Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Are the Lakers Good Enough to Go "All In" to Improve the Roster? (Guest, Anthony Irwin)

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

December 15 is a huge date in the NBA. That's when a big chunk of the league, including players who signed free agent deals last summer, becomes trade eligible. (85 players, according to ESPN.) It's hard to know what the market will look like. Summer, for example, was a lot slower than many free agent periods, thanks to the new rules in the CBA that are far more restrictive. Will that impact trade season? Already names are getting floated out there -- Jimmy Butler reportedly is open to leaving Miami. Basically all the Nets are available (with players like Dorian Finney-Smith and Cam Johnson  being of particular interest to LA). And there will be more. That prompts a few big questions: Are there players out there that would help the Lakers?Are there players out there that would help the Lakers that the Lakers can actually acquire, with relatively limited trade capital.Are the Lakers good enough to make trades worth it?The third one is particularly significant. On the one hand, the Lakers have Anthony Davis and a still-excellent LeBron James. On the other, they're a flawed team in a stacked conference, and probably need a lot to go right even if they improve themselves in a trade. So what to do? And more importantly, what's the next step if they choose not to be active going forward? Or, perhaps just as likely, if they're sidelined because teams just don't want their stuff, or get better offers? To answer those questions and more, we're talking with old friend of this space Anthony Irwin, host of the Lakers Lounge, and columnist for Clutch Points. It's a frank conversation about the state of the Lakers, what might be done to improve them, and the precarious nature of things no matter what they choose to do.  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky  (Guest, Anthony Irwin)SEGMENT 1: Trade season is almost here! SEGMENT 2: How good are the Lakers? Are they worth trying to rescue? SEGMENT 3: What happens if the Lakers choose not to make moves... or just can't get them done?  Your favorite podcast now has a newsletter! In One-stop for ultimate team and league coverage delivered right to your in box. Sign up for free now, at lockedondaily.com.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!RobinhoodRobinhood Gold provides the privileges of a high net worth for any net worth. These generous benefits are now available for only $5/month. The new Gold Standard is here with Robinhood Gold. Sign up at robinhood.com/gold.Mint MobileTo get the new customer offer and your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com/lockedonnba. See Mint Mobile for details.GametimeDownload 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.FanDuelYou can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - if you win your first FIVE DOLLAR BET ! Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. 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 Locked-on Lakers for Wednesday, Brian Komenetsky, Andy Kaminetsky. It is a critical part of the season and the trade rumors are starting to percolate. Is this a team worth saving? We'll ask that question to our favorite guest or one of them, at least, Anthony Irwin. You all know him well. That's next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcasts network. your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers.

First listen of every day Monday through Friday, no matter how or where you get your podcast, this one's always going to be free. It is never going to be behind the paywall. And Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 26,000 subscribers to the channel, all of whom, Andy, are wondering whether or not the Lakers are going to be able to find the form.

that they had earlier this season. The form, Andy, that made everybody think, I don't know, are they better than we think? We're not really sure, as opposed to the form that they had later where everybody was pretty sure they were not. They were definitely not better than we think. To break all this down,

we are excited to ask the question of whether or not this team is worth saving. Welcoming back to his former, space. Anthony Irwin, you know him now is the host of the Lakers Lounge. He is exclusively writing now at clutch points, got a column up today, today being Tuesday evening,

Wednesday as you're, everybody's starting to listen to this, our friend that I affectionately call grumpy cat. Anthony, how are you? Good to see again. We're talking earlier today. You know, I'm grumpy. No, I'm doing good. I can't, I can't complain. It is, it does look a little bit more like me.

I would say needs to tan. I would say a little bit of a tan on that cat, and then it would look exactly like me. I'm good, though. I'm good. Every time I do this show, I want to send an email to David and say, I told you that purple was the better background look

because it looks so much better than the old yellow. People don't know. That's why Anthony walked. You said, change the background or I'm out. And, you know, and history is what it is. I do want to let people know. that today's episodes brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, use code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. This has been a weird season.

