Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - ESPN Grades the Lakers' Offseason. Does the Luka-Centric Rebuild Get High Marks?

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

ESPN is out with a bunch of late-summer evaluations for teams around the league. It includes win projections (45, which they say will be sixth in the conference) along with an offseason grade (C+) and all kinds of other little interesting bits of information.  First and foremost, while it's reasonable to think the Lakers took a little step backward because they didn't fully replace LeBron's production (even if you disagree, it's a defensible position) are they eight games worse, considering the upgrades at center and with better depth? Moreover, didn't other teams take some small steps back, too? Or potentially so? It's also fair to ask whether the Lakers are even being graded on the proper criteria. Did they make progress in stated goals? Yes, but you have to judge by what those goals are, right?  The story also gets into the biggest change to the roster composition, namely that the Lakers should have bolstered their bench, even if the starters get a hair worse. But the productivity gap between LA's starters and reserves last year was the biggest in the league, so closing that down will help JJ Redick considerably. And should the Lakers (sooner or later) find a starting caliber forward to drop into the lineup, not only will the disparity between last year's starters and this year's shrink, it'll make the bench better, too, by slotting guys into more appropriate roles.  Is one of those guys Jonathan Kuminga?    HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky  SEGMENT 1: The Lakers get graded by ESPN.    SEGMENT 2: Are they being dinged for the wrong stuff?    SEGMENT 3: Why the next player they add is huge.    Photo Credit: Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast.   Odoo Great organizations win because operations matter. And that’s why you should get Odoo. Try for free today at https://Odoo.com/lockedon. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COMto play Daily Dingers and make your free pick on who’s hitting a homer this MLB season.   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.

ESPN grades the Lakers offseason. Do they gain points for better depth or lose points for weaker starters? We'll tell you next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Lockedon Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks, everybody for stopping by Locked on Lakers. Brian Komenetsky, Andy Kaminowski, Plenty to break down in today's episode.

starting with some early off-season evaluations from ESPN, pretty comprehensive, working through the entire conference, laying out early predictions on who's going to finish where, all that kind of stuff, and essentially grading what the Lakers did and why they got the grade that they did. First and foremost, Andy, the Lakers picked sixth in the conference, the top play-in team, which I know will annoy fans. To clarify this a little bit, just to make sure people understand,

they were picked six, which would make them a playoff team if they finished sixth. They were in a bracket called the playing teams. Oh, right, correct. Just to make sure it's clear what you're talking about. Yes, sorry. They would finish six, but in that group of teams that are considered

much more in the playing group. correct. I said that wrong. But even then sixth, when you look at, you know, kind of the uncertainty around Minnesota, when you look around at Denver and all of this stuff, it is a ranking, I think, that for most observers, sort of outside of L.A. looking in at the team, is reflecting a consensus of this year's group is not as good as last year's, primarily because they just couldn't replace, essentially they couldn't replace the loss of LeBron's production. So that's kind of where, in my reading,

these things start. So first and foremost, where did they get predicted? I went off the screen for wins. 45. 45, that's what I thought. That to me felt a tick. low if everybody stays healthy. I mean, they won over 50 last year. I don't think they're six, seven, eight games worse than they were last year, assuming, again, reasonable health.

Yeah, I mean, for what it is worth, because I agree with you, I don't think 45 is an outrageous prediction for them, but I think it's too low. I've said before that I think my prediction is 50 wins. And for what it's worth, I did Tuesday's episode of Locked on NBA, well, Monday night into Tuesday's episode of Locked on NBA game night with Ryan Blackburn, one of the hosts of Locked on Nuggets. And he actually said independently on the show that he felt like the consensus on the Lakers is lower than what he thinks. So just another opinion that doesn't come from two hosts of a Lakers podcast. But like I said, the 45 wins of it, again, it's lower than I expect, but I don't think it's an outrageous prediction. And the sixth seed, I think, is fine, just in the sense that we've

said many times, we expect three through six to be bunched together pretty closely like they were last season. So the difference between three and six may not be that. Right. And to your point, the projections that they have are Denver, Houston, and, and, you know, and to your point, and to your point, and, to your point, Minnesota at three, four, and five separated by a game. So like, let's stay they had stuck the Lakers there at 49 or, you know, losing a tiebreaker to Minnesota at 50 or something like that. You're like, oh, there's literally almost like no difference between three and six. But there's, you know, there's a five-win gap here between, you know, five and six in

these projections. So they do have these other, where we have, we have, we have. I think evaluated the way that the conference is separating. They have the Lakers as one of these teams that drops back significantly more than we've talked about it. And here's the issue I have with that particular piece of the breakdown and the explanation for it. Because again, I think 45 is too low, but I don't think it's an outrageous projection. No. I think six is lower than I expect them to finish, but it may not be that much lower.

