Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Does Jarred Vanderbilt's Return Make Rui Hachimura Expendable for the Lakers?
Episode Date: January 27, 2025The Lakers welcomed Jarred Vanderbilt back to the lineup Saturday, and he was one of the highlights of LA's 118-108 win over Golden State. It was barely more than 12 minutes of playing time, but it w...as enough to: a) show a blueprint of what these Lakers look like with Vanderbilt available, and... b) give a healthy chunk of the fanbase enough evidence that Rui Hachimura—who missed the game with a sore calf—is expendable. It seems unlikely that anything anyone inside the organization saw in 12 minutes on Saturday changes how the Lakers view Rui. They knew what he was going in, they know what he is coming out. His strengths and weaknesses are well-understood, and if they Lakers were looking to upgrade from the minutes Hachimura gets before, they're still planning to do it. The grist he provides for the rumor mill is also a function of math. With D'Angelo Russell out the door, Hachimura has the highest salary among non-star players on the team. He's the next logical candidate (financially, at least) to go. Fans like having a guy to blame things on, and for many, Hachimura is that guy. But are fans being too cavalier about trading him? How reliable is Vando from this point through to the end of the year? And what does all of this have to do with LA's reported pursuit of another center? It's an uncomfortable spot to be in, but it's where Rui will stay until the trade deadline brings some resolution. HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: More reaction to Vando's return. SEGMENT 2: Does Rui become expendable now? SEGMENT 3: Remembering Kobe, 5 years after his passing. 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!Turbo TaxReady for stress-free taxes and the most money back, guaranteed? Head over to TurboTax.com today and get matched with your Expert. Only available with TurboTax Live Full Service. Real-time updates only in the iOS mobile app. See guarantee details at TurboTax.com/guarantees. 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.FanDuelSuper Bowl 59 is here, And there’s no better way to make every play more exciting than with FanDuel Sportsbook. New customers can bet just FIVE DOLLARS, and if you win, you’ll score TWO HUNDRED BUCKS in Bonus Bets. Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of Super Bowl Fifty-Nine. 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.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Lockdown Lakers for Monday. Brian Kaminetsky, Andy Kaminetsky, Jared Vanderbilt is back. Anthony Davis wants another center.
And does that all make Rui Hachamura expendable? That's next.
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is where over 27,000 subscribers are all hanging out,
and many of them at least have took that 12.5 minutes that Jared Vanderbilt
played over the weekend Saturday night against Golden State and said,
I have seen enough.
Rui Hachamura, you are no longer needed around these parts.
And, you know, go get another center, Rob Palenka.
So plenty to break down.
in this episode and through the week as we get very close to the trade deadline with the Lakers playing some pretty good basketball all of a sudden.
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So like that game, Andy, on Saturday, a very solid win for the Lakers 118
over Golden State.
It was soon after Anthony Davis made his comments about wanting a center to ESPN and
Shamsharania.
It was a night where Rui Hachamora missed the game with a calf injury.
And it was also the return of Jared Vanderbilt to the lineup.
And you put all of those things together, and it is aggressively furthering the conversation about where the Lakers are and what should happen before the trade deadline.
We can get into what should or sure not or frankly what even can happen at the deadline.
But I do think it's worth drilling down a bit more on Vando the turn because, I mean, he has missed the better part of two seasons.
and we've spoken a lot about how not just how much Vando can help,
but just how in a lot of ways he is the guy that can provide particular types of help
that few other players on this roster can.
And I'd argue nobody other than Anthony Davis,
who's just in his own category,
can really do in the all in one person like Jared Vanderbilt.
Like he's, he has very special.
specific skills combined together in one player that is very difficult for the Lakers to replicate,
again, just with one guy.
I want to give a rundown of just some of the stuff.
It's so funny.
You describe like a specific set of skills like that.
He sounds like Liam Neeson taken.
For the Lakers, he kind of is.
He is kind of like Liam Neeson in very specific set of skills.
Right.
And the Lakers have been missing them for a while.
He played about 12 minutes in that game against the Warriors.
And in the first half, you saw just in like six minutes, Vando getting a difficult defensive rebound in traffic.
You saw him get a putback basket on an Anthony Davis miss.