And, you know, Tuesday was marked by a bunch of stuff coming out from Shams that Jimmy Butler is out on the market now. It has his preferred list of teams, which, by the way, does not include the Lakers. And, you know, the Nets are shopping all of it. everybody. Everything. You know, you call them. What do you interested in? Everything.

Sure, we, you know, we can talk about that. So, you know, but that means Doreen Phiney Smith in terms of guys associated with the Lakers. Cam Johnson is out there as a name that a lot of teams are interested in. And it really does start to beg the question as to whether or not this is a team that is worth trying to say. Because if the answer is yes, well, which were these guys, would you like to go out and get? And if the answer is no, then what the heck do you do? So, Anthony, we can start with you. Is this team worth saving?

I think it's worth saving. I'm looking at that now, the point differential is not great, but as we talked about earlier, like, they've lost by 40. It's a tradition unlike any other. They go through the year with a negative point differential, and they eventually, by game 75, turn it around. Yeah. You know, we're just, we're right there. And I think it's, I think it's, you look at the West, though, and it's deep. And it's certainly daunting at the top where you have Oklahoma City Thunder,

and they feel like they could potentially become a buzzsaw if they get Chet back, and then let alone if they decide to make another move to further consolidate the talent on that roster. Memphis has really turned things around. Houston is a nice little blend between youth and vet presences. But overall, though, like there isn't a team outside of Denver, which ironically the Lakers would have to play in the first game of the playing right now because they just follow the Lakers everywhere. There isn't the team out there.

Wouldn't you if you were them? Mike Malone's pretending to be angry every night. The version of standings watching that they do in Denver is how do we position ourselves to get the Lakers in the first track? Did you guys clock that the last Nuggets win over the Lakers, Michael Malone became the all-time winning all-time leader for wins regular season wins for the Nuggets

which is just like from the Malone perspective apropos perfect because he truly enjoy I like I think he enjoys beating the Lakers in earlier rounds than he actually enjoyed beating the heat for the championship like I mean honestly he gets more pleasure in beating the Lakers than maybe anything else in his life.

Yeah, he's the all-time winningest coach in Denver Nuggets history, and he has won more games against the Lakers specifically than any coach in Denver Nuggets history. One of those is made up. And I don't know what the Lakers did to him, but damn, he has not let it go. Yeah, I think, though, to give back to the question, I think they're salvageable. the problem that the Lakers have right now, I think their biggest problem with like AD and LeBron specifically,

their net rating together is bad. And LeBron's net rating is really, really bad. And I think what has happened is the defense has passed that inflection point where there are too many guys that Anthony Davis is asked to make up for. Because for a while it was like, okay, It's four guys. He's Hodor in Game of Thrones. It really is.

The ice people get through. He said after a game of, you know, I think it was a couple weeks ago, normally Anthony Davis is like such a competitive freak that he goes, no, I still think we can be an elite defense.

He's like, can we just be mediocre? Can we just not be terrible every night? And I think what has happened is, is LeBron has obviously, I think this is the first year where we've seen a real noticeable slip from, from LeBron, from one year to the next, especially defensively. And, you know, Rui is, he has that squirrel syndrome and up where, you know, sometimes he plays good defense.

And then another time he's like, where do you go? And then you have DeAngelo Russell and you have Austin Reeves, two guys who are not going to be very good defensive presence as Dilo, especially as somebody you always have to kind of make up for, which forces Austin to be your point of attack defender. And that's just too much for Anthony Davis to carry defensively. And I think the reason I would invest in this team is because if you bring in a guy like Dorian Finney Smith or Cam Johnson and or Cam Johnson, for that matter, and you're able to, and you're able to bring in somebody who can help defensively.

You swap out. Now, Dilo isn't starting anymore, but their best lineups, their most talented lineups have him out there. Dalton is somehow worse than D'Angelo Russell defensively. So, like, it was like, all right, good news, AD. We're breaking up the D. Angela Russell, Austin Reeves backcourt.