And I think they could have a good season still finish six. But here's the part of the evaluation that I think is frankly kind of reduced. productive. The Lakers were a play-in team three times with LeBron James, and now that he is gone, it will be Luca Donchich's challenge to lead the team to a top six seat. They were a play-in team, you know, there's a very much a, you know, they were a play-in team three times with LeBron, so what will they be without him? Okay, let's take a look at these three play-in seasons. One of the play-in seasons was 20, was 2021, where they were coming on the heels of that fast bubble turnaround, And in a 72 game season, LeBron missed 27 games and AD missed 36.

So half of the season and LeBron about 40% of the season. So that's a really big detail in terms of how they were a play-in team. Then 2023. That was the year of the Rust trade, where the roster was totally bleeped until it was unbleaped by that big trade bringing in D. Lo and Vando and Malik Beasley, sending out Russ a couple weeks before that they got Rui. But that team entered the All-Star break, five games below 500. Also, LeBron missed 27 games that season and AD 26. So again, really big chunk of the season missed by LeBron and AD. On top of the whole, we got to tread water until we figure out

how to get Russell Westbrook off this roster thing. Then 2024, that was a third of the play in seasons, and they won 47 games. And like that year, you could offer the Darwin's weird lineups made things unnecessarily complicated and likely cost them some games caveat. Like, Darwin was a far better coach in both of our opinions in season one, where he's actually, I think, quite good than season two. But if someone wants to call BS on that, okay. I mean, like the team was healthy enough, deal with it.

Fair enough. But 47 games in and of itself is not a disaster. And that's the only of the three seasons where I think you could legitimately argue. Well, think what it would have been like if they didn't have LeBron. The other two seasons, I don't actually have to think that hard because they often didn't have LeBron. And last thing, those were completely different rosters than the ones we're talking about now, including because they have Luca Dajic who, respectfully to LeBron, is better than him. So I don't even think the comp makes that much sense to begin with.

If you just want to say replacing LeBron is hard, okay. Like, I don't think I'm as concerned about it as you are, Brian, but it's a totally fair thing to be concerned about. Yeah. But the idea of, you know, they were a playing team three times with LeBron's silly. That's ridiculous. It's silly. It's also, you mean, you got to look at the league, you've got to look at the conference, you've got to look at all kinds of things. I mean, look, I think the Lakers on a raw talent basis didn't, I agree.

They did not fully replace the production of LeBron and the presence of LeBron. And they're, you know, some of it's positional. They're short forwards now. We're like, you know, last year they had to play Rui out of position because they had too many of them. They're kind of short at that position in some ways. And so, you know, I think that's. That's legit. But I also think the conference took a little bit of a step back.

I think they are underrating the potential fallback for Minnesota. I mean, look, injuries for every team, obviously if Luca or AR spent a lot of time on in street clothes, Lakers are going to be in big trouble. But you look around the conference and Denver, even with the DeRosen signing significantly thinner than they have been. Minnesota is crazy thin, which is part of the reason their name keeps popping up as a strong contender for Jonathan Kamingo, which we'll get into. And totally unknown too because they've completely revamped their roster. Correct. You know, a lot of that size that they, you know, that hung their hat on is gone. And while, you know, Anthony Edwards and lamella ball is a very intriguing and fun combination, I'm going to watch them play.

