Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Bronny James Has Career High 17 in Loss to Milwaukee, LeBron Might Return Saturday Vs. Chicago

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everyone, welcome to Locked on Lakers for Friday. Brian Kaminetsky, Andy Kaminetsky. The Lakers sit everyone Thursday night against the buck, so no surprise they lose. But both LeBron James's make headlines will explain next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Lockdown Lakers. your first listen of every day. First listen, Monday through Friday,

Starting point is 00:00:39 sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays, no matter how or where you get your podcast, this one's always free. Never behind a paywall on Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where 34,000 subscribers, Andy, are talking about the play of Bronny James on a night where the Lakers sat. And I don't mean this with much hyperbole.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Everyone. Basically, everyone sat against the Milwaukee Box. Final score there was 1,1889, I believe. but the score, you kind of see that coming, given who didn't play, which we'll talk about here in a second. Both Brony James Jr. and LeBron James Sr.

Starting point is 00:01:18 Well, LeBron James Jr. Brony James Jr. would be Brony's son. LeBron James Jr. Bronny James Jr. feels like the son of brawny, not the son of LeBron. Okay, yeah. Anyway, the kid and the dad both had. LeBron's going to play a while.

Starting point is 00:01:37 He is not going to play with Brani's kid. I'm not totally sure about that. I refuse to believe that. It seems like a long shot, but I'm not totally sure. But either way, both LeBron James making headlines for a couple of reasons, good news for LeBron on the injury front, which we get into for this show, obviously as well. Do you want to let everybody know that today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. right now new customers can get $200 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Let's actually talk. Let's get the injury update news for LeBron out of the way. If you watched the game on Spectrum Sportsnet, the Lakers TV station, they carry the games. You saw probably multiple times the footage of LeBron working out before the game. And this wasn't like some casual, you know, getting a couple shots up type deal. this was LeBron doing like full floor sprints, getting up, dunking, all that stuff, it would look to me like full speed. And JJ Redick said he was hopeful, is hopeful that LeBron will be back on the floor Saturday.

Starting point is 00:02:50 Brewy as well. Yeah. So that is obviously excellent news for the Lakers. Not sure if you had anything you wanted to add to that medical update. Well, just that it feels along the lines of what had been hoped for with the idea that LeBron and Rui have been back, have been day to day for going on close to a week now. So to be totally honest, if they weren't available to play Saturday, you start running into, all right, they better be on the court pretty damn quick.

Starting point is 00:03:25 Otherwise, I am wondering what the holdup is. how loose we are playing the whole day-to-day thing because, you know, I mean, I'm trying to think, like, I'm trying to think of who somebody just tore their ACL. I can't remember who it is in the NBA, but. Kyrie. Caii, yes, it was Kyrie. Kyrie is technically day-to-day. Like, in terms of the recovery.

Starting point is 00:03:56 He is day-to-day in the most literal sense. But he's clearly nowhere close to recovering. If after like a week of day-to-day, LeBron and or Rui are not back on the court, we need to start getting some information of like, no, seriously, when are they coming back? I mean, I think, yes, if you're not also seeing that they're moving. You know, like if LeBron couldn't play Saturday needed until Monday, but you just saw the footage of him doing circuits around the floor, you know, taking it. And he just needed one, they're taking one more day to be cautious, figure you can beat Chicago. Like I said, if he wasn't back after a week, it starts becoming pretty soon Monday, Wednesday.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Like, no, seriously, how long are we day to day? I mean, whatever. If it's not accompanied with activity. And these guys are obviously progressing nicely towards a return. And the Lakers, I mean, you want to win every game. you want to try to, the Lakers have a chance to be the number two seed in the West, which given how they play at home, would be a tremendous boon for this team.