There was a steal against Moses Moody.
And as the Lakers were running, he set a really good screen that cleared a path for Dalton Connect to get to the bucket and transition.
Then in the second half, there was a really nice pass off the dribble, like near the free throw line across.
A little short lane.
Right.
Pick and roll a short roll.
Right.
To set up DFS in the corner for a three.
He had a box out against Brandon Pajemski, which allowed Anthony Davis to get a rebound.
That was a possession that turned into an AD runner.
And there was a possession that led to a 24 second violation.
And Vando was in the middle of it defensively.
That ended up resulting in gave Vincent scoring on the other end.
So that's a lot of different stuff packed into 12 minutes.
And I think it just speaks to the way that.
that Vando can help kind of shore up the margins.
You know, we've heard a lot of margins talk lately with the Lakers.
I think he's a guy that shores up a lot of margins,
even if he isn't, other than maybe through defensive versatility,
he's not an A-list talent at anything,
but he's like B-plus, A-minus in a few different things.
Whenever you get a player like that back,
especially one that isn't replicating what you have, but filling holes that you don't.
It's it takes guys and you know, Jared Vanderbilt didn't guard.
I mean, I only played 12 minutes.
He's like he didn't shut down.
Jeff Curry.
Like it wasn't Jared Vanderbilt who kept Steph Curry from scoring in the second half.
I'd have to go back and like look how much the overlap the evening court time.
But when you have guys like him available and you can change your combinations, you can play him with DFS, you can play him with Max Christie, he can help LeBron, he can help Anthony Davis.
However you want to set these things up, it makes it easier for whoever's primary job it is to address Curry or the couple guys who you want to try to make sure get those switches or whatever it might be.
It makes it easier for them to execute their jobs because you have a better defender.
You have another guy who's active and capable, you know, got the athleticism,
to move around a little bit, does the little stuff, like boxing out, like, you know,
making the right, you know, screening better and, you know, running through, whatever it is,
guys who do those sort of little things are really valuable.
And especially, again, in a way that's sort of non-deplicative.
And so you get a guy like Dorian Finney Smith and you bring him in.
And he does a lot of that.
So coaches, there's a reason coaches love Dorian Finney Smith.
and it's not because he's going to give you 18 points a game.
You can find, well, I would say you can find 15 to 18 points a game anywhere in the NBA.
The Lakers have been struggling to find some of that periodically.
I think people understand what I mean.
Scoring is often the easiest skill to find.
And it's the other stuff that can be harder.
And so, you know, as we see Vanderbilt bump up from 12 to 15 to 18 to probably somewhere,
around 20-ish, you know, something at nights, minutes a night.
I think at the very least, you'll sort of see the value and see the utility of him.
And then you can decide, like, well, what does that mean for the rest of the lineup?
Well, obviously he's going to eat into everyone's minutes a little bit.
Ideally, LeBron and AD, but yes, no question.
He's going to have an impact on what you feel you need or if you need, Rui Hachamura.
That's a really big piece of it, though, that I, when you and I have talked before about where the minutes for Vando come,
we had talked about Connect as a very likely candidate, except we'll get into him maybe later in the show.
Dalton Connect all of a sudden is looking much more like the guy that for, I don't know, maybe a month felt impossible to take out of the rotation where, you know, there was a point where it seemed like he might not ever leave the starting lineup.
He's at a few games now where he's looked more like that guy.
but Dalton had seemed like a very,
it seemed like a likely candidate because if he wasn't scoring,
you don't see a lot of tangible utility for him on the floor.
And Vando can be used defensively like a guard.
So that's where you plug him in.
And then offensively, it's more just what are you asking to do
on specific possessions as opposed to his skill set?
We had talked about, you know,
potentially Jackson Hayes losing some minutes,
especially depending on what the matchup is.
Rui has come up as a possibility.
But then the idea that maybe he could just shave a few minutes off LeBron,
shave a few minutes off AD,
which is something ideal in any scenario.
You want those guys being able to steal a few minutes off the court each, if possible.
Vando might just be the solution for those guys.