excitedly. But there are a lot of question marks around the team. I think they'll be good, but also kind of a paper thin group when you start to look at that bench. And so I just, I feel like the Lakers took a little step back, 53 win team last year, in a season when a few other teams kind of took a little step back too. And I think they should be a little, you know, just kind of lumped in

with that group as they have it, as opposed to being dropped down to clearly a different tier of team. Like right now I would have it the top two, obviously Oklahoma City and San Antonio, whatever order you want. I think Houston is just a little bit better now because they're, I think the only of the sort of next range of contenders

that didn't get worse in one way or formerly, you know, slightly or potentially much more so. And then I think, you know, the Lakers, Denver and Minnesota, the next three teams. But one of the things that I thought was interesting about this is because it's for people who have read it. It is overall, I think, written fairly. There's not a whole lot here to quibble about,

but one of the things that I found interesting about this evaluation that ESPN put out, depending on which writer they're excerpting from what they're talking about, they all have different things that they're focusing on. Part of the reason I think the Lakers get the grade that they get is because at least some of these people are grading on the wrong criteria. and I'll explain what I mean by that next. Locked on Lakers. He is brought to you by Odu. Running a business shouldn't feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems

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That's O'D OO.com slash locked on. So part of what, if you go through this thing again, you go to ESPN.com, you can read it or try to drop it in the show links and whatever. Like you see, you know, they get Zach Cram, who's a good writer, gives him a C-4. He's terrific. He's terrific. He's terrific.

The Lakers might have been the busiest team of the summer. It's hard to argue there. But did all that activity make them better, or were they merely running in place? And he lists the teams are the players that are in. He lists the players that are out, knows the three-man core of Donchich Reeves and Kessler are a really strong core.

short it forward, don't have a really good backup center, which, you know, this gets to this. There are a lot of reasons why people are so focused on this power, you know, if they could get one more starting caliber forward, what it does to the roster and try to cover that before the end of the show. But as Zach Cram says, they mostly did well with depth signings such as Thibel and Williams, but it's hard to overcome not replacing James's production even in his 40s. They have less flexibility now, and it's hard to say with confidence that are any closer to title contention. This from Ben Goliver, another great writer.

The Lakers got, you know, what did they learn about the Lakers? Because the Lakers got serious about building around Luka Dantzich. These, to me, are two different ways of looking at the offseason for the Lakers. The first one focuses sort of in absolute terms, are they better or worse than they were last year? are they closer to a title or further away from a title? And that's a totally legitimate way of looking at it. But Ben Goliver, whether I'm not sure if this is exactly what he was thinking, kind of touches on what I think was actually the objective of the offseason,

which was to start to reshape the roster in a way that legitimately is built with some sense of continuity around Luca. I don't think the goal was to get to become a championship caliber team. The Lakers, Andy, so much said it themselves that this wasn't an offseason where they thought they could get all the way to Oklahoma City or San Antonio. So I think if you're grading the Lakers based on, do they get closer to a title than last year? It's reasonable to dock them some points. If your goal is have they started to reshape the roster in a way that's coherent for the new era that they're in, then I think they deserve more credit. I mean, we spent a lot of time telling our audience, the listeners, the viewers, that the odds of the Lakers coming out of this offseason as inner circle contenders was really low.

Somewhere between really low and likely impossible, just because they would have too many. roster spots to fill too many areas of need. And they weren't operating from a, you know, they had cap space, but not infinite cap space. They were low on trade assets, whether you're talking about draft picks or whether you're talking about tradable contracts, because by the time the summer rolled around, they basically had no contracts. And that can be a problem.

Like, that's the downside to the all cap space route, which we talked about many times. it gives you some degree of options, whether you're talking about signing guys and free agents, as free agents are trading into your cap space or in the case of the Lakers, both. It limits the type of trades you can do. And the odds of fixing everything to an elite level in one off season just was not a realistic goal. I agree. And the thing that I kept stressing was I think they should come out of this off season, looking like they are 60 to 70% of the way.

And then after one or two transaction cycles, when you get to next off season, they should clear that summer looking like they are a team that can make serious noise in the playoffs. Like I think this year they're going to be a playoff team. I think they could put together a round or two. And if it turns out we're underestimating it, awesome. Great.

Yeah. And we both like this roster. But I think next offseason, if it doesn't feel like they are closer, then you can start saying, all right, they are failing the mission. They are failing Luca Donchich. They clearly cannot figure out how to do this. But in the meantime, I do think the roster feels like it's the foundation of a path moving forward. And it's also the foundation of a roster that makes sense around Luca.

and, you know, they got Luca midway through the 2024 season, and there just honestly has not been, I think, enough time. And they were not really in a position to go into a full build around Luca plan until this offseason. I know there are fans that will consider that a cop-out, but I actually just think it's reality. reality isn't always satisfying, but it's still reality. Yeah. I think it's the fair question to ask about sort of the long-term, okay, they started building around Luca,

and it comes up in this story to give credit to ESPN writers for really thinking of the big picture thing here. It's the long-term thing for the franchise is, whether or not they now have enough, like did they lay this foundation in a way that it gives them enough to close the gap? Like, do they have enough now that with whatever they got left, they can figure out a way to get to that next level?

