Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Does It Matter Why Luka Dončić Got His Body Right? Plus, Why Everyone Can Relax Regarding LeBron

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

As the world gets to know Skinny Luka Dončić, there is tremendous speculation as to whether any of this would have happened had Luka stayed in Dallas, untraded and unbothered. Team Luka says this was an evolution already underway. Team Pretty Much Everyone Else seems to think we're talking pure "revenge bod," and even if it sticks, the catalyst was the trade and the way he was treated out the door. The reality is probably somewhere in between -- if there was an evolution underway, it was obviously accelerated by Nico Harrison -- but for the Lakers, the answer doesn't really matter. If Dončić has discovered something that sticks, they win. And it does seem like, in reading the Men's Health cover story, that Luka has moved into a space where he feels the value of the work he put in. And beyond that, the feeling around Luka and the Lakers is currently tremendous, with growing expectation that he'll sign an extension with LA sooner rather than later, after getting out and recruiting free agent guard Marcus Smart. Right now, things are going as well as they could for the Lakers in regards to Luka. Meanwhile, LeBron is looking fit himself, moving well, and seems ready for a season that surely will be filled with speculation about his future. Speculation he likes to feed, or allow to be fed, on social media. Does any of the noise mean anything for this season, though?  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: Luka! Luka! Luka!SEGMENT 2: Nature or nurture with new Luka bod? SEGMENT 3: LeDrama? LeNot Really.  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 Lockout Lakers for Wednesday. Brian Komeneski, Andy Komenetsky, asking the question, does it matter why Luca Donchich? Whoa, got himself in such good shape. 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 Locked on Lakers.

First listen to every day, Monday through Friday, no matter how you get your podcast, this one's always free. behind Paywall and locked on Lakers on YouTube. Andy's where over 36,000 subscribers are all hanging out, talking to each other, talking to us, and getting themselves ready for what everybody hopes will be and even better. 2025-26 season because the atmosphere

around the new star for the Lakers is looking great in a lot of ways, both literally, figuratively. There's the ex-examination. that he's going to sign an extension with the Lakers sooner rather than later. The guy has been out recruiting important additions to the team in the form of Marcus Smart. It is impossible, Andy, impossible, I say, to not feel bullish about where the Lakers are with Luka Danchich at this very moment as we roll into August. All the signs certainly seem to be pointing in the direction that the Lakers want. I mean, the idea that you would be recruiting Marcus Smart to the team,

there are some reports that while I believe Bill Duffy was a, you know, instrumental in getting his client, you know, the agent that he shares with Luca Dantzic, D'Andre Aiton, over to the Lakers, there's been some reports that, you know, Luca reached out to Aiton as well. He has seemingly been very outwardly aligning himself with the Lakers. there's a lot of talk about his relationship with the team in the future tense, like not even present, but very, very forward-looking. So, you know, while there is no guarantee that Luca is going to sign the extension this weekend,

August 2nd is the first day where it can take place and it just happens to be in L.A. during that time as one of the legs for this Nike one-on-one event that's gone in New York. That's why Luca was at the Yankee game looking all shredded and slender. It's why he's going to be in Chicago. And then eventually in Los Angeles, right at the time where he is extension eligible and it is legal for him to sign it, but whether it happens before he goes to Slovenia for Eurobasket after he comes back from Eurobasket. The overwhelming expectation now is that he is going to sign that extension if nothing else

before the season begins. And that, why? And I don't know how unexpected that is. Like I think, you know, there's a big difference between it's not signed on August 2nd and he goes into the season without it. Like that is. Well, that's a big deal. That's a big deal.

And there's a lot of space in there. There's like all of August, all of September, and even into a lot of October. Well, the September piece of it could just be if he decides, I don't want to sign this for whatever reason until I'm done with Eurobasket. And, you know, Tim McMahon and Brian Winhorse from ESPN have noted a few times that in the past, Luca has said, I don't want to handle NBA business until my Eurobasket business is done. And depending on how Slovenia does, that can stretch into, you know, mid or even late September if the team does well, just to clarify to people. Sure, of course.