Bad news is, it's the guy that we're bringing him in is actually probably worse than Dilo defensively. And I think if you bring in some more defense, some more athleticism there. You'll see that net rating with LeBron and AD improved quite a bit, and that will be the tide that raises all boats. I think what you're talking about is hypothetically possible. What I think makes this complicated, though, Anthony, we can talk about this after the break

is whether or not the Lakers are actually even in the position to reform the team at the scale that you're talking about. You know what I mean? Like in terms of what they can do to actually fix everything at the scale, I think it would take to make a really good run, like to actually like try to make noise in the playoffs. I'm not sure on a few levels that they're actually capable of doing that. We will unpack all of those things next. Lockdowne Lakers is brought to you by Fandall.

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wireless bill to $15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash locked an MBA. $45. $45.00. $5.00. upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month, new customers on a first three-month plan only, speeds slower than 40 gigabytes on the unlimited plan, additional taxes fees, and restrictions supply, see Mint Mobile for details. There's a lot of any that goes into this idea of whether or not the Lakers have stuff, enough stuff to kind of get this done. And it relates a little bit to what we talked about on the first half of this conversation we were on with Anthony on the lounge earlier today,

so people can go check that out. But we talked a lot about what the market could look like. If it is a slow market, it was a slow free agency, for example, took a while for stuff, that will benefit the Lakers. If it's a seller's market, to me, Andy, it feels like the Lakers are kind of screwed,

no matter what they want to do. The biggest concern I have about this, and this is what also lends itself to a lot of the conversations or articles that have done, been seen whether you're talking about over 710 ESPN, Mason and Ireland had Bobby Marks on for about 10 or 15 minutes from ESPN talking about whether or not the Lakers could actually trade LeBron. This came up with John Hollinger over at the Athletic, the idea of whether it's time to blow

this up. Bill Plashke for the LA Times wrote a very impassioned piece about how not just the Lakers need to move on from LeBron and AD. LeBron and AD need to come to their senses and ask the Lakers to move them. Brian knows, and probably a lot of everydayers knows particularly the ones who've been around for a while. I have been ambivalent about the prospects of LeBron and AD in terms of their ability to win a championship and the Lakers' ability to put the pieces around them for a couple years now and whether or not this has ultimately run its course if the goal is to be in a very good position to win a championship.

And I'm just not convinced the Lakers can do it for them. So you are, if I'm interpreting correctly on the opposite side of this a little bit as to the less salvageable. If Anthony thinks they can be salvaged, then you are. I have been growing more skeptical at the ability to make them one or two tiers better than they actually are. I think what's interesting to me is like, what do you get back? And like how do you try to plan for a future without LeBron, which could be coming in a year?

It could be coming in two years. It could be coming in three. And, you know, the way he's playing now makes it at least seem more plausible that he might say, okay, you know what? Maybe I am done after this year or next year is definitely going to be my last year, whatever it might be. It's why Jimmy Butler to me, the logistics of Jimmy Butler, which is, you know, the logistics of Jimmy Butler, which make it impossible basically for him to become a Laker, even if he wanted to.

All that aside, I don't like that. It's not a good idea. What the Lakers use those picks on is really important because ideally it shouldn't be something that's going to walk out the door. Like if they have to use picks to bring in an expiring contract or something like that, and then that person, now you're either in a position where you must resign that person, or you've wasted all that capital or the capital walks out the door

at the end of the summer and you got nothing. That would really be bad. And so, you know, a player like Dorian Finney Smith and I've not looked at his contract, what's his deal after this year? A 12, right? 12 or 14. What happens to him after this season, though?

Free agent. Okay. So if you give up first for Finney Smith and you find that you either can't bring him back at a number that makes you comfortable or whatever, We made me. Doreenna Smith is 31 years old. He is not a young player. But Anthony's point, and I thought it was a good one, is like, he's got a player option, sorry, player option for 25, 26. Okay. So Anthony, wouldn't you agree? The benefit of a guy like