Starting point is 00:05:10 And, you know, all of that is true. But if you looked at the game, you know, the post-game footage after Wednesday's win over Denver, Luca's sitting in front of his, his in front of the net or in front of his locker like an ice mummy. like he is wrapped up in more ice and all that stuff. Reeves looked like he was just going to pull a blanket up over his body sitting in his chair and just sleep there. Like he he was dead exhausted, you know, and so they sat both of those guys. And then they sat Dorian Finney Smith and they sat.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Jeremy. And, you know, I was surprised Gabe Vincent played in all honesty, given everybody else. I was surprised Jackson. I was sort of surprised Jackson Hayes played. Like, you know, I guess he's, he's probably healthy enough at this point that they're not really worried about it. Jackson's loving this era of everything runs through Jackson Hayes. He ain't sitting.

Starting point is 00:06:06 Yeah. He's become a target, man. He's going to milk this for all he can. He got saucy tonight on a few possessions. He did. A little too saucy. It's interesting, actually, you know, to see, to see it. Like, you can see the difference in a lot.

Starting point is 00:06:26 lot of these guys when different players aren't playing and and you know jackson looked more like old jackson hayes because there's less structure around him which all of this makes perfect sense um so the lakers you know discretion is the better part of valor and sit a bunch of guys you're going to lose probably anyway if once luca reeves and lebron aren't playing so get everybody right get everybody as healthy as you need to be. This is a scheduling thing. The Lakers, because of what happened with the fires especially, their schedule got rearranged. And once that happened, everybody knew this stretch of six games and eight days was going to be incredibly difficult. The rest of the season, again, incredibly difficult schedule. So I think the Lakers did the right thing. And it does

Starting point is 00:07:18 open up Andy a little bit of time to get Brony James on the floor. And there is no question that for the Lakers at least, Brony James was the story of this game. Yeah, we'll get more into depth with Brony over the course of the show. I will say I had been hoping he and Dalton Connect ended up leading the Lakers tonight with 17 points apiece, but Dalton's was very backloaded. He didn't play well. He did not play well. I imagine he had at least nine of his 17 points, not just in the fourth quarter, but like the second half.

Starting point is 00:07:54 He was not. The Lakers needed, if they were going to compete in this game, needed a big night from Dalton. He just didn't play well. Yeah, I mean, it does. We had just talked about how, how Dalton has been playing very well in March. We spent a lot of time talking about that after Wednesday's win over Denver.

Starting point is 00:08:14 This doesn't shake any, you know, recent belief that we've had in Dalton or, you know, it doesn't take away from anything he's done over this. month. And in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter because they would have needed Dalton to put up like 40 something to stay in it. It's just given the way he's been playing, I imagine it's disappointing for him that with the increased opportunity, he wasn't able to, if nothing else, have a better showing. I mean, honestly, I'm surprised you only had 14 shots in this game. It's at, yeah, he just, he didn't, he didn't play. It, it shows. role players are role players for a reason.

Starting point is 00:08:58 And when generally speaking, when you ask them to go beyond that, when you ask Dalton Connect or Gabe Vincent to be your primary offensive weapons, they're going to struggle and they're going to struggle to create. The shots of Lakers didn't have any real shot creators on the floor, guys who can set up in the way that Reeves, Luca, LeBron can to get guys easy looks. So a lot of these easy shots, wide open threes and whatever, that players have gotten used to over the last, you know, you know, a few weeks with all these guys in the lineup,

Starting point is 00:09:35 they were not available. And so that is why I mentioned Jackson Hayes, didn't have a good game relative to how he has been playing in terms of decision making, in terms of control, in terms of efficiency, all that kind of stuff. He didn't look to me as good as he has in, in other games. He picks up some files and I just, you know, he hit four or five from the floor, but I just overall, I just wasn't as strong of a game from Hayes as he's had. And Dalton,

Starting point is 00:10:06 five of 14 from the floor. Nobody there to really open up the space for him. He's got to do most of that himself. It doesn't look as good. Gabe Vincent, same kind of thing. These are not guys who you want to be leaning on to create a lot of offense. And it's not surprising to me that the guys who took the most shots on the team in the starting lineup, those two plus Marquif Morris, were all very inefficient because there's nobody setting the table for any of them. Yeah, absolutely. Again, it doesn't take away from how well I think Dalton's played over the course of this month. Again, it's just disappointing, I think, if nothing else for him,

