Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Are People Underestimating the Lakers After Free Agency?

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

On Thursday's program, we talked about ESPN's (very, very early) Power Rankings, which had the Lakers at 10, which translates to 7th in the conference. Not exactly outrageous, but are there reasons to believe that broadly the Lakers are being underestimated? Keep in mind, the Lakers made a massive improvement at center (Deandre Ayton), gained some defensive capability in the backcourt (Marcus Smart), replaced at least some of the shooting that they lost with Dorian Finney-Smith going to Houston (Jake LaRavia) and added a little athleticism to the development program (Adou Thiero) without sacrificing any of their trade assets and only one rotation player (DFS). But mostly, are people just kinda forgetting how good Luka is when he's at his best? Last season was his first missing out on the All-NBA First Team. And if you get high-end Luka combined with the LeBron James that finished 6th in MVP voting, does that put LA's star power at a level other teams can't quite compete with? How much does that sort of star power matter in this NBA? Meanwhile, James posted another provocative Insta pic on Thursday... is this one real trolling or NBD?  HOSTS: Andy and Brian KamenetzkySEGMENT 1: Are the Lakers being undersold?  SEGMENT 2: Are people forgetting how good Luka is? SEGMENT 3: Another Instagram Pic from LeBron! Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYTime to fuel up and turn it up with 5-hour ENERGY®️ Transfusion! Go to https://5hourenergy.com today and use my promo code LOCKEDONGOLF to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first yearGametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone, welcome to Lockdown Lakers for Friday. Brian Komenesky, Andy Kemenesky, free agency is more or less over. Are the Lakers being underestimated? That is next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Lockedon Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers first listen to every day, Monday,

through Friday, no matter how where you get your podcast, this one's always free. It's never going to be behind. to paywall. Locked on Lakers on YouTube, of course, is where over 36,000 subscribers are not just satisfied, Andy, with merely subscribing on Spotify or Apple podcasts and getting it the show that way. They are also subscribers on YouTube to the YouTube channel. They're talking to each other. They're talking to us, and they are leaving questions and comments and all kinds of stuff. So we do appreciate everyone, no matter how you connect to the show. let everybody know that today's episode is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app,

create an account. Use the code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. LeBron James is once again leaving provocative photos on Instagram. This one got a lot of Lakers fans wild up on Thursday, but should it have, we will tell you that in a moment. But I wanted to start here because we spent a lot of time, Andy, on Thursday show talking about ESPNs extremely early power rankings for the NBA and the Lakers were 10th on this list. You know, so... 10th overall. And then, right, like I was going to say,

seventh, if you take out the Eastern Conference teams, the Lakers were seventh in the, would have been equivalent to seventh in the West. So we talked about that and whether or not that was fair, unfair, whatever. and both of us since then, you with Yovam Buha and then doing some work on Spectrum Sportsnet, the Lakers TV station. I was on 710 ESPN on Thursday afternoon,

which is the Lakers flagship radio station, and this came up there. It was, you know, I wonder if, you know, there's a theme here that, you know, maybe that the Lakers are being, a little bit underestimated based on what they've done through the end of free agency. I'm curious what you think and then I'll communicate one of the arguments that was made to me. Underestimated isn't necessarily the word that I would use just because like I said before, I think when we talked about this for Thursday show, I talked about this with Yovan on Buhaz Block,

which everybody else should also be listening to as well once you've listened to us obviously first. but, and, you know, make a locked on podcast your second listen, but there's plenty of time make Boo Haas Block your third listen. But if nothing else. And then go get a job. Well, or if nothing else, make the episode of Boo Haas Block with me on it, your third episode. And you know what?

I bet from there you're going to get it hooked on Yoban because he does a really good job. And he is obviously a friend of this show. But we went through tears. And that's the way we kind of laid out. the Western Conference. And I, in a way that I think sort of demonstrated how close I think a lot of the West is going to be, I had OKC as Tier 1 by themselves out of respect for them being the defending champs and having pretty much boat race the entire NBA last year. And then I had Houston as my tier 2.0, then Denver is my tier 2.1. Then the Lakers.