It's, I don't want to, I don't want to put.
much on the return of Jared Vanderbilt that it gets like cartoonish like you know the the the
jokes that have been going around you know season doesn't start until Trevor Rees is back
season doesn't start no Kendrick nun is back like the lakers have had these sorts of things
vando is obviously a different deal and look they could come out um tonight and not look great like
you know maybe they you know Vanderbilt doesn't play as well and maybe the impact is bad maybe they
get blown out by 15. I don't know. But I hope not, but I don't know. It's not, it's like,
the point is you can see what it looks like if he's in there. And then so what do you do next?
They get blown out by 15 by the Hornets. I'm not saying, I'm just saying everything we're
talking about right now goes to bleep if they lose by 15. Or if they just a minute if they
lose. Like you got to win these games.
is that, you know, you, you, the Lakers are suddenly,
we might not feel good about this if they don't win by 15,
forget blown out.
Anything in the road, just go win the game.
But like the,
the Lakers have suddenly gotten that vibes thing back
because the swings in this season,
as we talked about,
there's like no middle ground.
It's all, you know, wild swings on the,
on the competence curve.
We're back in a high area.
And, you know, let's see what it looks like as they move through this road trip.
But at, again,
closer to the deadline, why is it that Rui Hachamora is suddenly the guy that a lot of Lakers fans are like,
see you later, like, oh, look, you showed you weren't needed.
I don't know if they're entirely correct, but there's a big reason he is the next D-Lo, so to speak.
We'll get to it next.
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Andy, on Saturday, noting that like, oh, you know, looks like Ruey picked the wrong.
time to miss a game.
Like sometimes, you know, you can, you never want to let the organization know you're expendable,
things like that, you know, all that kind of.
Nothing about what happened on Saturday in terms of Hachemur's presence or non-presence,
in my opinion, changed the way the Lakers would approach trading him.
Lakers know exactly what they have in Rui Hachimura.
And to me, the biggest reason that he is next man up,
up is that we he's a even I think he's played reasonably well this year there are gigantic holes in
his game and everybody knows where they are don't really expect them to get better um and more
importantly he's the next biggest salary that they have available to trade so you put all those things
together and if you want to make a deal for anybody who makes any money you got to trade rui
Hachamura. That's part of it. So I mean,
some of this is just math.
There's also too
the element of
you know what you have in Rui
and when Rui's playing well
he's a and I think just as
importantly actually utilized
well, I think he can be
a really important part of this team when Rui
is not being used in a way
that plays to his strengths
his weaknesses of which
there are some and they do exist.
Those end up
becoming more pronounced.
But I also think what Vando did on Saturday as much as we both thought it was really
useful and very promising.
And I've been beating the drum about Vando's importance pretty insistently for like two years now.
This performance, this return should not affect anything the Lakers do at the deadline,
whether you're talking about Rui or anybody else,
because there's going to be five games between now and the Fed.
February 6th deadline. The Lakers play a game that day, but it's going to be after the deadline.
It's not even like two full weeks with Vando not likely playing a hundred total minutes by then.
To put it in perspective, Armelle Treyori has played 61 minutes.
Like, Armile Treyorey has played 61 minutes?
Yes, he has.
I would have taken the under on that.
Hell, Bronnie's played 29.
So like, Ronnie, by the way, lighten it up in the G league.
Yeah.
But 100 minutes ain't a lot, if that.
Like it wouldn't surprise me if by the time the trade deadline rolls around, Vando's played 80 to 90.
That's, forget 80 to 90 games of showing what you can do on the court.
I'm talking to 80 to 90 minutes of showing you can stay on the court.
Like banking on Vando moving forward in terms of your planning is somewhere between reckless,
wishful thinking and stupid.
Like it's a bad idea.