Dorian Finney Smith is that while he's not a star, he allows you to kind of shore up some of those defensive things without having to use somebody like Cam Reddish who will go. literally games without scoring. Yeah. You know, it is a better version of the cam. He's just Dorian Finney Smith's a much better player than Cam Reddish. Like so yeah. That's sort of the role that you're trying to fill that you're making the sum

better by adding a part that may not seem all that spectacular. Yeah, I think that's essentially it is that, you know, I think where Andy and I agree, is this notion of like going all in for an Ingram or a butler or Levine, you know, anybody in that kind of echelon, like that would so thoroughly deplete an already thin roster that I think you could potentially be doing as much harm as good. But in this case, if you're turning like Gabe Vincent and a first rounder, or it would be like Gabe Vincent in one of your minimum guys, you know, in a first rounder into,

into Dorian, Finney Smith. Gabe doesn't really play much, he doesn't really have much of a role right now anyway. Reddish, you know, if you have Dorian on your team, you don't really need Reddish, so maybe that's the other player that you send out. And now all of a sudden you have kind of a non-presence on your roster or in your rotation.

And you turn that into a bona fide, two-way wing who helps you on an end of the court that the Lakers just don't have very much help on. And by the way, this is all, you know, the other benefit here trading for Dorian Finney Smith, I don't know if you can reliably say that Jared Vanderbilt is going to play basketball this year. I don't think I talked about this for like a month. Like they should, the Lakers should be working under the assumption. He is not going to play.

Over the summer, I got some heat for saying that I thought that this is a worse roster than last years, you know, because you lost Torian Prince and you lost Spencer Dinwiddie. And the retort, the most common retort that I would get was, well, you're getting Jared Vanderbilt healthy this year. And this was back during the summer. And I was like, maybe. Maybe you're getting him back. Because I remember at the pre-training camp press conference that they did there, J.J. Redick

actually kind of let it slip. And even before that, Mike Bresdenhan for spectrum, kind of let it slip that Vando was still rehabbing after the entirety of the summer. And, you know, if those guys are privy to that information,

and the Lakers didn't do anything to address that kind of an issue, like that's where I had a little bit of frustration. And I think now it's out there, you're probably not going to get them back. And by the way, if you get them back and you have multiple defensive wings, they sound like I'm going to be sitting here.

You're like, oh, no, what do you do? You know, and I think that would be best case scenario. So I agree. I'm of, I'm of the opinion. And this is how I felt back when they were in now different LeBron James back then. This was a few years ago. But when they had Russell Westbrook on the team, the retort then, remember, that team was bad. Like that team was not a good basketball team.

The basketball itself was terrible to watch. You could see the frustration on those three guys. face with the situation there. And even then, I was like, I swear, if you just turn Russell Westbrook into a few rotation players, I really honestly believe that Anthony Davis and LeBron James are good enough to make a little more noise than I think we're giving them credit for. And then they get to the Western Conference finals. They were swept there by a team in Denver that absolutely owns them.

But I kind of find myself making a version of that same point now. which I don't think Anthony Davis and LeBron James need a ton of help if the goal is merely to get to the play in or playoff and make a little noise when you get there. Yeah, it's funny to me. Like they've clearly shown they can get out of a play in. They've shown they can win at least a couple years ago, a round or two. And who knows what would have happened if they hadn't been playing the one team. They just cannot beat in Ender. But I think for me, I was thinking about this morning, like they need.

need to get from a place where they can beat any team, which they clearly can, to they can beat a good team four times. And right now the defense is so bad. There's just no credible argument you can make to me that they could beat Dallas four times in seven games because the defense isn't good enough. They can't beat Denver four times. And I can't, I can't, Houston would beat them in a set. I would, I would pick Houston in a seven game series because the Lakers can't defend well enough that many times in a row. If you can fix that, at least to, like, as Anthony Davis says, make us average,

then I think you got a chance. My question for both of you is if, though, either of the answer in Andy's cases, maybe they can't get the stuff or they may not be worth saving, or we just can't get the stuff. Like, the answer is know whether we want it to be because we don't believe it or because the league won't give us what we need. What do you do next?

And that's the question we will ask next. Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Game Time, the best concert I've ever seen in my life. George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic, 1992, the Palatium in Hollywood. They played, not exaggerating, five hours without a break. Ever since then, I've been chasing a concert that could top it. I've seen a few that have come close. Prince at the Forum, Neil Young at the Greek, John Lee Hooker at the House of Blues. Different George Clinton show, actually, also at the House of Blues.

