those are the only two ball handling guards that they have off the bench off ball wings, so these are guys that are not necessarily going to run action, but can run action. But these are guys that are primarily looking to score off the ball and are like just kind of your typical off ball role players. Max Christy, I actually really like him as a three and D prospect, but this will be his first season in a real consistent role, so there's a little bit of a wild card there, right Dalton Connects, we talked about him earlier. Whether or not he can play, it comes down to the defensive end of the floor. That's a wild card. Cam Reddish, I don't think he's good enough to be a rotation player on a serious NBA team. I've never been a big Cam Reddish fan. Maxwell Lewis doesn't look like an NBA player right now. So in the off ball wing category, you've got Max Christy I think is an okay option. Dalton connect who knows Cam Reddish, Maxwell Lewis not good options in my opinion. At the forward spot. Jared Vanderbilt, who I really like, I actually am much higher on Vanderbilt than most, but he hasn't been available much since he got traded to the Lakers, so there's a question mark there, and that's it. There's not another bench forward. I mean, in theory, you could play Christian Wood as like a bench forward, but that's only in like specific matchups, and he brings his own issues. And then you have three backup centers. You have Jackson Hayes, Christian Wood, and Christian Coloco. So like, how many of those guys are reliable NBA rotation players. Just let's be optimistic. I think Max can. I think Max can guard bench guards and be a functional offensive player off the bench. I think Max is fine. I think Gabe is fine as a bench guard. Gab and Max two good options. Vando, when he's healthy, I think, is a solid bench rotation piece. I even think Vandal could start in place of Ruie. I would start him in place of Rui if Vanda was actually healthy. I think it gives more balance to that lineup. We'll talk more about that in a minute, but those are the only three. So I've got my five starters that are rock solid. I like that as a regular season unit. We could talk about their limitations in the playoffs we have, but I think if those five guys are healthy, I think they're going to stay afloat in the regular seat in and win enough games. And I have a prediction there that I'll talk about in a minute. But after that, I've got three ify next guys, right, Gabe, Max, and Van Doo for various reasons. Health for Gabe, health for vand oh youth for Max. But those are like my three best guys coming off the bench. And then I've got a lot of question marks. So a couple of specific things that would go a long way towards giving them a little bit more resilience are like, if Dalton Connect could prove himself to be a useful rotation player right away, that would be huge. Jalen Hood Shaffino if he could demonstrate why he was a first round pick to begin with, that would be huge. And then Christian KloCo, if he can give you a legitimate backup center that can be a defensive anchor. Those are three things that could that would go a long way towards swinging the Lakers bench talent, because then you look at it and it's like, if Dalton Connect can defend. If let's just say, let's say two of those three pop like Christian KloCo gives you a legitimate, defensive minded backup center that athletic and gives you a little bit of consistency there. And you have Dalton connect proved playable, and then Max Vando and gay Ball pan out. Then you've got ten good players. Now you've got something that you can work with. But there's definitely quite a bit of a swing factor at play in the Laker bench. There's a lot that could go either way there. Before we look a little bit more big picture, where can JJ Redick help this team? So I put down two specific things that I want to talk about. One regular season attention to detail. The Lakers were really good in big games against good teams last year, but they routinely dropped games against mediocre teams. They had specific bad stretches of basketball, like the I talked about in the large sample that stretch in late December early January where they went three and ten. They in the December January stretch, they lost to the Spurs, once, they lost to the Chicago Bulls, They lost to the Brooklyn Nets, they lost to the Utah Jazz, they just dropped a bunch of games to bad teams. But even within games, they had some bad habits, Like they had some bad stretches where they'd like let go of the rope for two or three minutes and just stop doing anything that they were supposed to do on both ends of the floor and then promptly blow a fifteen point lead or promptly go from a competitive game to now you're down by fifteen. This was especially bad at the end of quarters, where they would like end of the second or end of the first quarter, end of the third quarter, you would just see the Lakers being good spots and then they would just immediately drop a bunch of their advantage that they gained over the earlier portions of the game. That was an issue, and that was on darwn Ham. In my opinion, Darwin had a very relaxed, big picture attitude about everything. He let a lot of shit go throughout the season when he shoot it been holding guys more accountable, and so I think that we're going to see a sharper Lakers team and more disciplined Lakers team this year under JJ Redick. And then the second big piece is optimization of talent. I think JJ is going to bring some specific improvements on the