And that, I think, is a legitimate discussion because the Lakers have, they are trying really hard to position themselves to be able to offer a full mid-level next year. That's very important. They don't have draft picks. They don't, not going to have cap space. You need to be able to attract the best possible player that you can.

A full med level offers you that opportunity. Or you chop it up if you decide you need more depth. It's more than what you have. And then the other thing they're trying to be able to do is preserve the ability to elevate their spending a little bit. I mentioned this for Monday's show. A great point that Darius Soriano made on the Laker Film Room podcast is, you know, you need to be able to, certain teams are right up against.

against that second apron. And so they can't spend more. Like you want to make yourself in a better position than those teams so that if you do need to go up over another team a little bit, you have the space to do it. So they are thinking forward in that way, which is good. But it's still reasonable to ask whether or not they'll be able to make up the gap.

But that's a different question than are they title contenders now? Because that, like you said, never should have been the baseline for your evaluation of this off season. Yeah, I mean, there is urgency to start building the right way around Luca. Like, we're not talking about this or framing this like they have a five-year window, even though Luca's prime is roughly five more seasons, give or take. Like, now, you've got to start moving with urgency now. But again, that doesn't mean that you can offset reality.

Maybe you get lucky or unexpectedly fortunate and find yourself with an opportunity you didn't expect. I think Laker fans can understand that. They call it Donchia, Donchich Kamaluka. Like, nobody saw this coming. Here's where we are. But you can only count on. Which is why I have tried really hard to get the nuggets to hire Nico Harrison, because that would be a great redemption arc.

You know, just an opportunity. I'm just saying he's out there and it would be a great story. I mean, put it this way. Who do you think is the most unexpected big addition that the Lakers have gotten before Luca? Because I think it's Pau Gasol. I agree with that. Nobody had expected Powell.

That is almost 20 years ago. Or the Spanish Inquisition. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's almost 20 years ago. Like in terms of these, you know, for all the talk about Lakers exceptionalism, they always get their stars and it always works out for him. And yes, they've clearly had their share of stars. Nobody would deny that.

But like Anthony Davis, we saw that coming because it had been loudly announced by pretty much all parties. Anthony Davis is going to be an FN Laker one way or another. LeBron, nobody was shocked when he ended up a Laker. Like these sort of unexpected, I mean, people were shocked that Russell Westbrook ended up the Laker, but for all the wrong reasons. But these sort of, you know, out of nowhere type of game changers, you can't count on them.

But I do think the Lakers are in a good position to start moving forward in what is now truly the Donchich era. And it's funny, too, because we'll move on after this, but it's funny too because part of the criticism of the Kessler deals, like the Lakers gave up all their stuff to get them. And I get it. It's like, okay. But like if they didn't give up all their stuff for Kessler, who were they going to give up all their stuff for?

And like, then you start getting into, well, they're not doing anything in territory or like it's short term. And it's not that much stuff in all honesty. There's not that. And this is kind of the going right. Maybe they could have packaged that into Peyton Watson or something like that. But then you'd be like, well, where are they going to go get a center? It's like, you know, you can only to get good like premier players, you can only make that swing kind of once with what you had because that's what, you had. Now, we'll find out if they're right about Kessler and Mamu and Grimes especially and

guys like Saxton. But I do want to, this was a really, a really key part of this evaluation. And it looks at the bench. This is from Dean Oliver. It looks at the bench and the starters from this year to last year. Here are the predicted net points per 100 possessions for the Lakers top seven players for this season. And he points out, last season's Lakers starters produced positive 4.6 nets points per game, 9th best. Their bench was negative 2.910th worst. Biggest drop

in the league between your starters and your reserves. The bench has gotten better, but, as Dean Oliver points out, in his mind, with LeBron going to Philly, the starters get weaker. So this gets to kind of the crux a little bit of why

somebody like Kaminga, whether it's literally him or someone else, is appealing to the Lakers, even if he's not the perfect player. We'll explain next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Fandul. Baseball fans, if you think you know who's hitting a homer today, Fanduil is giving you a free chance to call a shot with Daily Dinger's.