But what I was getting at is like, you know, there, like, there's a lot of space there. There's a lot of reasons he might sign later. But just every day you kind of get closer to where it isn't done. It becomes a little bit more of a thing, a little bit. bit more of a talking point. If by chance, even if there was nothing really bad happening, no real tension between Luke in the front office, whatever it might be, even if none of that was really going on, if you start rolling into September, October, you know, we're two weeks from training camp. Why isn't Luke a sign? We're a week from training camp. Why isn't Lucasign?

It becomes this sort of self-perpetuating talking point where you're looking for things that are wrong. And obviously instead, what we have is the polar opposite of that situation to where it appears that it will be put to bed pretty quickly. It certainly appears that Luca is actively working to get, you know, to make this supporting cast as good as it can possibly be working with the Lakers, you know, to do that. And, yeah, I mean, there's just there's, it's going as well as it could. And you and I have spoken a lot about kind of what the offseason has looked like, given what the Lakers have had to work with. And have they had the best off season in the Western Conference? No, I don't think they have. I think you could say, you know, I think they've fallen a little bit behind Denver, relatively speaking.

I think they've fallen a little further behind Houston. at least as a regular season team, we'll see what Houston's like in the postseason. So like, yeah, I mean, but have they done about as well as you could expect, given what they had? Uh-huh, because they didn't have the stuff to acquire a player on the level of Kevin Durant like Houston did. They didn't have the money to do it. They didn't have any. Like, so you can only work with what you got. And the Lakers have done pretty well with what they had available.

Yeah. And really at the end of the day, the biggest success of this offseason, what was, ultimately determine whether or not the Lakers did well in the summer or not will be the extension with Luca. And like you said, all the signs are pointing towards that, including the commitment that Luca has clearly shown in the new era of Skinny Luca. And I mean, really, truly looking like a different person. I mean, in the most literal sense, my daughter and wife, when I showed them the cover of men's health with Luca, it took them a second to actually recognize Luca

because he looks so different. And this has prompted the question of how this happened, the impetus for it. And Dan Wojke, now with the athletic front of the show, great coverage of the Lakers for years, in a piece that he wrote about the Skinny Luca era, said, quote, some sources in Donchich's inner circle believed

he was on the path towards, this type of physical transformation, whether or not Dallas general manager, Nico Harrison, had bet against him. The belief among Donchich's team was to some degree that he had matured as an NBA player. He'd adopt some better habits to completely buy into a stricter strength and conditioning program instead of the more competition-driven approach he had been comfortable with, but improvement isn't always linear. Donchich had suffered a number of physical setbacks in 2024 that certainly made it easier for the Maverich to explore options other than handing him a blank check mega extension.

So there are people in Lucas camp putting out the idea that, no, don't give all the credit to Nico Harrison or like the backhanded credit. Like, yes, Luca came to Jesus, but it is only because Nico pushed him towards rock bottom and had Nico not have done this, Luca would have never come around. their camp is saying that's not the case. The overwhelming majority of reaction that I have seen or conversation about this seems skeptical that this would have happened without the proverbial kick in the ass that happened to send Luca in the direction out the door.

Yeah, I think it is naive to assume that that had nothing to do with it, that this would have happened in exactly the same way, you know, in exactly the same fashion with exactly the same motivation. I think it is naive to say that we would have reached this same place where trade doesn't happen, Dallas loses in the first round, whatever it is, and he still finds himself on the cover of men's health. But there's enough space in there. And this was, you know, again, the sources.

of the men's health story was clearly Camp Luca. You know, Nico Harrison was either not available for comment or chose not to wisely. But, you know, so like you know where that side of the story is coming from. But I just think there is space to say some of this was built around the natural progression of a player who's extremely competitive, who's reaching a point. point in his career where a lot of players start to take fitness more seriously, start to take diet more seriously. Even guys like Kobe Bryant. LeBron is sort of an exception as you always been sort of famously fastidious about taking care of himself physically. We have a Kobe. He told

you his diet wasn't good until it was straight up crap his diet for the first four of my years. He was a workout fiend and all that kind of stuff. But he didn't pay attention to his diet until a few years into the league at least. And so Dirk Novitsky said recently he needed eight years. Like a bunch of guys go through this. Kyle Lowry famously took a lot. Kyle Lowry spent a lot of his career among other issues people had with him was that he was pretty chunky. And, you know, James Hardin has up and down dealt with that stuff.