offensive end in terms of spacing and shot diet. For spacing, Anthony Davis, I think is going to take more jump shots, JJ Reddick. This was actually one of the quotes from Media Day. Anthony Davis said that JJ wants him to take more jump shots. But those of you guys who remember the Zach Low interview, JJ actually said to Zachlow that he has a theory about why Anthony Davis hasn't shot the ball very well, and he said he would share it with Zach down the line if it works out. I think what JJ's referencing there as attempts, I think he just thinks that Anthony Davis doesn't take enough jump shots to be a good jump shooter. I tend to agree. I think Anthony Davis needs to take more jump shots to be in rhythm, and I think JJ forcing him to take more jump shots will go a long way. Two other things on the space in front three man action, JJ's a big believer in running action. Three man action is just instead of running a ball screen, have another element to the ball screen, for instance, a double drag where you have two guys set the ball screen one guy roll one guy pops, a ram screen where someone screens down for the big before he comes up to set the screen, so you get more separation between the screener and the screen defender before the action. Spain pick and roll where you have a shooter backscreen for the roller as he's rolling to the basket. These are all drubble handoff actions like Chicago action or just any any like pistol. Anything that's going to bring three players into an interchange makes it harder for the defense to guard at the beginning of a possession, right, especially teams that like to switch. It's just harder to switch a three man action than a two man action. But there's a third element to the spacing piece, which is off ball. Off ball screening and cutting was something that the Lakers did better laster than they have in years past, but something that they still have a good amount of area for improvement, specifically with shooters relow Oka, like they got good at baseline cuts with whichever screener was not involved, whether that was Ruey or it was Lebron or was a d that sort of thing. But even beyond that, just not having guys stand off the ball would go a long way towards making them harder to guard. So between Ad being more of a jump shooter, more three man action, more off ball screening and cutting, I think those things will go a long way to loosen things up for their spacing and then their shot diet, just a more deliberate process of hunting quality rim attempts and quality catch and shoot attempts. The Lakers were an excellent three point shooting team after the lineup change in late January because they got great looks. They got a ton of shots at the rim and then easy catch and shoot shots after that. But they were still twenty sixth in attempts overall three point attempts. So they could turn a few of these mid range shots, a few of like the d Lo mid ranges, a few of the Austin mid ranges, a few of the Lebron and Ad mid ranges into rim attempts and quality catch and shoot looks that could just help an already good offense get a little better, Just squeeze a little bit more out of that sponge, if that makes sense. So everything for the Lakers and their ultimate potential, though, will come down to whether or not they hit on a mid season trade. In my opinion, I think they're actually going to be fine in the regular season if they stay healthy. Here's my big prediction for the Lakers. If Lebron and ad are both healthy again, meaning if they both play seventy plus games, I think the Lakers are gonna win fifty plus games. I'm a big believer in the starting lineup. Their offense is legit. It's low on variance, Like they attempt a ton of shots in the paint, and they attempt quality threes off of that, so they don't take like a ton of really difficult jump shots that can wildly oscillate back and forth in efficiency. The Lakers shot forty percent from three after the lineup change. How's the second best mark in the league over that span, while being the second best paint offense. I think that their paint attack and the way they play off of that is really reliable. I trust their offer. There's a basic stat to put that together for you guys. After January twenty first, when they made the lineup change, the Lakers attempted thirty two point five threes per game. Twenty eight point seven of them were classified as either open or wide open by NBA dot Com. They get great looks. That's why they shoot a high percentage, and it's because they're paint to great. They're paint first into an outside attack from there, and I think you're gonna even turn more of those mid range attempts into more threes. I think they're going to be a very efficient offense this year. Now, their offense does have some specific weaknesses because they don't have a lot of dribble penetration teams that do a lot of switching, like the Clippers, for instance, they have a tendency to cause the Lakers offense to bog down. Even in the wins the Lakers had against the Clippers last year, they were ugly for the large portion of the game as their offense looked a little stilted because of the switching. The way they have to attack switching is through Lebron and Ad leveraging their physical gifts, which they can be a little passive sometimes. Right. So, like they have some specific offensive weaknesses, but in the large sample, as long as they're healthy, I think their offense will carry them. I also think JJ will do a much better job of getting the most out of the Lakers as a regular season