Starting point is 00:10:45 because I imagine he pictured entering this game, this could be an opportunity for me to have a bigger night. he ultimately didn't have it. But like we said, this was the best game of Brony James's career. By a long shot, I realize that will sound like a backhanded compliment to a lot of people. It really wasn't. And we can get into why coming up next. Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Upwork. Scaling your business requires the right expertise at the right time. With Upwork, you can find specialized freelancers in marketing, developing design, and more

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Starting point is 00:12:14 Locked on Lakers also brought to by Fandul. March Madness is here, and Fandul is giving you the chance to get in on the action like never before. Right now, new customers can get $250 in bonus bets from your first $5 bet wins. that's 200 extra bucks to use on everything from buzzer beaders to Cinderella teams and even who is cutting down the nets. I had Missou, Andy, because we're from Missouri. I had Missouri winning a couple games in this tournament. They apparently lost.

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Starting point is 00:12:54 FanDuel app is simple to use. When you win, you get paid out instantly, no waiting around. So visit FanDuel.com and get in on the college hoops action all tournament. Final line, Andy, from Brony James, 17 points tied for the team lead with Dalton Connect. He also had five assists. He had four, I'm sorry, three rebounds. He did have a block shot as well. A couple, you know, tough turnovers.

Starting point is 00:13:26 And when he came into the game, his first play. It was essentially a flat pass turnover and it looked like it might be one of those, uh-oh, kind of deals for Ronnie, but he really settled down and played a nice game. And it's not that, you know, it was like, you know, eye popping, oh my God, 55th pick, the Lakers have struck gold. But go back to that late January disaster, which was the last time that he had meaningful minutes against regular rotation players in the NBA. It was that game at the end of January in Philly when the Lakers are short-handed,

Starting point is 00:14:05 and Reddick put him in after a few good games in the G. And because they were down everybody. They needed. They were short-handed. They needed, you know, and he was a disaster. It was terrible. And this game wasn't that. He was playing real minutes against Milwaukee.

Starting point is 00:14:26 and Milwaukee was basically healthy for this game. And he acquitted himself nicely. The progress between that game in January to the game now was really good. I thought the highlight for brawny was a hit-ahead pass, almost full court after a defensive stop to Markief Morris. It was perfectly timed, set up a really easy score for Keith. And like we said, Keith was 3 of 11. He needed some easy opportunities in this game. He also had a driving baseline floater over Brooke Lopez.

Starting point is 00:15:01 He popped a couple threes in this game. There was a time where he lost the handle while he was dribbling and got stolen from him, but he got back in transition and forced the ball off Porter's hands. He did a lot of, I thought, really nice things in this game. We ran a little bit of two-man game with Dalton Connect that set up the other three he had in this game. 17 points for Brony is He also too

Starting point is 00:15:28 Before I forget there was a sequence where he drove inside He had a really nice like twisting gliding airborne layup where he switched hands That's the I was about You talked about the pass of the hit ahead I think he did a couple times where he switched hands to protect the ball You know if he stays ball stays in his right hand

Starting point is 00:15:47 It's going to get blocked You know where you know the awareness to either pull up You know he had a little pull up 15 footer just little stuff pull up in front of the red. Like the awareness, he is a painfully undersized guy. And little stuff like that is important in terms of how he positions his body, how he gets shots up and stuff like that, showed much more confidence in his ability to put the ball on the floor and get to the

Starting point is 00:16:11 basket. Tricy little play where he faked a handoff coming around a screen and went to the basket really quick. Just a lot of little stuff like that. Yeah, there was also a sequence where he ended up, mono-e-mono against Janus, and as one would predict, advantage Janus, but you and are texting back and forth during the game, awesome that he did it anyway. I mean, like, in a game like this, as far as like the results,

Starting point is 00:16:37 what do you have to lose anyway? But given everything we are talking about, and, you know, the disastrous January game that led to Stephen A. Smith having a connipion fit on first take and, you know, as a father and then LeBron and all that stuff, like that he would have the confidence and the willingness to do it anyway. I think it's fantastic. And to put it in perspective,

Starting point is 00:17:02 the 17 points that he had tonight, Brony entered this game, having scored 33 total points as a pro. Like so he's, he hit about half of what he's done as a pro in one game. And, you know, this one.