I think it was like the Lakers, Timberwolves, Clippers, and Warriors as tier 2.2. Then like a couple more teams as like tier 2.5. And then I eventually reached Phoenix. They were their own tier that I just called hell because it just seems like the Suns is just a hellish experience. But the point being, I don't think there is a ton of difference, like tons of tangible difference. between most of the playoff teams in the Western Conference, I think a lot of them, frankly, are going to be dependent on injury luck.

There's going to obviously be how well do the pieces work together. Several of the prominent teams have new pieces ranging from Kevin Durant to Bradley Beale to Cam Johnson to the case of the Lakers, D'Andre 8 and Marcus Smart. Like down the line, you know, eventually the Warriors may add a new peace to their team or just do something. Like there's a lot of new stuff going on and that stuff's going to matter. But I think a lot of this is going to come down to how healthy does your team stay? And nobody can predict it.

And most of these teams, I think, have injury concerns that could derail them. But the truth is, I think most of these teams are fairly equal. So in that sense, I don't, unless you just say you don't think. think the Lakers are going to make the playoffs or like make the play in. Underestimated isn't necessarily the word I would use because I think most of these teams are pretty equal and therefore the rankings are kind of arbitrary. Well, I definitely agree that they're arbitrary. Here's maybe a better way to ask what I'm asking is that let's assume and it's not

going to work this way. In practice, it never does. But let's just assume everyone's roster. stays intact and you're just judging based on like sort of what is everybody's top end. I was talking to Mike Trudeau, who people know Lakers reporter and, you know, just did great work on Spectrum, sideline reporter for the Lakers broadcast and he's on 710. He's, you know, he don't think he's do. He's not doing a Laker film room anymore, but like he, you know, he was on that show for a long time.

Like just knows a lot about what's going on with the team. He made an argument we were talking about this today. that the one thing, it's not a skinny Luca question. It's a sort of healthy Luca question. Like we may be underestimating as a Royal Basketball public, a little bit of recency bias, how good Luca is when he is right, because last year he wasn't. Last year was the first year, other than I think his rookie season,

but he was not a first team all-NBA performance. And he didn't deserve to be. It's not only he deserved to be on that, even if he had played enough games. It still wasn't that. It wasn't good enough. And all of that. But in years past, there's a reason why he was discussed as a top, not top 10 player, not a top five player, but oftentimes top three player.

And so what the Lakers have that other teams don't is a bona fide top three guy, top five guy, plus another second team all NBA player in LeBron. Now, questions as to whether or not he's going to stay that way, all that stuff, totally legitimate. So you take that core and you add to that a viable center, a filling of that hole and defensive hole in the back court with Marcus Smart and, you know, a pretty good, a decent of approximation of at least some of DFS's skill set in Jake LaRavia. And Mike's point was that, you know, the Lakers might be their sort of top end, if all go, you know, all is right, everybody's healthy and whatever, maybe being underestimated just because of the, the support behind star power that other teams may not have in terms of two of those guys.

And I forgot Austin Reeves, by the way, as a all-star adjacent level player. I'm not an All-Star but close. And what that really got me thinking, Andy, was kind of like, are we still in an era in the NBA where that kind of star power matters as much as it did before? Because it kind of used to be, if you had a top three guy, you were almost automatically at a certain seed. If you had two of those guys, you were, you know, potentially even better than that. But I don't know if that's the league that we live in anymore. And that to me is what was

really interesting about the discussion. Well, based on the current champion, I'd say it's still the league because Shea is, I think, considered at worst, the consensus second best player in the league. And Jalen Williams is starting to close in on could be top 10 status. Jalen Williams, I think at worst, is a top 10 to 20 player. I mean, he has played at that level consistently all season. He's one of the best two-way rising stars in the league. So if you're basing things on recency and two-way star play, you know, Boston Celtics had Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, pretty damn good duo. She backed up by a lot of sort of that just beneath all-star caliber. And then OKC has Shea Gilges Alexander, reigning MVP, reigning finals,