It is not uncommon. Yokic has had to go through some conditioning issues. A little bit. And, you know, guys like Yokic and Luca, who, you know, even now, like he's looking lean, you know, all that kind of stuff. It's not yoked out like the Andrew Wiggins meme from a couple of years ago. He just looks really good. Certain guys, you know, Nikola Yokic is as good of physical shape as 99% of the league as it turns out.

It just never looks like he is. No, but the first few years of this after the break. My point is certain guys, all I'm saying there is, I'm not disagreeing with your problems. Certain guys don't yoke out. They look like they're softer. They look like when they're in an excellent shape. Some of it just depends on your body type.

But after the break, we'll get into more of this question of where it's coming from and how much maybe the Mabbs accelerated something that might have happened to some degree. Anyway, that's next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Monarch Money. Have you ever wished that managing your money felt easier? With Monarch money, it can be. Whether you are growing your savings or planning a big purchase, Monarch puts you in the driver's seat.

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I meant to bring this up yesterday for Tuesday's show. There is at least some chatter that the next guy on the buyout market, if not now, over the course of the season could be Nikola Vucevich, the Chicago Bull Center, who is not a guy a ton of interest in, certainly not his salary level. Hell no.

He's not a good defender. Hell no. But if suddenly he appears on the buyout market, I think the interest in him would be tremendous, including from a team like the Lakers, because he's very skilled and can do a lot of, a lot of interesting stuff for your offense.

And, you know, a center combination of Aiton, with Vucevich would provide JJ Redick with tremendous amounts of flexibility. Now, a ton of things would have to happen. But what I find of, and none of it seems to be happening anytime soon. What I find interesting about this, though, Andy, is this idea that the Lakers could end up in a situation where, I don't know what, 40% of their rotation, 30%, 35%, whatever it is, could be built entirely around the buyout market.

And I just wonder, this is, this feels to me to be like one of these weird blips in NBA, CBA history. You remember a few years ago when the cap jumped, like they would do the smoothing thing. And obviously, you know, like you get these weird moments in,

in CBA history that have an effect on certain teams. Like, we're going to look back on this potential. as a year where the Lakers got bailed out in a lot of ways because the rules changed. Suddenly it was advantageous to sort of start buying a lot of people out that might not have been bought out before. And the Lakers have at least two, could add a third, if not now, later, player through this market that they never would have had access to without at the very least giving up a lot of

players. This is an interesting, quirky time in NBA history. It's worth pointing out. You'd be on board with Vucevich at like a buyout, though, wouldn't you? It depends on how they got him. I would be in favor of, say, waving and stretching Maxi Kleba. Because you're only talking about maybe three-ish mill of dead money over the next couple seasons. Like, to be clear, it's not perfect.

I mean, even acknowledging in the new cap and stuff like that, like $3 million is not a lot of money. We've seen at times, it can make a difference. what I wouldn't do, even for someone like Vucevic, at least I don't think, I would not attach a first to offload Maxi Clava or, you know, Gabe or whoever. Right. You finally are able to make the much Ballyhood consolidation trade to open up. Sure. Or I would not. Yeah.

Because I think it is, I heard the Lakers film room guys, Darius and Pete, talking about this. And they both acknowledged, by the way, they were doing some. this cap math off the top of their heads so they may not have had an exact, but you could theoretically trade Dalton essentially for nothing to create the space so you could bring in, you know, the roster space and the cap space. So you could bring in Vucevich on a minimum because right now the Lakers do not have the cap space. Forget the roster space. They don't have the cap space to sign even a guy. They're like a million below the apron or something. Right. And I would not, I would not just give away Dalton for a Nikola Vosovic rental.