Starting point is 00:17:20 game, for me at least, doesn't solidify the idea that he's automatically going to have a career, because I still think there is a lot for brawny to overcome if for no other reason the size and some of the stuff that you're talking about. I think it's going to be more difficult at that size to figure out exactly what his position is. But that being said, a game like today underscores the improvement that JJ Reddick talked about after the game. He talked about, I think a few days ago. I don't remember how it came up, but the question of Brony, and he said, like, he has been playing much

Starting point is 00:17:56 better lately. It's been better in the G-League in the athletic. Joe Varden did a profile of brawny that reflected Brony's own growing confidence in what's going on, that he feels like the work is starting to pay off. And for the

Starting point is 00:18:12 time being, that is the best you can ask for. And I'm happy for him that he had this night, man. It ain't easy being him. It isn't. And I just, if it's, look, there, a lot of things can be true at once here. He is in the NBA with the Lakers as the 55th pick in the draft. Again, with the Lakers because LeBron James wanted it that way. And he has security as a 55th pick that other 55th picks, 56, 57th often don't have.

Starting point is 00:18:46 Some do. Some get the contract that Bronte got, but many don't. So, okay, that's 100%. We can all agree on that. Once you strip away his name and you get past the stuff that I just mentioned, if you looked at a team that took the 55th pick who's 20 years old, who lost essentially his only college basketball season because of, you know, the heart thing, and another team drafted that play.

Starting point is 00:19:21 at number 55, who's 20 years old and said, this guy's going to be a project. We're going to develop him over a couple of years, and we think in a few years he could be a decent player. You would look at the season that Brunny has had and say, this has been a success. He has shown potential in the G league. He's put up pretty good numbers.

Starting point is 00:19:42 He has improved in garbage time over the course of the season, and has a nice game in a, on Thursday night against real competition. If it was any other 55th pick, it probably wouldn't be much of a national story. And we'll see actually how much anybody even bothers talking about this tomorrow, which could very well prove some of the points that LeBron was, you know, some people were making that that. See, I bet it's going to get talked about.

Starting point is 00:20:14 I actually could. It could. And I hope it does. For no other reason then football is over. Baseball hasn't quite started yet. the tournament doesn't, you know, the NCAA tournament doesn't have the same juice that it used to. Used to. No, I agree with you. I bet it's going to get talked about. I hope so because there was a long stretch of time when, and this was, I think, one of LeBron's bigger criticisms, where people

Starting point is 00:20:37 were talking about Brony as a conduit basically to criticize LeBron. And they were really only interested in talking about Brony if the news was bad. Sure. And so Brony being, a totally normal 55th pick who seems to be coming along with some degree of potential. He's four years away from being as old as Dalton Connect is today. I mean, so like just in terms of thinking about your rookies and like the development curve for a lot of these guys, if it was any other player, like fans would be excited, oh, look, this is going pretty well. We'll check back in in a year and see how things are going.

Starting point is 00:21:18 So I just, if you level set with Brani, can put yourself past this, you know, the nepotism aspect of it. He is not a talentless hack who has no business being in the position that he is. He, you know, he got there for specific reasons, but he's also a player, like many nepo babies. He's actually a person who brings something to the table independent of his lineage. Yeah. I mean, that's the hope at least. Again, you see small flashes, you see some degree of improvement, especially over the last couple months, largely in the G League. And hopefully it continues just to translate. Again, like, I think it is, I think it is too early to make like your ironclad decision one way or another regardless. The best that you can hope for, though, is that when LeBron- Nobody's making, nobody. Nobody's making, I'm not glad it. It's just, No, but a lot of people are. No, that's not true.