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The Lakers unquestionably addressed a lot of that. Like their backup guard situation is significantly better with Colin Sexton. I know people are comparing Sexton to like Canard, but for most of the regular season, the real comparison is him with Vincent. And, you know, because that's who that sort of was in that backup guard spot in a lot of ways. And so Colin Sexton is going to be significantly more productive, particularly offensively than Gabe Vincent was.

You know, they have Mamu as a hopefully. I don't totally buy that logic, but I don't think it also matters because I think overall he's going to be more dynamic than Luke Kinnard. Well, that too. I mean, but the Kinnard's shooting, for example, became a weapon. But Sexton is overall a more dynamic player offensively. Quentin Grimes is more dynamic offensively than players. Like, you go up and down the line. They have significantly more guys and it pushes, you know, hopefully.

at some point, you know, you push Jake LaRavia down, you know, a little bit into slots that are more appropriate for their minutes. Maybe you can find somewhere that Vando can be a little bit, you know, in a role that makes him comfortable. Now, look, they, they do need to fix this backup center thing. But part of the way that you can fix the backup center thing is by finding another forward. Because that, if you can put a different guy at your starting forward position, now MAMU can slide into that four. or five backup position where he could do a little bit of both, but you're not relying on him potentially as a starter. You're improving your bench while also improving your starting lineup. The same thing happens with if you're, let's say you're starting Jake or something like there,

there's a place filler there. He goes into a more appropriate spot. Like so I think part of why this, you know, pursuit perhaps of Jonathan Kaminga remains live, whether it's Kaminga or another person, however imperfect, that they can, they think can really improve them, is just because of the, it improves, it helps with that gap, you know, the lowering of the starting lineup. And it also adds to that bench depth. And, you know, it slots a lot of guys into better positions if you can find the right player. Yeah. And our friend Kurt Heelan over at NBC has an update on the unsigned free agents of note. And one of of them obviously includes Jonathan Cominga and said that right now it seems to be the Lakers

and the Timberwolves in, I guess, the strongest contention for Caminga, part of a report that he put out, quote, the Lakers and Hawks are talking sign and trade again with Gaden Hardy, reportedly in the conversation he makes $6 million this season, while previously that was Jared Vanderbilt, $12.4 million. Kaminga's other issue, any sign and trade has to be for at least three years that would lock him into a deal. He believes is below his market value for longer than he wants. That's why Minnesota sits there with six million of its mid-level exception that he can walk right into, no sign and trade. He'd get to play with Lamello Ball and Anthony Edwards. Later, Kurt Heelan says, Kaminga reportedly likes the idea of playing for the Lakers and who would

start him at the four as a better fit. But then Kaminga kind of edited, I mean, excuse me, Heelan kind of editorializing, but is he? Kaminga wants to be a score. He's one of the ball. in his hands in Los Angeles, where Luca Donchitz and Austin Reeves has the ball. Will he fit into that system and play a role? It's the same question in Minnesota. Before you say, of course, he will. Remember that clash was at the core of his issues with Steve Kerr in Golden State. And while I do think the warriors misplayed a lot of the development and I think mental

attitude shaping of Jonathan Cominga, if nothing else, I think they have a hand in it. The fact remains, though, that Caminga is a guy that. seemingly wants the ball a lot, wants to be a very isocentric score. Yeah. So you kind of wonder if he's a good fit anywhere with sort of that, like any of the teams that he would know. Well, the best fit for comminga thus far and he certainly has shown flashes of talent and flashes of woe that at least explain a little bit why he remains this much of a talking point despite being on balance, I think a pretty unproven player.

The best fit for him seems to be a bad team where he can do all the scoring. Like in some respect. Without some sort of change in, like, you know, he got a four-year $110 million deal. Maybe he'd be like, you know what? I got paid. I can play whatever. I'm on board. But that's not a choice.

So like the Lakers can't give that to him. Nor should they. No, no, no. I agree. 100%. But like, do you think there's any sense to have, like the Lakers can give him more money in absolute terms than Minnesota can't, just because, you know, Lakers have to make it a three-year deal.

Minnesota kind of really can't or they won't, at least at that level. Well, they could. I mean, they can't, but Kaming is not going to sign a long-term deal with them for, you know, six million a year. No, no, no, but they could if they wanted to find a way to trade somebody else to make it a larger deal. They could try, but it's, they've got it's, it's, they're a little bit stuck. in that regard to the cleanest way to get them there, as Kurt described, is with that exception.