MVP with Jalen Williams and backed up by a lot of stuff that includes Chet Holmgram, who a lot of people think in not very short, very long time will surpass Jalen Williams. And whether that proves correct or not, it just goes to show how good their foundation is. So by the way, this is why I'm not. None of this stuff that I say is really to put the Lakers on a tier of a Oklahoma City, but kind of looking at the rest, where they kind of are seen among the rest of the conference. I'm just saying if you're asking, if you're asking to whether or not this should

be judged through the prism of top duos, I would say the last couple champions in the NBA shows that star duo is a pretty good way of framing this. All right. So we'll dig a little bit more on this. And then we will show you, Andy, the provocative photo that LeBron James put up on the Insta on Thursday, and we will tell you whether or not this is something that you need to make a big deal out of. And we'll do all of that stuff next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by game time. Have you ever decided the last minute to head to a ballgame with some friends or family?

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Download the GameTime app, create an account, use the code locked on NBA for $20 bucks off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the code L-O-C-E-D-O-N-N-B-A-4. 20 bucks off. Download the GameTime app today. Last-minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. So, yeah, like I was saying, Andy, like I just, I thought two things in,

in this conversation with Mike. And like the biggest one is just this. It seems kind of crazy to think about it. But you know, you're kind of forgetting how is it easy to forget after a guy has a down year? How good someone like Luca is? I think that's happened before I, for example,

with like Kevin Durant comes off an injury season, whatever. And it's like, oh, right. It turns out he's really good. Like I know he's old. I know he's whatever. He's really good.

I think it's happened with LeBron. Like, oh, I guess he's still good. And like, we, there is so much talent now in the league. And I think there is often an urge to kind of turn the page on guys or, you know, find the next thing, the next, you know, anoint the next person that it can't. Sometimes I think we move on a little quickly. I don't think necessarily we've done that with Luca, but I do think the version that,

If the Lakers get the version of Luca that Dallas got two years ago, that's fundamentally something that I think changes their upside in a way that I'm not totally sure is being factored in to how people perceive the team. It's such a bad end to the year that people don't like DeAndre Aiton, but they're also not thinking about comparing DeAndre Aiton to what the Lakers played the playoffs with. You know, they worry about Marcus Smart, but they don't understand. necessarily that Marcus Smart, even if he's not the DPOY from three years ago, still represents a big upgrade to what the Lakers are able to do in their defensive backcourt. Like, this is better than what they had for a team that was still pretty good,

both down the stretch and heading into the playoffs. I don't think the issue is so much that people are underestimating Luca or other than wondering, okay, is this a year where finally age really catches up to LeBron in ways that become less tenable? Like I've said before, I think the age shows with LeBron and the biggest way is he doesn't make this look easy anymore. He's still playing at a high level, but you feel the work and the sweat and the effort in ways that you didn't when LeBron was in his prime. But I think everybody still acknowledges he's playing at a high level. He made second team all NBA that requires voting. the same people that make these rankings are the people that voted LeBron's second team all NBA.

So there's clearly acknowledgement that he's still a good player. What I think, I think more of the doubting with the Lakers comes from, as you said, questions about D'Andre Aiton and whether he'll find the proper motivation, things like that, or the questions about Marcus Smart's fit. And while you and I both agree he is a good addition, I think he will help provide some of the stuff that's been missing, particularly in the starting lineup. if he starts the way both of us think that he should, he still is not the perfect fit to address some of the things that they're missing.

Yeah. But what I do think happens with the Lakers, and I've talked about this before in the past, in terms of the way they get prognosticated either before the season begins, during the season, even sometimes heading into the playoffs, I think there can be a tendency to pick apart the question marks with the Lakers. However legitimate, those questions. question marks can be. And there are question marks. I think you and I spend time examining. But the

question marks for the other teams don't necessarily get the same scrutiny. Like, for example, Denver, when they made the trade for Jim Johnson, that has been universally celebrated. And I get it. I think Cam Johnson can be a good fit in certain ways. I think he does things that you weren't getting for Michael Porter Jr. But it's getting, I think, very universally overlooked. Cam Johnson's been hurt more than Michael Porter Jr. over the last few years. Cam Johnson has not really been a small forward wing defender for a few years on a consistent. Like when people are like, oh, he's a lockdown guy on the wing and he can hit three pointers. I agree with you. Bruce Brown, yeah, it's cool that he's coming back to a team that he won a championship with and that guy was really