Starting point is 00:22:19 I guess a lot of people. No, a lot of people who aren't actually paying attention or don't have any sort of investment in Brani's success or failure beyond, to be perfectly honest, hoping he fails because they don't like LeBron and they don't like how this was handled. But the point, like, Brony can wash out. Brony could, in three or four years, you look at it and you say, you know what, he just couldn't quite develop. It was a little too small.

Starting point is 00:22:46 The jumper never came around. whatever it might be. And that essentially comes out to no great loss or nothing out of the ordinary given where he was taken. I think what matters, at least to me, is the bar should be, is he a prospect that makes sense at 20 years old with the 55th pick? And I think the answer is yes. And for me at least, once that question is answered,

Starting point is 00:23:21 the rest of it is immaterial. Like he has shown he is worth the pick that the Lakers used on him in that position at his age. And we'll see what happens. Okay. Yeah, we can stay on this. Also, again, I think it's worth getting into some of just what maylay ahead for the Lakers with some guys hopefully coming back Saturday.

Starting point is 00:23:46 So talk about all that coming up next. Locked on, Lakers is brought to you by five-hour energy. A lot of people, this daylight savings thing kind of sneaks up on you. You always forget, like, is it spring forward? Does it fall back? And then you get the spring forward and you lose that hour of sleep. And if you are still suffering from that lost hour of sleep, five-hour energy has your back,

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Starting point is 00:25:44 you click on LockdownLakers, and you have this show with analysis written by us, fresh every day, five days a week for you, along with other stuff from around the network, great way to keep up with what's going on in the NBA. Andy, as the Lakers enter this critical stretch run, essentially in a four-way tie for second through fifth in the West. That's sort of where things are. The Lakers have a sneaky good setup for tiebreakers across the conference against a lot of these teams that they're battling against. That was a big deal with Wednesday's

Starting point is 00:26:20 games. Lakers are set up pretty well, but they got to win some games, and it's not going to be easy to do it. Well, it was helpful that they got that win against Denver, kind of unexpectedly, because you always just assume, in this case, Nikol Yokic, Jamal Murray, the best guys on pick your team will play against the Lakers because that's just what happens. Don't ask us, ask Luca Donchich, who took him like a week of playing for the Lakers to realize, like, no, that's not just narrative. It's actually a thing. But the fact that they were on a three-game winning streak heading into tonight, and they managed to get one of the wins in this setup that you might have thought was kind of a scheduled loss because at the very least, you knew

Starting point is 00:27:06 LeBron and Rui weren't going to be available, and Denver is good. So this helped them catch a bit of a break. Like we've talked about, the most important thing is that they stay out of the play-in altogether. and I think assuming they get guys back relatively soon and they and from there, everybody stays on the court, I think they should be able to at minimum meet the baseline of you avoid the play in. Oh, yeah. And, you know, it's not. If they're healthy and start flirting with the play in, the quality of play that they are

Starting point is 00:27:48 putting out there has slipped considerably because. They've got a four-game lead right now on the Clippers for the seven spot. So, I mean, that's, you're playing well below 500, or probably at the very least, right at 500 with a red-hot Clippers team or something behind you. Chances are you're below 500 if you're, you know, skating into that, you know, threatening to skate into that seven spot. You know, so many like the Lakers, they have a, you know, they, they, you know, pretty decent cushion. before you start getting to the six. I mean, I think, you know, again, yeah, okay, stay out of the plan. In theory, I think the minimum goal now is to finish top four, where you have a chance to host,

Starting point is 00:28:33 you know, at least the opening round of the playoffs. And you look at the schedule they've got upcoming Chicago on Saturday, especially if guys are back, because a game that you absolutely have to win. Four game road trip takes you through Orlando, Indiana, Chicago, and Memphis. that's three playoff teams out of four on the road. It does include a back-to-back, Indiana, finishing in Chicago. Memphis, you don't know what they're going to look like, whether or not John Morant's going to be able to play or not.

Starting point is 00:29:01 He's been in and out of the lineup. But then after that, man, it is, it's tough. Houston and home for what could be an incredibly critical game for the standings. Golden State is another team that is, you know, trying to move up and has a chance, you know, New Orleans. That's a throwaway game. You ought to win. two games against Oklahoma City.