To your point, I've seen people say,
I think it was might have been Yovan who pointed this like the Lakers I apologize to get it
wrong like the Lakers Lonzo Ball is somebody who's always you know attached to the Lakers in terms
of potential trade targets I don't even dislike the idea depending on what the price is
but just in theory the idea of taking Lanzo's skill set and dropping it on the Lakers I don't
have a problem with that slightest but you know the Lakers rightly given their lack of trade
capital are very careful about trading with, you know, trading four guys with lengthy injury
histories, which, you know, Lonzo obviously has one. And so the relying on Vando as like,
is the equivalent of that. It's like that is, it is exactly the same thing as saying like,
we're going to put all our eggs in Alonzo basket. It's like we're going to put all our eggs in a Vando
basket. Like, I still, I agree with you. I still maintain the Lakers should treat him as if he
as a bonus, not something you can count on throughout the rest of the year. Yeah. And look,
if it turns out Vando stays healthy the rest of the season and he's reliable to stay on the court
and you need to find the minutes for him and you've got a roster of other guys you need to play,
well, that's why J.J. Reddick makes a handsome salary. Like, there are worse problems in the world
for a coached out, particularly a first-time coach,
than too many players you want to put on the court.
Right.
And that's particularly relevant, Andy,
in the context of Anthony Davis talking about wanting a center.
Like, if you add Nikola Vucevic or Kelly Olinic,
if you want to, you know, real reserve,
you know, Vucevic is a starting caliber guy in theory,
or Valen Tunis, or Walker Kessler remains the,
probably not the right expression to use with him, the white whale.
Well, he is a great white whale, man. That dude's huge.
He is, he's all of those things.
Yeah, I mean, like if you're going to call somebody a great white whale,
it does make sense for Walker Kessler because beyond the fact that he is in fact
Caucasian, he is enormous.
Pretty great at playing defense.
Yeah, I mean, he is basically a shoplocking whale.
whale impressions.
It was as if a whale was guesting.
Right.
Where did Brian go?
And so you look at this and it's like that would make it harder because then, you know,
you've got Anthony Davis at a four, LeBron's at a three.
There's like you're bringing, if you bring in Walker Kessler, he's got to play 30 minutes,
25 to 35 minutes a night depending on the matchup.
Or, you know, why did you just, you know, really?
Release all the protections on the one pick.
Trade your other first two rounders.
It probably won't have a lot of protections on them.
You know, if you add Colin Sexton in a deal like that
to make the money balance out and all that kind of stuff,
now you're squeezing minutes the other direction as well.
So like, yeah, it would be harder to get Vanderbilt on the floor.
But again, good problem to have.
And you do wonder if Vando starts to play a little bit more
and he gets a little healthier.
and you look forward to playoffs.
As good as playoff Rui has been at times,
part of the reason DeAngelo Russell was seen as very movable
and needed to being moved was because he didn't hold up in playoff settings.
Rui has had some very good experiences,
but also some less good experiences in the postseason.
It would be very helpful if Rui is still on this team after the deadline
if the Lakers don't play Denver.
Like, that's helpful in general.
But particularly for Rui.
But you know what?
It's become a brutal matchup for him.
It's terrible matchup.
And it's a good point to make because how much of this is Rui
and how much of this is,
that's just a god-awful matchup for him.
And I think there's a little bit of both.
And the Lakers have to be careful about making sweep.
I think generally speaking,
you've got to be really careful about making sweeping judgments
about somebody's postseason abilities.
when they're role players, because that is so matchup dependent and role dependent and timing dependent.
Well, and along these lines, if you're going to ignore what we're saying and say that these type of past
performances equal future letdowns, then let me explain why Rui might be somebody that you need to keep around.
Talk about that coming up next.
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Do you want to mention as well that Sunday as we record this,
the fifth anniversary of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe and Gigi and seven other people in that helicopter.
I, I, I, um, it is a still a very strange thing.
I think for almost everybody who thinks about the Lakers, thinks about sports, whatever.
It's still a very strange thing to think about, even with all the statues and memorials
and murals and everything that's, that's up around town.
It's interesting that you bring up both the statues and the murals because,
Because Thursday, Matt Peralta was sitting in for me after the Celtics game because I was working the Lakers pre-half-time and post-game shows for 710 ESPN, the Lakers radio affiliate.
And when I arrived at crypto.com, the arena, there was a line to take photos with Kobe's statue, the one that's in the plaza.
And there is still, I mean, like there was a line of at least 20 deep.
And people have had plenty of opportunity to see the statue, get a photo with it,
and that it still attracts a line that speaks to the power and the legacy and just the way that Kobe is still part of the fabric of this city as anything else.
Also, it's been now five years since a lot of these murals were put up.
And I know that you and I both live in like the mid city area of L.A.