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What time is it? Game time. So for people who are taking it, by the way, locked-ondaily.com, you can see it. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see it. It says free daily newsletter, Lockdown Daily.com. That's where you sign up for you, click on Lockdown-Lakers and you have the show delivered to you every day in newsletter forum along with a little bit of writing that Andy and I are doing there and some other analysis from around the league.

Super useful way to keep up with what's going around the league and around. the network. So if the inventory is low, the one of the advantages, I guess, to Gabe Vincent not really coming around in any meaningful way is at least now you do have 11-something million to play around with like that isn't going to necessarily impact your rotation a ton. You know, defensively he does help more than the other guards the Lakers have available, but I think you can make an argument you could get by without him. Jared Vanderbilt, because he may not play, also fits into that category. Though I think he's untradable until he reveals himself to be a healthy body.

You're going to have to attach all your draft capital just to move Vando, regardless of what the return is. People are going to want it because they might be legitimately concerned that the same problem could come next year and then you have a dead money on your roster there. once you get past that though the players that make enough money to be useful parts of a trade are part of your rotation

so they would need to be replaced in one form or another the you know you have a rookie in Dalton connect that has a lot of appeal around the league the Lakers are not in any particular hurry to try to trade him you need to hold on to guys like that if you want to have any kind of sort of future

so unless it's a you know offer you can't refuse you want to hold on to connect. They don't have a lot of picks. They might, as Anthony, you pointed out in our show earlier today, need to use some of the few second rounders that they have to make enough space to make a trade. So that you can't even count their second rounders necessarily

as something they can go for. So it is a very thin needle to thread here. So let's assume maybe that they can't, whether because the Lakers simply decide it's not worth the capital or the league just doesn't want their stuff. What do you do, Anthony? Well, I know what Anthony's going to do. I mean, if you have recent years or, well, if recent years or any kind of indicator,

you don't hear from Rob Polinka for a little while. We don't hear for, we just. He goes straight to Main Street at Disneyland and figures stuff out. You know, we'll see. We'll see when we see it, Rob. But I think, I think what I would do then is like, all right, if you gave it an honest to God chance and try at fixing this roster and competing at the end of the LeBron James and Anthony Davis era, and it didn't work out, what I would probably do is use some of that draft capital to get younger, to get more athletic, to get, take some flyers on some guys. so that you can have at least accomplished something. The thing that was so maddening last year was that they were both mediocre

and we didn't learn anything really about Max Christie. They were mediocre and you didn't really advance, like as, you know, Maxwell Lewis and Scotty Pippin Jr. and Jay Huff and those guys, like, we didn't really see what those guys had either. And, you know, if LeBron, you know, gets frustrated with that timeline or whatever, maybe you have that conversation with LeBron and Anthony Davis about maybe it is time to shift gears here. And we can look to see if we can get you somewhere that you have a better chance at winning a championship. But what the Lakers can't do here is have yet another transaction window where they accomplish nothing. Because, you know, those margins really matter and they're only going to matter more in this new CBA.

And to continue to kind of, you know, I know sit out sounds harsher than an I. I actually mean it to be sit out implies that like they didn't even make calls. It's not that, but like they're sitting out and then there's being sat out. Right. Like whatever, whatever. Being put in time. The Lakers are being put in time. Yeah.

So like if whatever it is though, if you go through, you know, last trade deadline, they weren't able to accomplish anything. This last summer, they weren't able to acquire a single veteran. And then if you go through it again here and you aren't able to accomplish anything once again, that's where, you know, like the Angela Russell, like use his expiring contract to maybe take on longer term money and maybe, you know, get yourself a pick or something like that. If it's, if it's Gabe Vincent or Jared Vanderbilt and say, you know, maybe go out and see if you can use their contracts to get somebody who you weren't concerned, especially in the Vando case,

that this guy may never play for you again. Like I, I just, what they can't have happen is, It's just not doing anything. That's where it would be a tough pill to swallow. It's not, I mean, this is, these are like, this is like creative thinking,

Andy. And I, if there is a place where, well, I'm not a lot. I don't have a lot of great ideas because I also think that they, well, just blow it up and we'll be able.

