Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Fred VanVleet's Injury Shakes Up Western Conference. Opportunity for the Lakers?

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

The Lakers are unquestionably a very good team, but aren't generally considered a top contender in the Western Conference. There's a path to get there, but it involves unfortunate things happening to the teams that (on paper at least) are a notch above them in the preseason pecking order. Well, Monday one of those things seems to have happened. Houston point guard Fred VanVleet suffered a major knee injury—a torn ACL—that will require surgery and likely keep him out for the year. The Rockets have a pretty stacked roster overall, but VanVleet is a critical part of their offense, and a major voice in the locker room. Moreover, they don't really have any depth at the position, and because they're right up against the apron and have a bunch of players who can't be traded until December 15th, aren't likely going to be able to do anything to fill the void. Or even try. Not right away, at least. So the question becomes how far this knocks down the Rockets in the brutally competitive West. It's a big enough loss that you could project the Lakers to leapfrog them, for sure. Nobody wants this sort of thing to happen, but broadly "bleep happens" is going to be a reality of any rise for the Lakers. Most teams in the conference will need to benefit from a little luck, even the top ones. One thing that will help the Lakers vault to the top? MVP level play from Luka Dončić. And to that end, coaches, execs and scouts around the NBA are bullish, as expressed in the annual ESPN preseason survey. They also weighed in on a predicted location for LeBron James next year. Do they think he'll still be in LA?  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: VanVleet hurt. SEGMENT 2: What it means in the West.SEGMENT 3: Bullish on Luka.  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYEnough with boring, flavorless caffeine, it’s time to give your caffeine a flavor upgrade with 5-hour ENERGY®️ shots. Get the favorites you love or be bold and try something new in-store and online at https://www.5hourENERGY.com or Amazon today. SKIMSShop SKIMS Mens at SKIMS.com/lockedonnba. Let them know we sent you! After you place your order, select "podcast" in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at https://monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first yearFanDuelRight now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app now by visiting https://FanDuel.comto get startedFANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone, welcome to Locked on Lakers for Tuesday. Brian Kaminetsky, Andy Kaminetsky, a major injury shakes up the Western Conference. We'll tell you what it means for the Lakers next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers your first listen of every day, Monday through Friday, no matter how where you get your podcast,

this one's always going to be free and never behind paywall. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel, all of whom are getting excited because training camp is rolling around. We already know that later this week, Rob Polinka and head coach JJ Redick will be speaking to the media, which means media day is right around the corner, likely the following Monday. So plenty to look forward to. By this time next week, Andy, we will be talking about training camp basketball. which is better than what we're talking about now,

which is not any kind of live basketball. Excellent analysis, Brian. Really knocked it out of the park to start this show. Yep. Anyway, also I'll let people know that I'm sure they'll be excited to be shoehorned in right here. The fine folks at Fandul want to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by them. Right now, new customers can bet $5. And if you bet wins, get $300 bonus bets to use across the ad.

app download the app today. We'll let you know later in the show how execs, coaches, scouts, all of them are feeling about Luke Dodgich and the Lakers. ESPN has its annual survey out. They do summertime survey. Give you some of the results for that. But the big news, Andy, on Monday is Fred Van Vleet, the starting point guard for the Houston Rockets.

Very important part of that team. tore an ACL at a team mini camp going into next week's training camp and it is not officially that he's out for the season but he's going to have to have surgery and he is presumed to be if not out for the season damn near close and so that is a massive massive blow

to a team that is considered sort of in that group right behind the thunder of big contenders in the West. And even with being considered one of the front runners or inner circle teams in the West, if you want to give the thunder, the benefit of the doubt is number one as the defending champs fine. But the general consensus had Houston in the top three in the West. They were considered the offseason winners with the trade for Kevin Durant. Houston seemed ahead of schedule in terms of their younger players and getting into the playoffs last year.

pushing Golden State to seven games, one of the acknowledged weaknesses of this team, and I know it's something I talked about a few times with Houston and assessing the West, one of the questions I had was playmaking, just because this roster is low on a lot of proven designated playmakers. Like, Fred Van Vleet was not just the best point guard on this roster, as far as point guards with any proven track record to play real minutes and produce, he was the only point guard. I think that's correct. And now they are put in a position where they're going to miss his facilitating on a bunch of different levels and that general, that floor general quality.