Sure. Do you think there's any sense of, okay, I go and I take the $6 million from Minnesota because if I, if I sign with the Lakers, if I figure out this sign and trade, we pull it off, and I'm taking the same deal that like I could have gotten three months ago or maybe even a tick less because just maybe for whatever reason, that it's like that is admitting failures. That's admitting that you, you know, you misread the market and were defeated and teams don't like you and all that kind of stuff. Whereas this, you could even, you could at least say like, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm not going to take an under market what I think is an under.

I just wonder if the psychology of that is playing into it from comminga side where there, which by the way would be an argument against signing coming. I mean, to be totally honest, I don't, I don't want to psychoanalyze Jonathan Kaminga from a distance without even knowing what the numbers are. you know, like we've seen reports that the Lakers were trying to go two for 20, something like that. But in terms of- Yeah, I think the Lakers can't really offer him more than, you know, anywhere from 10 to like 12 or 13 a year. Sure. But like less than a full mid-level. Sure. But insofar as how he's evaluating that theoretical number from the Lakers versus six million for one year from the wolves, I don't think it is fair or appropriate for me to start psychoanalyzing how he's weighing these pros or cons.

I do think it's fair to say the contract number while all guys want to get paid seems to be a real sticking point in ways that become intrusive for Kaminga's career. It's shaping his reputation. Yeah. There's no question. We can talk about this more during the week, but insofar as that fifth starting spot, whether occupied by Jonathan Kaminga, another player. around the league X acquired via trade or somebody internal.

I am increasingly growing bullish on the idea of Zaire Williams. If he has a good camp and we see him hitting those open threes that, you know, the last couple of years, he has been very good on open three point shots, unless it turns out that it's just him and Grimes together becomes too small of a pairing with wings, in which case you start looking for the best defensive wing with size, which I guess would be probably Jake La Ravia in a nominal starting role, 18 to 20 minutes. Williams is long, but he's very skinny.

Right. Unless Addu Thero plays well enough in camp that it feels like, you know what, you could start him for 15 minutes a night. Because I think it's going to be very wing by committee regardless of who ends up starting. And you could see if if a do shows, all right, the defense and the physicality and the energy and the athleticism really provide something the rest of this group needs. And we figure out something for him to do offensively, like something, whether cutting, whether transition, something that occupies a defense well enough. And then all the other stuff pops. Maybe a do could be an option.

but otherwise I think it would probably be Jake by default, again, and probably a kind of nominal starting. 18 to 22 minute rolls. I always compare it to A.C. Green and the 2000 championship Lakers where AC was the starter, but Robert O'Re played as many minutes or more off the bench. But I'm growing intrigued at the prospect of Zaire Williams. They're going to be able to try the way the roster is now, they're going to try whatever they can.

I mean, we're going to, we're going to see a lot of different things. at the beginning of the season if they don't do anything else. And I don't think they will. I mean, ultimately, this spot matters so much. And like this is why they're doing all this to try to keep that mid-level open. They need to attract the best player they possibly can't. If the Lakers are correct, but the players that they've signed, they are going to almost surely take that $15 million or whatever it is,

give or take and plow it into the best available wing, legitimate six foot eight can guard threes and fours that they can find in the market next year, whether that's by trade or by free agency, with that exception. I think that if they are correct with who they have and they filled the needs that they think they have filled, it's almost sure. So like they need to fill that spot, but they don't have to fill it today. Really quick before we go, just because I'm seeing this comment right now in the chat, and I've seen others like it, both today and in previous shows from Eric McGilpe,

haven't mentioned Arthur Columa. Arthur Columma is on a two-way deal. You can't start planning for a two-way guy to be a starter because there's a limit on how many games he can be played before you have to convert his contract. If he somehow plays his way into that role, awesome problem to have, figure it out. But it is, I mean, putting aside the fact that Arthur Columa has not shown anything at an NBA level, great camp, awesome story. Glad he's on the two-way. I was lobbying very loudly for that to happen during the summer.

From a purely logistical standpoint, he's not an option to be really prognosticating. He just isn't. Nope. So plenty more to talk about this as we go forward. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 39,000 subscribers. to the channel. We will see everyone tomorrow.