I would not do that. You assume it's a rental. Anyway, it's just something interesting to think about. This is not as far as anything I've seen, read, heard, anything that is going to happen anytime soon. It's just one of these weird moments in NBA history. All of a sudden, tons of interesting players have become available. You know, Bradley Beale and a lot of guys like the,

next season is going to be shaped in a lot of ways by expensive players who are way too expensive for their production and now being incredible bargains for good teams around the league. But anyway, back to Luca. I think the truth is somewhere in between. I don't think there's any question that what happened in Dallas, If there is something that was going on with Luca, and it seems to have started not last offseason, but the offseason before, it was 100% accelerated, not just by what Nico did to him and the way Dallas traded him. But I think the end to last season, Luca coming off what the playoffs were not him. He wasn't necessarily the problem for the Lakers, but he was out in the first round.

it was not a good season by his standards, especially in terms of availability. And then the year before that, even in the finals, he took a lot of flack for being the guy that was attacked on defense, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. That was the problem and all that stuff. That offseason coming off the finals, he didn't get an off season. He didn't get a chance to get in the shape. So we'll never know exactly what could have happened last off season if Luca was able to train, able to rehabilitate and do all that stuff in the way that he's been able to do it this offseason. But that said, I mean, if there was a process going on, Andy, it was at the least accelerated by the Dallas trade.

Here's just no way around it. Sure. But here's the thing. as much as the skinny Luca origin story, so to speak, is really juicy to suss out. And it's fun to throw around the conspiracy theories of it and try to figure out the exact, even though there's no way to truly prove a negative in a lot of ways. Like there's no Earth 2 version where Lucas stays in Dallas and he either does this stuff or not. to me, in a lot of ways, I don't care.

Like, I actually don't think it matters. What matters is, is this Luca moving forward? I don't even necessarily mean the leanest, most shredded version of himself. Like, I know Lucas had other off-season where he's gotten himself in the shape, but I have to say, and I will acknowledge, I have not paid as close of attention to this as, say, the guys over at Locked-on Mavs or Tim McMahon or Mark Stein, people who've covered the team,

but certainly been aware of Luca throughout his NBA career. This is as good as I ever remember him looking and frankly better than I ever remember him looking. Is this Luca moving forward? Like that's what actually matters. Like the origin story, again, that's the most fun stuff to talk about.

But the thing that really matters is just, is Luca committed to this being kind of a baseline for him or this being the thing that he wants to try to maintain as much as possible? That's what truly matters. And even then, it's not just the specifics of is he 200 and whatever pounds he's going to play it or five pounds more. Like it's going to look different year to year. He might say, you know, he might have a year where he says, you know what, lost a little too much, you know, functional strength here or just raw strength here. I need to put a little more weight on or I need to, you know, it's not necessarily going to look exactly the same where like he comes in eight pounds,

you know, five pounds heavier one year than the last, that it means he doesn't care. What matters is have you developed the interest and the discipline to do what is necessary for you, physically in the moment. Because this stuff is hard. Probably the most remarkable thing. We can carry this on after the break. One of the most remarkable things about LeBron beyond the talent is just

the willingness to do this for 20 something years. I want to make sure we get into LeBron because he's back in La Lab. Right. But like, you know, 20 something years, of doing this. After you are, you know, at least for X percentage of the basketball observing

public, the greatest player who ever lived, you are a multiple times MVP, a multiple times champion, and all this stuff, to still go through and do the work that it takes to be in NBA physical condition. Because I can tell you, Andy, I'd have given it up a decade ago. in his situation. Especially as a billionaire. Hell yeah. And you've got interests. He's not one of these dudes, you know, who is just going to run out of stuff to do after

he's done playing. He's got interests, got business. He's got this, now, whatever. You got to stay in it and do it and do the work. And if Luca has that level of discipline to year to year, stay committed to whatever it is the thing that my team says that I need. need to be doing to play at that level. That's what I'm I'm really interested in seeing. So we'll get more into that. We'll get into Brony in a second because great story from

Dave McManneman at ESPN about Brony and his development and development in general, how the Lakers approach these things. Do you want to remind people that today's episode's brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control your finances with Monarch Money. Use the code locked on MBA at Monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. So more on Luca, more on Brony. Next. You wanted to mention LeBron in La Lab. Yes, he posted a couple Instagram videos, one that denoted it was before 5 a.m. And he was on the way to the gym. Then another video that actually showed him working out.