And that's going to have to be replaced somewhere, whether you are talking about guys like Amen Thompson or Alpern Shungoon taking next steps in their playmaking ability, which they have both shown abilities to do it, but never as like a full-time part of an offensive flow and like the structure of an offense. Or Reed Shepard, a second year player last year was their third overall pick who because the Rockets were ahead of schedule ended up playing less than I think. they expected, but between the Dylan Brooks getting traded to Phoenix as part of bringing Kevin Durant and also even a guy like Cam Whitmore getting moved to the Wizards. Yeah. They had been explaining gone. Like, you know, they reshuffled with losing a lot of backcourt players.

They did. And the expectation was that Reed Shepard was going to have to play or was going to play more anyway, have to is what they wanted. but now they really need Reed Shepard to be readier than they may anticipate for a bigger role. Or a lot of this could end up falling on Kevin Durant, who has proven himself to be a good playmaker. But they really brought him in to be the proven score in a lot of way safety valve for this offense, which last year got pretty gummy and inefficient, particularly late in shot clocks. and that's where a guy like Kevin Durant is one of the best ever,

it's not that Kevin Durant can't make plays for other guys, he can, but the more you put on his plate at that age, the more you risk that attrition catching up to him, but also it's just not what you set out to do this season. Yeah, I mean, I don't discreet any of that. And I think even more, it's like, you know, Van Vleet was just one of these guys, and he is not a hyper-efficient shooter and like all of those things.

There are, he's a flawed player in that sense, but he fits in really well with what they needed. You know, he is a just really good solid point guard in terms of, you know, when you need that. But he's also a good off-ball player, not necessarily as a spot-up shooter, but as an effective player inside of an offense. You know, he is a guy who can do that. He is a huge, hugely important voice in their. locker room, you know, which when you have a mix of young players and old players and one of, and your veteran leader is, I guess, you know, your star now is Kevin Durant. It is important to have other voices, quite frankly.

Honestly, DFS becomes a really important idea part of that locker room now because that is something Dorian, we saw it with the Lakers just in half. a season. He became a prominent voice. Yeah, I mean, he's an incredibly well-respected player, but he's also, you know, when you're a, I mean, I don't know exactly what their rotation is going to look like, but, you know, he's slated to come off the bench, I think. Right. You know, sixth man, seventh man, eighth man, I don't know. I mean, they had a lot of talent on that roster. Does, it's not the same thing. You know, your point guard is it just, you know, is a huge part of everything that you do. And now, in terms of playmaking, you talk,

about Kevin Duran. You know, they run a lot of stuff through Alpern Schengun. You know, they can do, they are equipped to operate sort of without Van Vleet in, in some ways in that sense that they have playmakers in unorthodox places. But because, like you mentioned, it's, they don't have a lot of, you know, there's no back up point guard that you can look at and say, well, you know, that guy can pick up and, you know, and make this work for, you know, there isn't anybody on the roster who can do that. So you're going to kind of have to cobble things together, let Reed Shepard learn on the job,

give some minutes, I guess, to Aaron Holiday, players like that. And the other thing that makes this, I think, really tricky for Houston, and we'll get into the impact of this in the next segment. But the other thing that makes this really tricky for Houston, and somebody pointed out in the, in the chat as we're doing the live show on YouTube, they don't have the capacity to replace Van Fleet, not even with just like a street free agent they could sign at the minimum. They're like a little over a million dollars under the first apron.

So they're very restricted there. And, you know, they can get an injury, you know, what do they do with the injury exception or whatever it is for Van Fleet, but they can't use it because they're, right up on the apron. Yeah, Russell Westbrook had come up as an example of a guy they can't sign. Like obviously the intrigue of reuniting Russ and KD plus Russ and Houston because

he did not leave the rockets on the greatest of terms. All of those. Great move for locked on rockets. I'm not sure it would be great for the team. But they can't do it. No. Because they're right up against the apron. This, by the way,

if you're looking for cap things that might change over the course of the next, tweaks they might make to it, that could be one where, you know, if you're a certain amount close to the apron, you can, you know, get some sort of exception that allows you to sign a minimum. There may be some sort of adjustment that's made. Same issue the Lakers have, by the way,

with the last spot on the roster that's currently open, they can't use it. Correct. So I, you know, but the, and then the other thing is about half of their roster can't be traded, until December 15. So put away your Gabe Vincent trade machine ideas.