There are at least four or five murals I can think about the top of my head that got put up in that area.
They're still there.
Oh, yeah.
And there are more.
More if you go east, there are plenty more.
If you're plenty more.
They're all over.
Right.
And it's been five years.
And what's become really clear is those murals are never coming down.
No.
And to make it clear, I'm not saying they should.
But what I am saying is murals often get put up and eventually painted over.
These murals are not going anywhere.
Yeah.
And I think so there's two parts of this conversation.
And I know we want to wrap up the point we're making about Rui as well.
But there's the sort of still emotional shock and the effect that, you know, that Kobe had on people in his voice and his game and his plays and the players in the league and all of these things.
And then there's the effect on the organization.
And while I think the organization has handled, you know, what has come since, I think pretty well in terms of in the immediate aftermath with how they got back on the floor and the staff.
statue spelling fiasco notwithstanding.
It's a really nice, both of the statues that are out there are beautiful.
Yes.
And very well done.
And I think the work that, you know, the way in which Kobe and Gigi's name has been used
has generally been quite positive and all of these things.
But it's also been a really difficult thing for the organization to
I don't want to say move on from because it's not something you move on.
But like the, the Kobe sort of is still this presence.
You use that word before that is that hangs with the organization and is hard.
It becomes hard for the organization in certain ways to move from things,
to try different things to approach things.
So there's always this, I think, compulsion rightly and understandably.
to honor the spirit of Kobe and think about Kobe and fans think about things in the context of Kobe.
And sometimes I think that hurts the people who run the organization because they too are extraordinarily emotionally linked to Kobe for reasons we all understand.
I mean, it's difficult in terms of you'd mentioned before moving on is the wrong phrase.
but the idea of every organization in sports when one of their greats retires,
they need to form a new identity because the identity obviously can't be centered around.
Yes, thank you.
You're phrasing this much better than I was.
Right.
An organization cannot be centered around a player that no longer plays for them.
And LeBron is on paper not just as good a candidate as you could find to,
fill in the footsteps directly after Kobe,
you could argue he'd be the best one
because he's a massive superstar
and he arrived with the Lakers as a made man already.
Like, you know, LeBron was already one of the all-time greats.
And I understand that there's always been a tension
among Laker fans in a lot of ways I think still exists
towards LeBron. And LeBron, I think to a lesser degree,
Anthony Davis, but LeBron has always been seen in a lot of ways.
as an interloper with this organization and, you know, a mercenary who kind of big-footed his way in
with AD and with clutch. And there are positives and negatives that come with that. And to be perfectly
honest, there was turbulence with this organization before LeBron arrived. I imagine there will be
turbulence with this organization after LeBron leaves because the central characters involved with a lot of
with turbulence, many of them are still here.
It's not a LeBron thing.
I mean, they were going to, like you said, like, you know, there was,
there was plenty of turbulence when Kobe was there.
It's not like that.
Absolutely.
Oh, and look, I mean, you and I covered the last 10 years of Kobe's career.
We were there all the time.
I think we both had a good relationship with Kobe, but Kobe was not easy to have in
your organization.
Like he was, you know, to be clear, absolutely worth every egg.
that was often walked upon because the, you know, the good with Kobe far, far outweighed the bad.
But he had, you know, he's very strong, not just in his will, but just in his opinions and his vision and the way he wanted things done.
And as much as that could sometimes create tension at the same, at the same time, that specificity would often be very useful for the organization.
It's had, you know, he didn't live.
I mean, you and I were one of a few people who were like, when Kobe's gone, he's gone.
He's not coming back.
He's not going to decide he's going to need to unretire.
He's got too much other stuff going on.
And he's going to be too immersed in whatever he has set up to come after basketball.
Because he's too, first of all, he knew he couldn't play at the level he wanted to anymore.
a year off would have had him feeling spry for a month and a half and then everything would have
fallen apart again. His body couldn't do it anymore. He knew that better than anybody. But he was
also way too interested in other stuff. And once he was done, he wasn't going back. And incredibly
smart. I mean, we've said this before. He's one of the most intellectually curious people we've ever been
around much. Not athletes. People. Yeah. And I think the organization needed his
voice to help them find a new identity and tell them, you know, it's, you know, you can,
not everything has to be framed in the Mamba mentality. And, you know, not every free agent
acquisition has to be like, all of these things. Like, they almost needed the permission from
him to say, move on. Like, I'm, I'm gone. I will be here when you need me. I'm a support of the
Lakers, always, always, always. I'll be here courtside. He need me to go, help.
you sign a guy, I'm your there, I'm your ambassador, whatever it is.