team, avoiding the self inflicted wounds that Darvin Ham did to the team last year. Better game to game preparation and game planning, better exploitation of margins that help you win. Those are the kinds of things that I think JJ is going to get out of this team. So again, if Lebron and Ady both play seventy plus games, I think the Lakers are gonna win over fifty and be a team that is firmly above the plan. That's my kind of prediction. Obviously, if everyone gets hurt, it's a different story. But I do believe in that starting lineup, and I think they're gonna be fine that set. Even if they do both play seventy plus games and let's say they go fifty two to thirty, I still think they can't win four playoff rounds unless they properly balance the starting lineup. I think the key is turning one of ruiy Ordll into a rock solid two way starter. I don't think it needs to be a star. I've gone back and forth with this over the past year. There are times in the regular season where I'm like, man, they could use just enough a really high level offensive player to just kind of make things easier for them. But Lebron and Ad just came on so strong at the end of the year, including the playoff run. We're like, I don't feel that way anymore. I think Lebron and a D are more than good enough right now to anchor a championship team. If you look at that Denver series, they didn't lose because Lebron and a D. I have actually said this before. I think Lebron and Ad played Yo Kitchen Murray to a draw, if not even slightly outplayed. Then they lost that series because Ruby got his lunch eaten by Michael Porter Junior and d lo is terrible. It was down the roster, guys like Michael Porter Junior, Contavious Cabo Pope, Aaron Gordon like. Down the roster was where the Lakers got beat. Lebron and AD stepped toe to toe with Yo Kitchen Murray and gave them the business. They got it back, but they they were they were going toe to toe with the duo that won the title last year. It was down the roster where they had those issues. And specifically it's about redundancy. D lo and on are redundant. Lebron and Ruie are redundant. That means there are responsibilities on the floor that go unfulfilled or go fulfilled by people that are not qualified for it. And then there are like there's too much of some things that you already have enough of, right, So, and the Lakers I think are well set up for a trade. They have two first round picks that they can use, and those are valuable first round picks because the Lakers are a dumpster fire organizationally, and so when Lebron retires, you can pretty much bet on them being bad for a while, right And so, Like, if they've got two first round picks that are desired around the league, and they've got mid level salaries to use, they've got lots of guys like Gabe and Van Dooh and Austin and Dilo and Rui that are all on these like mid level contracts between ten and twenty million. They're set up to be able to make a trade. So, now let's imagine what that looks like from the standpoint of the starter upgrade. And there's lots of examples. I've talked about Bruce Brown a lot. It really just needs to be a very athletic player that can guard the ball, rebound, and be a functioning cop in the five out attacks. Just a functioning cock doesn't need to be a high level offensive player. As a matter of fact, Like the Lakers have enough offensive talent and they started That's what I mean in their starting lineup. That's what I mean by the redundancy. They need somebody that kind of balances things a little bit. A couple other guys I'd look at. Jeremy Grant. I'm actually higher on than most Laker fans. I know that people have some concerns about him playing some losing basketball in Portland and how well he fits next to Lebron and AD. I think he can help on offense. I think he is a better athlete than Ruie, and I love the idea of leveraging Jeremy's athleticism next to Lebron and AD. A couple other guys though, that I'd look out for, Like what if the Clippers season goes south and you go after a guy like Terrence Mann, Like what if James Harden gets hurt, Kwi Leonard gets hurt, Clippers are just bad, Clippers decide they want to rebuild. Terrence Man is twenty seven years old and is not a star, so like he's at that point an asset that the Clippers could look to move. I think Terrence Mann would be a beautiful fit next to Austin Reeves. You can imagine Austin and Terrence and Ad is like a nice little core to kind of like look at the post Lebron era with not to mention he could help you in the short term as a potential ceiling raising move. Another guy like that if the Warriors season goes south. I like a guy like Andrew Wiggins at the three next to Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Once again that can guard the other team's best player and kind of layers athleticism on top of what Lebron and Ad bring to the table. I don't think that would happen unless the Warriors went south. But those are a couple of different things that you could keep an eye on. There are lower level moves you can look at too, like I wouldn't be surprised if a team like Minnesota decides that they want to offload one of their guards. I wouldn't now that they've brought in Dante DiVincenzo and they have Nikhil Alexander Walker already as kind of like a backup guard a team like Orlando, now that they've brought in KCP, what about a guy like Gary Harris, just like an athletic, like just a rock solid type of role player guard I think would go a long way towards helping at the two or the similar version