And I say this because I went through the trade machine with Gabe Vincent's ideas. You can do it. You can take it out again later. But you can't the only, basically, their most important players are the only players that they can, that they can trade in between now and then. So the rockets are basically forced now to play with what they've got,

at least until mid-December when they can try. to you know try to come up with some sort of replacement for van bleat if they feel that is necessary so what does this do for the Western conference and more specifically what does it mean for the lakers and because we talked about do they have a path we answered a mailbag question this week do they have a path to a title the answer is yes and needs stuff like this to happen and so as much as you don't root for it it makes a difference we'll break it down next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Monarch Money. Most people cannot name all of their financial accounts or even what they're worth, whether you're talking about 401Ks, properties,

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But monarch money can help me streamline my spending, figure out areas where I can be more efficient, maybe not spend at all. Love that one. And create a plan for the next step. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use the code locked on NBA at Monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. That's Monarchmoney.com code locked on MBA for half off your first year. Obviously, you never want players to get hurt.

At least you shouldn't. You really shouldn't out there want players to get hurt. It is not a good way to go through your sporting life, particularly guys like, Fred Van Vliet, though, who are very likable players who have kind of carved out, you know, cool niches in the league through a lot of hard work. There's an undrafted free agent. Yeah, I mean, this is an impressive story that this guy has. And so it is a bummer of a deal for the Rockets.

But when we talked about what is the Lakers path? you and I believe both had the Lakers in that next group, Oklahoma City at the top. Your next group is Houston and Denver. And then, you know, you get into Lakers, Minnesota. Clippers, warriors. Maybe the Spurs, if they get particularly frisky, we'll see. Right. They make that leap, that sort of Oklahoma City style leap.

They're five or six teams that you could. argue because basically this is what happened last year. They could all finish within two games of each other. And so the Lakers are in that group. Houston seems to, based on this, drop down into that group. I'm not prepared to say, you know, they're going to miss the playoffs. They're like an eight seat or a seven seat or whatever. They've still got a tremendous amount of talent on that roster.

but this stings. And I think this takes the rockets and drops them into that group with the Lakers, the Timberwolves, the Clippers, whoever in. And that changes the conference when you only have one Uber elite team followed by, you know, Denver, whatever you want to call them. And you drop, you know, you lose one of those teams. It makes a big difference. I think in particular creates a problem.

for Houston, not just because Van Vleet was important on this team, but because they have a lot of new faces and moving parts. And someone like Van Vleet was going to be, I think, very important for making that transition go as smooth as possible, but also gel as quickly as possible. And to your point, I don't think Houston is going to miss the playoffs altogether. They have too much talent and they have too much of a foundation, particularly with Kevin Durant, there. But I think the process of getting everybody on the same page just became that much harder and in a Western conference that is expected to be this tight to begin with. And Houston is now a team that will not sneak up on anybody. Like I don't know how much they were taken lightly last year by other teams around the conference or not. I just know this year, I mean,

they wouldn't have been taken lightly before the Kevin Durant trade, much less after you bring in KD. So they're going to be on everybody's radar as it is. And somebody like Van Vleet was going to be really important for that transition. And again, they're not going to miss the playoffs over this. I don't suspect. No, they could still be a top, top four, top five, top 16, easy. Right. But that by definition means a top four, three, whatever. I think they would have. I think they would have been second in the conference again. Just because I think they would have been able to put their assuming good enough health or KD,

I think they would have been able to put their foot on the gas a little bit harder than the Nuggets would be trying to. Regardless, it creates openings and potential upward mobility for, I also look to. The Lakers do not play the Rockets until the first meeting is that Christmas Day game, which comes after that. December trade eligibility deadline, which means the Rockets may have had an opportunity by the time the Lakers face them to fortify Van Bleitz absence a little more,

then the only two other games they play are back to back in March, which are after the trade deadline, meaning they will have been able to make any moves out there for them. And also presumably by March, assuming they're as good as we think they can be without Van Vleet, by March they will be that version of themselves. So the Lakers, insofar as head-to-head competition with the Rockets, I don't think gain much of a break from this. Like the ability to pounce on them early before they even have an opportunity to figure out who they are.

But it's going to be affecting them in the standing. though and throughout the season. And I think the big question is, what does this mean for the Rockins as a playoff team? Because, you know, they did not advance far last year, but they acquired Kevin Durant. They got last year's experience. They made a bunch of other moves in terms of shoring up their interior.

They got Capella as a backup. Like, they put their roster together in a way, DFS is there now and he'll contribute. They did good work fortifying an already good roster with players that made sense. and will allow their young players to thrive. But let's say they make it through the season pretty well. You get to the playoffs and it's kind of a different deal. And even if they're able to still run up a pretty gaudy record as a regular season team,

there's no guarantee that that translates into the level that you need from your point guard play and stuff like that in the postseason. So it has the potential to change that. And, you know, a change, it's going to potentially change the trade deadline. Like all of these things, there are these ripple effects that happen when you get these major injuries. And, you know, it's just too close to the season for the rockets to do anything about it. You know, if it had happened, you know, in some sort of off-season training in June, they could have done something about this, July. But we're a week away from training camp.