I don't have the actual video, but some stills of him looking good. Also a lot of people commenting looking pretty lean himself. I can't tell. I mean, honestly, he's looked like this for so long. Is he, you know, could he have bulk? What's the opposite? That trim down bulking, like taking off a little bit of lean down. Leaned out.

I don't think, I don't think his body fat is any lower because he didn't have any. It might be down a negative five now. Right. It's, it's, for LeBron, it's more question of whether or not he's just taken a little bit of muscle mass off. which would make sense. First of all, he's got ridiculous strength anyway, and now it's combined with old man's strength, you know, old man at the YMCA strength.

And then at his age, especially coming off a knee injury, whatever it might be, just a little bit less weight, a little bit more flexibility, maybe that helped. But I can't tell. He looks pretty similar to me. He looked good in the workout, which also matters just because he had the injury

during the playoffs that, you know, had the Lakers won game five, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for LeBron to keep participating in those playoffs. I think he was, I think so much has said he was out. Like that would have been the last. The Lakers had advanced. He wasn't going to play anymore. He was done.

But he looks good in these videos. And beyond the fact that he looks good, I do think it is a reminder that we've talked about a lot during this offseason with all of the reports of 10. between LeBron and the Lakers and the passive aggressive statements from, you know, social media posts from LeBron or the comment from Rich Paul, the statement upon opting in. Other stuff, including most recently Nikola Yokic's agent of all people posting a photo of LeBron, Maverick Carter and himself on a yacht with other folks. It looks incredible wherever they are.

Um, and just, we all stop for a minute. Like as I, our friend Domino Angula pointed this out and when magic dropped another, uh, clip of him on a yacht, that yacht that he's always on like certain guys, since one thing to be rich, but like certain guys don't seem like they understand how to really enjoy being rich. Uh, and I respect people who are still decent human beings, uh, but who very clearly like, you know what, I've got all this money and I've got all this stuff. I'm going to make sure I enjoy.

Sure. And this, you know, whether it's magic shooting hoops on a seven-gillian-foot yacht or LeBron, chillaxing in what some sort of bay somewhere on a beautiful boat, like, good for these guys. Like, you know, enjoy it. But the post from Nikola Yokic's agent, Misco Rosnatovich, says, quote, the summer of 2025 is the perfect time to make big. plans for the fall of 2026, which naturally led to everybody speculating, you know, LeBron to Denver confirmed, whatever. And even though LeBron did not post this, I'm sure he gave

permission for both the picture and the caption. And as we've talked about many times, he knows damn well how people are going to talk about it. And that's even if he didn't, he doesn't care. Well, no, he knows and he does care. But I'm saying, even if he didn't give explicit permission, he's I don't think the post would happen without explicit permission. You don't. Maybe, maybe not. You don't post that picture with that caption without permission. You don't do that.

Come on. Don't be an idiot. That does not happen without permission. But my point is, even with all of that stuff, this video is a reminder that, as we've said many times, once the basketball actually starts up training camp in September or pre-stance, season yada yada yada neither one of us is expecting any drama because lebron is a pro lebron is not a bleep disturber in terms of once the basketball begins he's not going to try to submarine the season in order to get himself out of l.A or anything like that it's just he's not wired like that the only way

this many years into his career don't want to be the bad guy right and the only way there would be drama would be if the season isn't going well, but that would be the case, even if LeBron had already publicly declared, I'm retiring as a Laker no matter what, like, because if the Lakers aren't doing well, that's drama. But it's going to be fine. And the point I was really making with like, you know, this, you know, not to get the rabbit hole of permission, it's like, this stuff is the same every year. And so, you know, LeBron. whether he gives the, you know, the blessing like the Pope on on these types of things or not, he knows what the reactions are and he kind of likes it.

It's, I think he finds it fun. I think he enjoys doing the thing where he encourages speculation and then tutts people for speculating. Like, you know, this is just, this has been a cycle that's been going on for, you know, two decades. now basically, or at least, you know, a decade and a half since, you know, taking my talents to Miami. Basically, for however long social media has been around. Right. It's like, you know, this is sort of LeBron. Like he works out.