at the three, though, regardless of what that player is, and those are a bunch of example. Let's just take Bruce Brown for example. Let's pretend that the Lakers make a deal for Bruce, and I can't remember the exact functionality of the deal, it'd be like it'd be like d Loo and Jalen hoods Chafino and like Cam Reddish and like a first or something like that. Let's say you make that deal from there. Now, let's pretend it's Austin Bruce and then ruy lebron Ad. Now I can put Bruce on the other team's best offensive player. Now Austin is guarding the other team's second best offensive player. Now overall, I took the worst athlete in the lineup, de Lo, and I put him the third best athlete in the lineup, a guy who's firmly a better athlete than Ruy and Austin. Right now, I'm bigger, I'm stronger, I'm more athletic. In the backcourt, I'm tiered better in terms of my point of attack assignments. Bruce is a seamless fit offensively as like a screener and roller, a guy that can kind of do a lot of the similar stuff that Alex Cruso did with the lebron A D front court back in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty Like, I like that sort of fit. Now, all of a sudden, I'm infinitely more imposing physically, I'm infinitely more balanced. Again, Like a lot of people talk about, like how is it that this trade could move the needle or that trade can move the needle. It all depends on what the team needs. If you have a gaping hole in a specific skill set and you feel that you're going to experience a dramatic return, if you have a small hole that you try to fit a big player into, you experience diminishing returns. For instance, Bradley Beal with the Phoenix Suns, the Sons are not benefiting from a lot of what Bradley Beal brings because they don't really need a lot of what Bradley Beal brings they need more of, like what a contavious cobb of Pope brings to the table. Right. That's kind of my point is, like, if you were to pick up and put Bradley be on a team that desperately needs guard play but is loaded in the front court, all of a sudden, he brings a lot more value. But it's all about what your roster needs. The Lakers have tons of offensive talent in a championship level front court. What they need is a specific type of athlete at the two or the three that can do the kinds of things that they were not getting from d Lo and Rui, which is quality defense on the opposing team's best perimeter player and defensive rebounding athleticism that just winning more of those physical battles that they had been losing over the previous years. That's why I'm such a big believer in that if you don't make a trade. So let's say, if you're like a Lakers fan and you're like, hey, Jason, we've heard Rob Polinka talk about how he doesn't want to make a trade unless it woul lead to sustain success. Let's say the Lakers are having a solid season where they're in the fourth or fifth seed, but the Lakers ownership in front office, they're just like, we're not going to invest in this group. We're gonna just hoard all these assets for the future. Okay, if that's the case, is there's still a pathway for the Lakers to get to four round wins to getting to the trophy. I think it's a very very very tiny path, but it would look different for starters. I still think you need balance in that starting lineup, so Jared Vanderbilt would have to get healthy and take Ruey starting spot. That would be And again, Jared, the defensive end is easy. We've seen what Jared looks like guarding the other team's best player next to Anthony Davis in that front line. It looks awesome. They look great. Jared is great on the defensive end, like I think he's in that like fringe, first tier, second tier perimeter defenders in the league. Jared Vanderbilt's awesome on the ball, but on the offensive end he can be a nightmare. However, there's a tiny little pathway here in what the Lakers kind of got out of Jared Vanderbilt. Towards the tail end of the season last year before he got hurt, and Jared Vanderbilt's last eight games before he got hurt last year, he averaged eleven points per game on sixty six percent shooting. And it was just a totally different role than what we saw the year prior. The year prior, they were running four out, one in setup, spread, pick and roll, go stick Jared Vanderbilt in the opposite corner, and he's just shooting a three or crashing the offensive glass. That's all he was doing. And he couldn't make the threes a high enough clip or even be guarded really when he was over there, right, So like kind of a JANKI fit for him offensively in the Lakers' five out attack, he was running dribble handoffs and rolling and cutting the basket, and he was scoring and scoring effectively there. So, like, if they can replicate that in a large sample size, if Jared Vanderbilt comes into training camp and he gets healthy and he takes Rue's starting spot and he guards the other team's best player every night, and he plays seventy plus games and he becomes a functioning dribble handoff, cutting offensive rebounding kind of like offensive player within that unit. That would go a long way towards giving them a chance. But I think if Jared's gonna be in the starting lineup, I think in order for the Lakers to be a championship team, ad would have to rise to the level of the top your superstars by becoming the type of jump shooter that he was in the past. That's a long shot because we haven't seen it since twenty twenty. But like, if you're telling me, Jason, give me some hope, Jason, the Lakers aren't going to make a