useful. Bruce Brown has not been that guy for a couple years. Like, I, I've heard him described a lot as a bargain as a veteran minimum guy. The truth is the last couple of years, he's performed like a veteran's minimum guy. He had some moments last year, but I agree with you broadly. He has not been performing like a bargain at that price. He's been performing like a veteran's minimum guy, which isn't to say he can't be useful,

but I think Bruce Brown joining the Lakers would automatically invite more scrutiny than just about any other team, and I've talked about this before, I think this comes a lot from media not wanting to ever look like they are hyping the Lakers and getting on the Lakers and trying to use the Lakers to generate excitement. You will often hear different podcasts where hosts spend 10 to 15 minutes talking about why they don't want to talk about the Lakers. You know what I mean? And like this is a thing that has.

And because of that, I think it leads to a lot of times people in our space using a lot of either caution or scrutiny or skepticism that can reasonably be applied to the Lakers that just doesn't get applied at the same level of scale to other teams. Yeah, it's almost as if like it's not the people don't ask the questions, but the assumption with other teams is often that the questions, the questions will tilt positively. Whereas the Lakers, it's going to tilt negatively. Yes. And reality is we just don't know. Like, you know, all of these teams are not all, but, you know, many of these teams are one big injury. You know, a couple of these, you know, from being, you know, wrong place, wrong time,

all of a sudden, you know, even the funder would be somewhat susceptible that, although they showed last year at the very least they can play without chat for stretches and things like that. They're really good. It's just trying to, because you and I don't like to be homers. We try to be fair. And certainly when you cover. I made it really clear. I'm a big Laker fan, IRL.

Like, I truly care about them winning and losing. And I get pissed off when they don't win. And I get excited when they win championships. Like this stuff genuinely, means a lot to me, but I don't think it affects our coverage and certainly it doesn't lead to dishonesty or homerism in ways that we're clearly not telling the truth. Right. And it's one of those things too. Because, you know, we follow the same standard that the organization does, even while trying to acknowledge like, you know, I don't want a title

every year, there's value in being competitive and all these other things. things. Like every year we go into it like how close it really to winning a championship and everything is viewed through that prism. It is even, you know, when you cover a team every day and you sit there and you're sort of, you become, you know, trained almost to find the flaws and find the parts that, that aren't going to work that are going to keep you from being a title contender as opposed to being like, you know, what, here are where the things could go really well. I think the Lakers have a ceiling that's pretty high. They just need more things to work out than the Thunder do. But there's no reason

they shouldn't be right up there in the mix with all of these other teams that are sort of in that next tier below the Thunder. And when the playoffs roll around, if the Lakers are healthy, I don't think there's any team necessarily they can't beat. It's just a question of can you win four series you know, can LeBron be LeBron for four series against four really good teams? Like, these are the kinds of questions. Yeah. Those are the kinds of questions that we'll be asking as we get closer to season and obviously into it. Speaking of LeBron, Andy, he got very provocative with Instagram on Thursday.

Should people be provoked? That's next. Andy, it's August 1st. As people listen to the audio portion of this at the very, least and the summer of LeBron posting photos that get people's attention continues. This was Thursday. He is working out in, are those toe shoes that he's wearing? I think they are.

I'm not sure. They're like Roman-style loafers, if that's the case, respect. Underneath it was a caption from, I believe, a Jay-Z tune. my hip-hop is not exactly on point oh really you mean when you refer to it as a j-z tune you don't think you don't think that made you sound like you were like you were deeply entrenched in the hip-hop scene Brian would you know would they call it a track would they call it a song certainly wouldn't call tune a little b-bop I'm pretty sure that's how Ed Sullivan introduced Jay-Z when he appeared on it

They used to call it a ditty, but no one were about to play. They used to call these things a ditty, but nobody really uses that term anymore. I, you know, this obviously got people's attention because it's LeBron in front of the Clippers logo. And he's been working out in Cleveland. And he's worked out like, you know, he's basically, it seems like he's trying to get like his travel card. like he's at Epcot. And if you visit every country, you get like a free beer at the end.