There's just nothing they can do. Yeah. Again, they are going to have a very difficult time doing anything for the opening couple months of the season to offset this other than, again, internal growth and internal development. We mentioned the players that in particular need to step up in order to prevent this from really falling into Kevin Durant's lap. And again, the issue is not whether Durant is capable of doing it.

It's that it's not ideal for him to have to. And so, you know, this reflects what the Western Conference is going to be like all year. Obviously, some teams are more susceptible to, you know, one injury, two injuries, completely changing the complexion of their team. Oklahoma City can absorb more stuff. They played huge portions of the season last year without Chet. They can absorb time without Shay. They've got a lot of dudes on that team.

You know, Denver, you don't want anything to happen to Okich, but that would be problematic for the Nuggets. The Lakers, obviously losing Luca would be very problematic. I think losing LeBron would be, could be potentially. Like just every team, and then in the postseason, you know, it's one thing, you know, this holds true for the regular season. And then in the postseason, these matchup based things that we're going to see, Lakers matchup potentially really well with Team A over here with the, with the, you know, the thunder, maybe less well. I'm just throwing out teams, the nuggets, the timber, whatever. But one twisted ankle changes that equation entirely, no matter what the math.

up is. Again, we will say it really sucks for Fred Van Bleet and we are not pleased to report this as a potential opportunity for the Lakers. But the way sports work, it is a potential opportunity for the Lakers and for other teams around the conference. Rest assured the rockets would treat the same way if an important Laker got hurt. All right. So every year, Andy, ESPN does a service. of GMs and coaches and scouts, you know, they sort of, the people that you would, if reading a story referred to as league sources, while the results of that survey are out. And let me tell you one thing they're bullish on, Luca Donchich will explain.

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There's a running joke now that's been going on at 7-10 for about five or six years on one of the shows because I read some copy about something we were doing involving golf, and there was supposed to be a sound effect that was put in there of the crowd roaring after a great shot, but they didn't do that. And all it said in parentheses was roars. So I went, roars. I'm like, I don't know. And that's become a running joke at the station now for multiple years.

Yeah, I mean, it's just the things that happen. We are, you know, trained monkeys. Just read what's on the paper. There is no question. All right. There is an enormous consensus, Andy, that Nicola Yokic is the best player in the NBA. That seems to be something everybody can kind of agree on. But who's the best player and who's going to win MVP are not necessarily the same question.

And in this survey of league executives, I mean, coaches, GMs, scouts, you know, it's about 20 people that are part of this. Yokic is considered the favorite to win the MVP, but your top three is not going to surprise anybody. It's Yokic with seven votes, Shea with five, and Luca with four. People are very bullish on what Luke is going to be doing this season. First of all, what I think goes unspoken with this, but is reality, that Luca is projected to be a top three MVP candidate and four people predicted him to win it, is that the Lakers are expected to have a good season. Because unless Luca balls out at such a level that you have to acknowledge him as MVP,

even though the Lakers are a seven seed, he's not going to finish that high because that's just not how this stuff works. There are a few exceptions, I know, but for the most part, your team needs to be a top three seed or higher in order for you to have serious MVP contention. So it seems like at minimum,

a fifth of the people pulled for this, expect the Lakers to have a very good season. I also thought it was interesting, too. There was one question, who is the best player in the league right now? now. And 19 out of 20 people selected Nicola Yokic, because, Brian, to your point, Yokic is considered the consensus best player in the league. I think you and I both agree with that consensus. But the only... He's awfully good. The only other player who got a vote in that was

Luca. So it was 19 for Yokic, one for Luca. Also, too, I found this very interesting. There was another question, who will be... Oh, yeah. Who will be the best player in the league in five years? 20. Wemby got, I believe, 12 out of 20 votes, and that makes a lot of sense. I think the general expectation is that health assumed. 16 out of 20, actually, Wemby got. Health assumed it's going to be Wemby's league and the rest of us live in it,

and that totally makes sense. But the next closest was actually Luca. He got two votes. which may not seem like a lot, but again. It's the point. The point isn't how many votes he got, it's that he's even on the list because I can tell you with some degree of confidence that in a world where they do not make this trade,

the Lakers do not have a player who anybody would vote for as the best player in the year 2030. And this gets back to the importance of getting a generational superstar in his prime. This is something the Lakers have not had since Kobe. Like a generational superstar that we have seen evidence is capable of taking your team to the finals as the 1A guy. Like LeBron obviously led the Lakers to a championship, but he was at generously the back end of his prime. And with LeBron, it's always sort of a weird scale judging this. But he was on the back end of his prime, if you want to say he was still in it. Anthony Davis was entering his prime, but AD as great as he was.