trade. I don't believe in Rob, I don't believe in Geenie. Give me some hope that the Lakers are going to get this done this year. It would come down to building a starting lineup that has more two way balance within the roster. That's going to require Jared Vanderbilt becoming healthy, getting his way into that lineup, and being the versatile two way player that they kind of got little bits and pieces of towards the tail end of the year last year. And then Anthony Davis just needs to become one of the top tier offensive players in the league by building up a jump shot long shot, So I think the best chance for the Lakers is to hit on a mid season trade. So, in summary, I think the Lakers are one of the most underrated teams in the league. Last year, they were really good for the most part of the season, with exception of a month that spanned from December and January. It is what it is. Laker fans just kind of got to get used to a lot of people underrating them on those grounds they were clawing up from the plan. So like anybody who's not really watching them closely is gonna use that as an excuse to think they're bad. Obviously, we know those of us who watched Lakers close last year, we know we know they were good all year. They had this one bad stretch. It is what it is. They have to prove it again this year, though. That's it. I do think that they're underrated. I think that if they are healthy that they are going to perform well. As I said, if Lebron and Ad are healthy for seventy plus games, I think they're gonna win fifty plus games and stay out of the plan. It's mostly about their stars. The Lakers top three is really good. Lebron and Ad were amazing last year. Austin Reeves is a rock solid championship level starter in my opinion, But like everyone else in this tier, they've got to address some things. They've got to have some things go right for them to win four playoff rounds. For the Lakers, it's about improved play at the two or the three, either in house or via trip. All right, that's all I have for the Lakers. Let's move on to our mail bag. First question, Jason, I'm a very sad Timberwolves fan after finding out we traded Cat. I'm trying to find the positives. Is it freeing up cap space? Apparently Dante and Randall have big contracts, so we're at a net worse off than before, or it could be something else. With no Cat, we were less equipped to take down Yokicchen the Nuggets. I need some help to cope. So here's the thing. I don't know how any Timberwolves fan would feel good about this deal in the short term, and the main reason why is like, if you go on a Western Conference finals run and you've got a star who's twenty two years old, or however, I think Aunt's only twenty two aunts young, but got a young star like Aunt that's on his way up, run it back, run it back and try it again and see what you can get done. That's what any team would do, right, So there's no doubt that like throwing a giant wrench in things. Because here's the thing. Even if you're of the opinion that Dante Devincenzo makes you better and Julius Randall's is just a better player than cat, even if you think that it's theoretical, we haven't seen it. And so like you take a team that made it to the Western Conference finals and you don't give them a chance to run it back, that's obviously frustrating. But there's a different way to look at it, and it's through the lens of the long term. Right, So, because Karl Anthony Towns had so much money left on his deal, because Julius Randall's a free agent after the season, because Rudy Gobert has a player option after the season, and who knows, maybe you can work out a longer term, more team friendly deal after that. Will see what ends up happening. But you go instantaneously into a much more flexible cap situation. I was a huge price to pay there and the price is now all of a sudden, there's major question mark over this season, right, is this Julius Randall fit gonna work like? And look here's the thing. I've slept on it a few days now. I'd be lying to you guys if I didn't say I hated to Fit. I love Anthony Edwards. He's probably my favorite player in the league of this generation. Right like when the Lebron's Steph crew All retires an It's probably gonna be my favorite player. It'll be a different type of thing, and it won't be the type of emotional attachment I had to Lebron because I became a fan of his when I was a kid. But like Ant's gonna be my favorite player, I'm rooting for him. I want him to succeed. I think his best trait is that he's the best driver of the basketball in the NBA right now. And so I hate the idea of putting him next to Jaden McDaniels, Julius Randall, and Rudy Gobert. I think that's a three four five that is a disaster for spacing whenever Ant has the ball. So like, I'd be lying if I told you guys. I like the fit. That's it. There is upside. Dante DiVincenzo is a really good player that I think minnesot Or two roles fans are gonna love. And Julius Randall, when healthy and in rhythm, I think is a better shot creator than Karl Anthony Towns, which is a nice number two option to put next to hand. So there's upside, but there's risk. And so the way that I would look at it is Tim Conley basically is telling you that he wants to sacrifice a little bit of the right now, sure thing element that we saw from last year's Minnesota Timberwowls team and replace it with some long term flexibility while also maintaining some of the upside within this season. And that's the thing, because like, here's the deal. Let's say you run it back