But move on. Like it's okay. And that's, I don't want to say it never like it never really
happened. Like it's not the goal becomes harder when when he dies in that way.
Not just pre- yeah, I was going to say that way like prematurely and in such an awful
way. You know, you and I have plenty of criticisms at the front office.
This is not intended to be one.
Like Rob Polinka and Kobe Bryant were like brothers to each other.
Jeannie and Kobe, I don't know which familial relationship is the most appropriate here.
But like Kobe was family to Jeannie and the bus family and all of these things.
That matters.
And so you feel rightly.
And he was family to the city.
Like he was something very, you know, and in death, you become something even more so.
And there is a, an oblig, people from fans to the inside the organization to players to
everyone feel an obligation always to live up to that standard and execute.
that standard and that part is okay but it's the how you know there's more than one way to do that
and there's more than and like i said i just him not being here to say it's okay to do it differently
it's okay to go like this guy doesn't have to be me i know i will vouch for that guy doesn't look like
the way i did it but the way i did it was my way and whatever it is and just to sort of have that sort of
steadying voice to because I don't think he would have been a meddler and like you know I don't think
he'd have been one of these guys who you know sits on like the the NBA you know TNT crew talking
about how terrible everything is and I don't I don't think that would have been him with the
organization I don't think he would have been doing stuff that frankly magic used to do before
magic eventually began running the organization like the there were three or several years between
I would say maybe about 2014 to Magic got hired on officially, that he was very unhelpful
with his public criticism of Jim Bus that no matter how justified you might have thought
it was in terms of accuracy, it was not helpful in the way it was public and in the way it
fed the idea that the Lakers were a dysfunctional organization. These were all things
Magic should have been saying behind closed doors and Magic has just never been a behind closed doors kind of guy.
He has always been somebody who says the things publicly they wanted to.
And look, in front of open doors.
Yep.
And to be honest, it could have been helpful for Kobe to still be here if, if Jeannie ever wanted to part ways with Rob.
I think honestly, she would want the reassurance from Kobe.
Like, it'll be okay.
between you and me. You know, you and I are good. It'll be okay. But, you know, it goes to that's
great. There's an element of firing Rob that is firing Kobe. Yeah. And I, I can't say with certainty
that that is what prevents Jeannie from doing it. I'm, I don't think she wants to fire Robin the
first place. She doesn't like firing people, which I understand too. But I think it would be
easier for her to do it if she heard from Kobe. You and I are going to
to be okay. Like this has nothing to do with me nor should it. But this was a long way of saying
Kobe is still very missed within the organization, very missed within the city. The last thing I wanted
to mention just to make sure people heard the thought that I was raising with Rui, when it comes to
the idea that you would trade Rui because of past playoff letdowns or specifically the
2004 series against Denver where
Ruey was frankly awful.
Van,
if that's the thought process,
then I would imagine a lot of
Laker fans should at least be reminded
that we heard from an awful
lot of you that Vando
get rid of him because he's unplayable in the playoffs.
Remember what happened in every series
as minutes started going down.
Now, to be clear, I think that was
more about the other guys not making
shots than Vando truly
being played off the floor.
But nonetheless, if that holds for Rui, then the same logic should hold for Vando.
Roel players, that's why I say.
Roll players, you've got to be real careful, especially about saying, that guy can't play in the playoffs.
That guy can play in the playoffs.
There are certain exceptions, Kike Hernandez, to use a baseball example.
He just seems to become a completely different person.
Robert Orie.
Robert Ory, like, you know, just makes all the shots.
Like, there are certain guys.
But generally speaking, I agree with you got to be careful.
Anyway, we'll be back after the game, as will Dave Palais with the postcast.
Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 27,000 subscribers.
We will see everyone in just a few hours after what is hopefully another Lakers win.
See everyone later.