This one got a lot of people worked up, though. Should it have, Andy? No, as it turns out, it should not have at all. Because as Rich Paul later explained in a live stream, they were working out at the old Clippers facility. The old one that when Brian and I first started working in this industry, like 20 years ago that was frankly a dump. And the clubbers have sensed in the bomber era

moved on to something much more spectacular and befitting of NBA players. The facility at the spectrum fitness or whatever, a bunch of years ago, that was a dump. The one in Pliot was nice before they moved. It was the one in Pliot was pretty nice. It's okay. And they moved. I thought that was a pretty good facility.

The one, I haven't been to the one in Englewood, so I don't know if they're practicing. Well, I mean, but the point being, though, it's an, they're not there anymore. It's not their current facility. Right. It's an, it is a dump compared to what I think they practice in now. I think we can agree on that. And either way, it's empty. It's being unused. So Rich Paul clarified that clutch clients are now regularly working out in that facility.

said, quote, I just hope we get to keep this facility because nobody cared about this facility until we got it. That's true. And now everyone wants this facility. That's what happens. It's their old practice facility. Yes, they don't need it back. They have a new place. I'm just saying it was sitting your idol. Steve Ballmer and his team were gracious enough to allow us to use this facility. So this was essentially LeBron working out in the unofficial clutch headquarters, not the even unofficial clippers headquarters. It's the clutch dojo, Andy. It is the clutch.

It's the clutch mojo dojo house. But what it is not anymore is anything used by the clippers. Right. Right. And this, you and I have been, I think, pretty open in pointing out the, as I like to say, passive-aggressive posts from LeBron, acknowledging that he knows exactly what he's doing. And he often is trying to provoke a reaction, whether because he is trying to message to, say, the Lakers or whatever team he's playing for or just trying to get a reaction. you know, it's often said LeBron does not do things on accident. But that doesn't mean that everything has a message attached. This was really just LeBron working out.

Or that every message is aimed at the Lakers front office. Because if you read the caption, and again, apologies if I'm getting the lyricist wrong here, it says, say whatever you want, but you damn sure won't be able to say I didn't put in the work. We'll see what happens when I no longer exist. Man, F this. And so I think that was just because he didn't want to curse. And this was, I think, pretty clearly in response to Ketterk Perkins, who said on ESPN essentially that he sort of walked it back.

But in terms of LeBron's ears, LeBron heard, LeBron saw Luca and the skinny Luca men's health photos. that motivated him to get back in the gym. And so he's basically telling Perk to bleep off because it's a monumentally stupid, because even Perk was like, I know he's always in the lab, but now he's got to show people he's in the lab. First of all, he always shows people he's in the lab. LeBron's been showing the lab.

I think LeBron invented the rise and grind video. It's not his first time showing off his workouts. I mean, right. Like Austin Reeves, for example, was recently. recently quoted as like, you know, because he was being criticized for not putting up like workout videos. He's like, why do I need to do that? I know what I'm doing. You know, I know I'm in the gym. I don't necessarily need to see it. Not everybody needs to see it. So that's one thing. We'll all find out if Reeves isn't in good shape when training camp starts. But I agree with him.

It's not like photos or didn't happen. He did do the workout. It's just, you know, we don't need to see it. LeBron has never been like that. LeBron. definitely likes to show everybody he's in the lab. He's been showing people he's been in the lab for 20 years. So perk is wrong on like every level. And you can't look at LeBron.

It's not like that, what is it? Which, I forget which is it, which Thor, it was, you know, the Avengers movie. Ragna rock. Right. No, like the one where he gets fat like, is it end game or whatever. But like

and then, you know, got to get back in his shape. I, that, they didn't get fat Thor before. LeBron's never let himself go like that. So he was giving the finger to perk and just happen to be in front of the, the Clippers thing.