Starting point is 00:29:21 We'll have a chance to talk about those because I'm not exactly sure what... I have no idea what those games are going to be. I don't know how much either team is going to really want to show the other, given where Oklahoma City is. Dallas could be fighting for a playoff spot, another game against Houston, and Portland could actually be trying to get into play in that last game of the season.

Starting point is 00:29:45 So, like, it is... It's tough. like the rest of the way. So getting guys back. I mean, with the OKC Lakers set up like, who will play in those games, who wouldn't? I mean, for OKC, there is the matter of how much the games, how much they even have to play in order to get home court throughout the playoffs. Like they're battling with Cleveland for, you know, if OKC gets to the finals,

Starting point is 00:30:14 trying to have home court through the entire thing. As far as the idea of how much they would or would not show, I can't speak for what Mark Dagnall would do, although if I were him, I would actually want to get a look at my team versus the new look Lakers. Like I would actually want to have them on the court. I wouldn't want it to be cold during the playoffs. As for JJ, though, and obviously there is no playoff sample size to predict with JJ. but just from what we've seen of him, and in particular, remember going back to preseason when JJ named his starting lineup before training camp even opened?

Starting point is 00:30:57 And I asked him, like, yeah, I asked him why did you do that? And he said, in part, it's because he wanted the players to know exactly what their roles were going to be. And if there was not going to be a training camp battle for any position, he'd rather everybody know. And then you just battle for the things that are actually real. But he also said, everybody knows what everybody runs. and because of that, I just, I get a sense that. I don't think the Lakers, I don't think the Lakers are in hiding.

Starting point is 00:31:22 Lakers are going to need to win those games. I think it would just be a matter of whether or not Oklahoma City is, you know, they've had three or two or three different games where they basically just kind of sat everybody. And I don't know, like, you know, if, if Shea is a little banged up, if, you know, like, I don't know how hard they're going to be working to win games. The Lakers are going to try to win those games because Lakers are going to need those. those games. But it's just a matter of what Oklahoma City puts out on the floor. I could picture OKC sitting guys for health reasons. None of this is the Lakers. Lakers is going

Starting point is 00:31:55 to be apt to play through the game. The reason I said that is you had mentioned before the idea of what they would want to show like OKC. I meant Oklahoma City, not the Lakers. Okay. It sounded like you meant OKC. I'm just saying if I, if nothing else I've heard other people say this, if I were OKC, assuming health was not a question, I would play my full roster against the Lakers at least once just so they play against this group. Sure. And the first time they play is not in the playoffs. I don't think that's actually a good idea.

Starting point is 00:32:24 Yeah, but even then you might, you know, hold back some actions or things like that that you think might be effective that you might need in a playoff series. But, I mean, the point, the point of that is just it could be a very difficult run through the post-season, you know, up until you get to the post-season. But the flip side is if you get Oklahoma City and they're just like, okay, you know, that's a two-game series, both games in Oklahoma in OKC, where maybe they're taking the foot off the gas a little bit. By the time you get Dallas on April 9th, that could be an incredibly important game for the Mavericks or they could be out of it by then. You know, Portland on the 13th, last game of the season could be an incredibly important game for the Blazers or they could be out of it by then. Like there's just this time of year, there are so many variables.

Starting point is 00:33:17 Is New Orleans going to field a roster on April 4th when they play? I don't know. I don't know what they're doing. I mean, Chicago is trying to get the plan. So they're going to keep crotting guys out there. And the Western Conference seating could come down to who plays which team on what day with all of this sort of end of season, Mishigas going on. So we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

Starting point is 00:33:46 The Lakers play Saturday night at the Cript last game before the roadie against Chicago. Again, hopefully LeBron James and Rui Hachamora return for that one. But in the meantime, not a surprising loss to the bucks, but still a fun night for Lakers fans because of a nice improvement from Brani. So we'll see everyone on after the game on Saturday.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Bronny James Has Career High 17 in Loss to Milwaukee, LeBron Might Return Saturday Vs. Chicago

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