and you lose in the Western Conference finals again, and then you're in cap hell for a few years and there's not much flexibility for you to do anything, Versus maybe it goes south with the Julius Randall fit and you lose in the first round, but you have more ability to surround an with talent later. And again, this is where we have to kind of look at NBA history. NBA history tells us that even the all time greats, they don't really start to kind of figure things out at a championship level until twenty six, twenty seven years old, right, So it is more important for you to be flexible at that point. That said, I don't see any universe where in the short term. It's not annoying because again, you just went to the Western Conference Finals, you lost close games to Dallas and is just rapidly ascending. The defense was frightening, it was how you beat Denver. Karl Anthony Towns was a huge part of how you beat Denver. There's always going to be that part of me, and I'm sure lots of you Wolves fans that are like, why the hell didn't we run this thing back? But I think I just view it as a long term kind of attempts to try to maintain some of that flexibility. Like we talked about, I wanted to spend a little bit of a follow up talking about the Knicks just after thinking about that a little bit more. How do you put together a lineup without Dante Devencenzo and with Karl Anthony Towns on the floor with Mitchell Robinson kind of like out of the equation for now, but potentially rejoining the equation. There's a couple different options that they could go with. I talked about duce McBride in the show that we did on the actual night of another way to look at it would be Josh Hart potentially playing at the two. I don't like him at the point of attack as much as duce McBride. You could also kind of like kind of flip that and kind of have McHale Bridges functionally operate as your two guarding the other team's best guard, and then have Josh Hart function more as a three. You could also size up, like you could go with Precious to chew at the four and put him next to Kat with og and McHale Bridges, now you're just huge and rangey and athletic. There's I think that there's even a version of this when Mitchell Robinson comes back, where you just go big. There's been a lot of like people talking about like, oh, Kat as the rim protector, this isn't going to be enough, blah blah blah blah, and it's like if you're good enough on the perimeter, I think that's not as big of a deal. But the other element of it, too, is what if you had a big look, like what if you went with Karl Anthony Towns at the four, Mitchell Robinson at the five kind of like what Minnesota was using him as and you have this massive look, and look, there are gonna be lineups or matchups where you need more perimeter speed and that doesn't work. But like, I'm a big believer in championship teams need to have multiple looks. You need to have versatility. You need to be able to play a two big lineup, you need to be able to play a three guard lineup. You need to be able to have different looks that you can go to depending on what the game calls for. And so like, as far as the Knicks go, like to me, having Karl Anthony Towns at the four the five, there are good problems to have because of all of the upside that Kat brings at a position group where you were originally very thin. But again, there's a bunch of different looks that they can go with. But those are just some examples. All right, let's look at I've got two more questions for you, guys. I got a, a Bucks one, and then a Celtics Jason Tatum question, Dude, if you drop the Bucks in the West, they would be the fourth best team and it wouldn't be close. The West is overrated. The MAVs got destroyed in the finals, and they took care of the now weakened Wolves. Other than those teams, the Nuggets and the Thunder are okay. Blazer, Spurs, Warriors, Lakers, Clippers, Rockets, Pelicans are all terrible, zero chance. I got a lot of Bucks fans in our last video that really want them to be referred to and respected as like a top tier championship contender. Guys, the Bucks won forty nine games last year in the East, with Damon Giannis both playing seventy three games. Like, I can't, in good conscience on a couple of veteran minimum signings bump up a forty nine win team to like top tier championship contender. And as far as the West East thing, I've said this before, but the West was six hundred and fifty in five eighty versus the East head to head last year. They were seventy games over five hundred head to head against the East. The West was so much better than the East. It was not close. I don't even know how that's argued at this point. Like uh, and again, like the Bucks played in the substantially easier conference where you got to play legitimately terrible teams three and four times in the season and won two more games than the Lakers. They were with Damion Giannis both playing in seventy three games. Like I'm a believer in the Bucks upside. I think they have potential to enter into the top tier contender tier if a bunch of things go right for them this season. But in my opinion, it's irrational to look at what we saw last year and think that they're one of those top teams in the league. It's just I'm I'm rooting for it. I want Dame to have a big bounce back year. I want Giannis to play like an MVP. I want Delon Wright to pan out. I want Gary Trent Junior to pan out. I want Torrian Prince is a good player. I think Bucks fans are gonna like him. There's a lot of upside there, but