And then, you know, does LeBron probably get a giggle out of everybody freaking out again over stuff like this? Probably. But that ain't what this message was about. I'm, I'm just going to break down even further why this was,

this was. one of the times where it really was just a photo and nothing more and nothing to see here, move along. If LeBron really wanted to try to either send a message or create the appearance of some type of threat or whatever, you don't do it using the clippers. That's just not something that scares Laker fans. That's something that actually gets Laker fans to mock you. Like, it's not going, putting aside, there's no clean way for LeBron to get to the Clippers

anytime soon anyway. Like, if you're using the clippers to leverage the fear of your exit to the average Laker fan, they're going to laugh their asses off. Like, it's just, it's ineffective. And LeBron is too good. at this stuff to do to frankly do something that amateurish like he's too good at it he's too experienced at it yeah and by the way i was correct is end game where you get fat thor um okay so

i thought he's fat and ragner rock too but whatever i don't think he was okay um it's a good movie ragner rock um very very funny i uh so yeah we somebody was asking me earlier like hope we don't like stir the pot on something that does. So I hope we, at the very least, put this one to bet. And it's interesting, like, you know, like people do often with LeBron jump to perhaps the wrong conclusions. So there's no message. But like this one, for example, of is that LeBron with Yokage's agent and Rich Paul, I believe,

correct? Like that, no, it's Maverick Carter. Maver Carter. sorry and it was part of the team but the um the the you know that was like you know and the caption on that one was you know next why you're doing it 2026 and like he's like he's sitting with yokech's agent and he's lebron yokitch 2026 guaranteed here we go and as it turns out that was not a a a photo without a message but the message might be that lebron and rich paul and that maver carter maver carter

But like, but then Rich Paul was talking about like, was it Maverick that was potentially starting the league overseas? I thought it was the whole group. This is something. I don't think, to the best of my knowledge thus far, it has been a Maverick Carter project. Okay. A Rich Ball project. So my apologies to Maverick Carter. But like the point being, this was around kind of generating a little bit of buzz about this potential idea for a European.

kind of traveling league that LeBron and Maverick Carter would be involved in. So like, is it about something? Yes. Is it about joining forces with Nicola Yokic next year? Probably not. No. But now that, though, I still maintain, was a photo that at least initially was meant to troll that specific reaction.

It eventually ended up, I believe it was front office sports, ended up ultimately breaking the news that that's really what this is about, that they are perhaps trying to plan this league. And we'll talk about it for a different show. It raises all sorts of questions about, you know, when LeBron could theoretically be involved with this, does he officially have to be done with the NBA in order to have any type of stake or involvement in a basketball league that could be considered a direct competitor

to the NBA that he's still playing? playing in, you know, what would this league potentially mean to the NBA, like as a form of competition? Does it become the basketball version of the PGA in Live? It's, you know, yet another potential injection of either Saudi or other type of money that gets... Yeah, all kinds of questions. There's all sorts of really interesting topics that come from this. But as we ended up eventually learning, While I do think it was appropriate in the beginning to wonder about the potential passive aggressiveness, because I think it was very much designed to at least get that initial reaction.

As it turns out, there could be something equally interesting, just non-trolling attached to it. Well, it's also, too, it's like different photos and different things for different purposes. Because you want people, what's this one mean? like, you know, otherwise, it's just a picture of LeBron with somebody's agent on a boat. Like, you know, you want to try to generate. It's like, oh, you get a little buzz around this potential thing. Get people interested in it. Get people hearing about it.

Get people maybe wanting to invest and talk about it and pump it up as a good idea. Like those are, you know, when you think of LeBron doing things with a purpose, a photo like that drives that kind of purpose. So whereas this one was just him. telling Kendrick to have off. Again, it's not effective as a troll or a threat by using the clippers. Respectfully to Steve Balmer and his company, and we've said before, we think they're well run. We think they handle their business well.

It just doesn't work. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel. You can subscribe and watch the show there, as many of you are now watching live. You can also subscribe to the audio version, and frankly, should, which you can get on Apple, which you can get on Spotify, anywhere you get your podcast, says the people like to say. We will be back on Monday with a fresh batch of shows. We are not intending to really slow down all that much as we get in August. We'll be getting rewool for the first time, really be engaging with Eurobasket. And any other news that comes down the pike.

So I will say everyone on that. extension any day now. August 2nd. August 2nd, he is eligible. That is Saturday, folks. Saturday is day one of Luca potentially signing an extension. So we'll see everyone on Monday.