He takes care of his body. Like nobody out there, like watching these videos, it's entirely in the context of, is he moving well? Is he doing it? Because nobody knows LeBron's not letting himself go physically. It's just how is he moving? Looks good. you know, this is sort of his off-season pastime. It's this.

It's hanging out with your family and working out. Traveling, drinking some wine, whatever it might be. This is how he passes the time. And I just, I agree with you, the idea that LeBron in year 23, 23 is going to put on the black hat again, which a role that did not suit him in the, slightest in Miami. That's really the last time he tried it was after, you know, the TV show.

It didn't fit. He's not doing it now. So it's just, it's going to be fine. The speculation about his future in L.A., you know, Mark Stein wrote about it. Every lot of people, we've talked about it. Other people have, too. Like, yeah, that's going to be there. but there's a difference between the off season of 2026 and the preseason of 2025 in the season of 20.

Nothing's going to happen. Nothing. It's going to be fine. He's going to go into the season. Skinny LeBron with skinny Luca, hopefully skinny Marcus Smart and yoked out Austin Reeves. Jackson Hayes shouldn't get any skinnier. He's very skinny as it already is. And we're all going to be.

in for it. And hopefully the Lakers can surprise a little bit. But LeBron is not. Now, all the speculation should be about when his career in L.A. is going to end? Not is it going to end before this season starts? 100% agree. I would be extremely surprised. Do I mean, do I think there is actually some degree of tension between LeBron and the Lakers? Yes, because there have been signs of it. And I mean, you and I have both heard that off and on pretty regularly for a few years. For a few years. Yeah.

The Lakers. And you know what? Like this stuff is not unusual. Like we covered the last 10 years of Kobe's career. We were in the middle of it when he demanded a trade. We were in the middle of it when the Lakers hired Mike Brown instead of Brian Shaw. Kobe's very outward first choice. And Kobe didn't even know about it until he saw it on sports.

Sports Center, like there were plenty of periods of tension between Kobe and the Lakers as well. Like, this stuff isn't that unusual. Think about your own jobs and how often there is often tension between bosses and different employees of different levels. The difference is, like, your job isn't public. This job is highly public. And you're talking about super, super wealthy, talented, influential people. But like this stuff is pretty normal. I'm not saying it can never turn ugly or turn bad or problematic. Like, clearly it can.

We've seen countless examples of things going bad between athlete and team. But just the presence of tension doesn't mean automatically things are going to go sideways. Because, you know, you just, you have to, you have to game these things out. because LeBron certainly has. If he really wanted to go, if it was really important for him to do that this year, he had an opportunity to do it, and it would have. And then the Lakers really have done better

than I think most people could have expected. Like this has been as good of an off-season as we kind of close where we opened. They've added, without losing any rotation players, or any of their draft capital, any of their trade ammunition that they go into the season. We'll talk about the roster ad nauseum before the season starts. But without losing any of those things, they added DeAndre Aiton, they added Jake LaRavia, they added Marcus Smart.

And what am I forgetting? A Deutiero. I mean, they traded up to get him. Tried it up to get a second round pick. But those are three rotation players that they've gained without losing a thing. And that is well beyond. And it doesn't seem like there were any opportunity costs. Like it doesn't seem like they passed up something that could have been more impactful

because they were hanging on to the first or hanging on to Dalton, Rui, whatever. Like it doesn't feel like they missed out on it. But even if there was an individual player there, but like, you know, you have to factor all that stuff in. Would that trade, that signing, that would ever been better than, you know, you lose DFS. But I think they filled that whole pretty well. Anyway, we didn't get to the Brani story. Dave McManaman wrote that is a great, tons of great insight into Brani, but also an interesting way to look at player development with the Lakers generally.

So we'll get into that tomorrow and leave us questions, leave us comments. Great time for mailbags with the office. season rolling along gets you ready for Eurobasket so Lockdown-Lakers on YouTube is ready to hang out with over 36,000 subscribers don't forget the audio portion of the show on Apple and on Spotify. See everyone tomorrow.