it's upside. It's theoretical. The reality is is Damianis played seventy three games last year and he won forty nine games in a very weak conference. So like, that's why right now the Bucks are just like the Lakers, just like the Suns, just like everyone else. There's potential, there's a lot of good that could happen, but it hasn't really materialized to this point. That's what this kind of group of teams is, if that makes sense. Last question and we'll get out of here for the night. What criteria do you believe Jason Tatum has to meet to be the MVP? In recent years, they've shown that being the best player on the best team is not enough, and I personally believe that his highest value is in versatility. With that being said, he's most likely not going to average thirty five like Luca Embiid. So what type of season do you foresee him needing to attain that award? That's what you would have to do. I mean, the thing is is like whenever you are like, there's like three different criteria that I've always used for my kind of interpretation of MVP, and I think it kind of loosely follows the way most media members look at it. But it's like, who's the best player in the league, Who's the best player on the best team in the league, and then like who's the most valuable, like who's specifically like writhing the engine, so to speak. And the problem is is like Tatum's gonna get hurt in two of those categories, Like nobody thinks he's on the tier of the top best players in the league, and nobody thinks he's specifically driving the Celtics bus because of how much talent they have. So like, in order for him to win the court of public opinion in terms of like winning over the voters, I shouldn't even say public opinion, media opinion. I think it would require him having a dominant season. He would need to look like one of the best players in the world while he's playing in the games. Then the Celtics would have to win over sixty five games. At that point, I think there would come a point where people would be like, this is unniable. This guy's playing like one of the best players in the league. This is the best team in the league. But the thing is is Jason Tatum more or less plays like a second tier superstar most of the time, and that sort of thing on a dominant team is just not going to win MVP votes. And so like, it is what it is. But like, if it was purely just who's the best player on the best team, you're right, he'd be in the I've received, But this is not how it works. And so like, if Tatum goes out this year and he just crushes from start to finish and hits a bunch of clutch shots and averages thirty two, ten and six and just kicks everyone's ass all year, I think there's a good chance that he wins MVP. But it's just that's kind of unrealistic, even within the scope of what the Celtics are trying to accomplish. They're very talented, They've got a ton of good players. They don't need Tatum to average thirty two and so the best. Here's the thing I've encountered a lot of This is the last thing I'll say about it. I've encountered a lot of this from Celtics fans, and I want to be clear, Like, I know that there's a large portion of you guys who are Celtics fans, who are reasonable and realistic and understand what's going on, But there's a lot of like complaining from Celtics fans about how much credit they're getting. How well regarded that team is how people view Jason Tatum in the hierarchy of the league, And it's like, here's the thing. Who cares what anybody else thinks. The best thing for Tatum and the Celtics to do is to go whoop everyone's ass and just rack up the accolades, just keep winning, keep stacking the chips, and then eventually everyone will have no choice but to acknowledge your greatness. Like, at the end of the day, if you're worried that I think Tatum is the seventh best player in the league and you think he's the third, who gives a shit what? I think Tatum needs to go out there and win games, and if he does, he's gonna keep getting trophies. And is he keeps stacking up the trophies, it becomes undeniable, right, Like all of this stuff is just semantics at a certain point, this is just debate, and so like, that's the thing. I understand how you Celtics fans feel. You want Jason Tatum to get the credit that he deserves. You want everyone to acknowledge that team for what they accomplished. But at the end of the day. Tatum's not going to get an MVP. It's very, very unlikely. So what's the best he can do. Go kick everyone's ass and get another lari O'Brian trophy and just stack him up, just stack him up again. Like there's the same thing happened to the Warriors with twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, like no one was given them a ton of credit because of how much talent they had, and it was a lot of talk about Katie joining the super Team and all that kind of stuff. But you know what, you just rack up the titles and then you look back and it's like, well they have four of them now, you know what I mean. So, like at the end of the day, like if the Celtics are concerned about the what kind of media like acceptance they're getting, just focus on the ultimate goal and then at a certain point, no one will be able to deny how good you are. All right, guys, That is all I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We'll be back on Wednesday with another team as well as some another season preview, as well as some media day reaction. I will see you guys, then the volume. What's Up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.