LeBron James is not a player for which you're going to get a lot of stuff back. Like, you're just not. He's really difficult to trade. He's a monumentally difficult player to trade and you're not going to get that. Trying to trade, frankly, two guys making $40 to $50 million is in itself in his youths.

AD can, I think, you know, would have a lot of appeal around the league. But it's still difficult to find the team that can stack the salaries in a way that will make the Lakers happen. And has the draft capital and has the and isn't capped out in ways and won't gut themselves in ways where it's like what's the point of doing this? Right. Or can even physically make the trade because they're in a place with this first apron, second apron, third apron, apron, eighth apron.

And so, like, it's hard. And so I don't, just blow it up is a tricky prospect. I mean, so when you think about, like, the stuff that I don't have a lot of great ideas here, but it's also not my job. This requires creative thinking. And to my mind, Andy, that has not been a place where Polinka has excelled. No, it hasn't been a place where he's excelled. And also, I mean, what makes this in a lot of ways a purely academic conversation,

between us is we all know that Jeannie Bus and Rob, you know, and Rob working for Jeannie, they're never going to go to LeBron and AD and say proactively, how do you feel about being traded? Like, what if we were to move you? That's why Bill put that into his column, like, because he knows the Lakers aren't going to do it. Jeannie would rather LeBron come out for every single game with a walker before letting him walk out the door or roll out the door because they don't know what to do with themselves without superstars.

Like the cap, in a lot of ways, the CBA and some of the mechanics of trading superstars now in general, not just for the Lakers, but period, might be the ultimate decider. If that stuff were not a factor, I think you could make a credible argument that this may have just run its course. and if it's run its course, you are, even in a year where I know you can't tank because they don't own their pick or whatever, but just never going to get better value than now for some of these guys.

They're only going to get older or less under team control, closer to opting out, whatever. What I think makes this such a complicated question is that it's not outrageous in and of itself just to be asking it. Like it's not one of those things where it's like, dude, what are you talking about? Like, why does they do that? Yeah, and it goes back and we'll wrap it up here, Anthony.

Like, I've seen credible evidence the Lakers can win games. Like it wasn't like that six game win streak wasn't dominant. It wasn't, but like they still won six NBA games in a row. And it wasn't entirely under just super easy, phenomenal circumstances. I think it's just these wild swings. I think this is where having a third of your roster, not playable. And then on top of that,

having the injuries that they have had, that's how you arrive at the type of big blowout losses that you have. Because the margins when you're playing guys who are like fringe NBA players are so thin. And I was kind of asking around like last year, I became like this weird like de facto thermometer for like temperature checks on how the locker room was doing with Darwin and all that.

That was this big, that was this big storyline of how's the locker room doing? How are the guys feeling all that stuff? And this year I get, I've been asked that a lot as well. And the number one response that I get when I ask people close to the Lakers is they're tired. Those main rotation players, that five to six or, you know, seven-ish player rotation, those guys are exhausted. And it's barely December. So Andy, to your point, the number, like where they played eight games and 12 games or eight games in 12 days or seven and 12, whatever it was, like by the end of it, you just saw as soon as any team, you know, through some kind of a counter punch.

Those guys were like, you know what, man, I'm tired. Well, it's to Andy's point, too. It's like, you know, it's Anthony Davis and LeBron James are good enough to win a title, but you got to do something around it. It means your four through nine need to be, you know, better than a, you know, a, you know, a. different 4 through 9 might be. He is Anthony Irwin. You can find him at the Lakers Lounge, a great, great, great program, as well as his work on clutch points.

This is the back end of a home-and-home. Appreciate you taking the time. This is fun. We'll do it again soon, perhaps, after the trade deadline. Maybe going into the deadline, we'll see. Whenever they take up two games in 10 days, we'll get together. Yes, yeah. Bring me back as often as you want so that I can keep sending emails to David telling you about this purple background. Because it is immaculate. It's fetching. It is so good.

All right. Lockdown Lakers on YouTube is we're going to hang out with over 26,000 subscribers. You see the newsletter there at Doctondaily.com. Go sign up for it. Have the show delivered to your inbox every day. We will see everyone tomorrow.