And Brian and I've been. Not at that level. Right. Brian and I've been big proponents of AD. He has not proven to be at that level. The Lakers have not had somebody like this since Kobe. Yeah. I was just going to say you get a runway.

You get an actual runway and that runway matters. You don't get the, the run. If you had, if you, if everybody knew what LeBron still had left in the tank, so to speak, when they acquired him, they would have had a different runway. But the problem is, like, they only really planned for like four seasons. I think that was, you know, is what they were, what they were really thinking about and have been on this like year to year thing since. And that's not a runway. Like you don't, you can't land a hell.

You can't land an airplane on it. You have like a helicopter. You have to take off straight up and down. not the same thing. And so Luca provides runway, even if he ends up playing almost the same amount of years on the Lakers as LeBron does, this is year eight for LeBron? It's going to be. Yes, it's going to be. Yeah, it's going to be LeBron's eighth season with the Lakers, Luca's eighth season in the NBA.

Right. So let's say, you know, Luca, I think the expectation, the hope is with the Lakers that he plays a decade with the Lakers. Like, that's not very. that much longer than what LeBron will have put in. It's not impossibly to come back for a ninth season even. But the difference is the Lakers will have anticipated 10 years of Luca, whereas they wouldn't have with LeBron. Nobody did, including LeBron. So speaking of that, though, they did get into that question of where LeBron plays next year.

and while the Lakers didn't win in terms of total amount of votes, they did get the most votes for like any one place. So at Lakers 7, retired 5, Cleveland 4, Warriors 2, Mavs 1, Heat 1. So basically, if the Lakers, if people think he's going to play, they basically took the Lakers equally to the FACRs, equally to the field, which I thought was going to say. If you remove, they didn't even take the Lakers equal to the field the way I see it. Like it's technically seven to eight, Lakers seven, eight other votes combined for four other teams.

But that's four other teams barely beating the Lakers. To me, it's essentially a tie. It really underscores how, and this is something you and I've talked about a lot, for all of the perceived and I think real tension that exists between LeBron and the Lakers and some dissatisfaction on LeBron's end about his present and I guess potential future with the Lakers, stature, all that stuff that's well worn on this show. when it comes to the combination of competitiveness, potential money,

location, storyline, prestige, all of that stuff, LeBron may not have a better option than the Lakers if he wants to keep playing. Like that is a, forget a non-zero percent chance. Like that is a... I've been saying that for weeks. Yeah, it's a coin flip at best. that you could come up with a better scenario for checking as many boxes as LeBron would want.

Right. And oh, by the way, you can say the same for the Lakers because the chance as much as, you know, flexibility, this, that, whenever move on, restore the roster, change things up, whatever. You're not going to, it's going to be really hard depending on what the finances look like to find a player better than LeBron. If he puts in a season similar this year, if he puts in something he did last year, finish sixth in MVP voting last year. These people do not just, you know, sort of grow on trees. Like they are hard to find. And so replacing LeBron, as much as I know, some fans are sort of over the experience, so to speak, like it's not easy to do. Like, and so it may very well be that the relationship is still mutually beneficial

in a way that makes LeBron say, I'm not going to get anything any better anywhere else. I'll stay here. The difference is it's the actual engagement to decide that, to come into that agreement is much more on equal footing, where the Lakers are equal party to that conversation to LeBron, whereas before it was really just LeBron dictating the Lakers year to year. And that's what, to go back to the conversation about runway, that's what made it so hard to have one.

I mean, you know that has been a constant talking point of mine since well before this offseason began. I was just like this setup, I mean, even when Anthony Davis was still on the roster, but particularly once Luca was here, that setup of LeBron having one plus ones at 50-ish mill a season in perpetuity with an unknown, forget end date, but also start date because it would always be up to LeBron. to decide and he wasn't going to give you any clue until he absolutely had to. That just was not tenable for building a roster, trying to map out anything, which becomes extremely important when you've got a guy like Luca and his prime. I mean, like, look, I have reservations and concerns about if, say, next year, you have a roster with Luca making 50-ish, Austin Reeves making 30-ish, and LeBron making somewhere between

40 to 50. I have a lot of concerns about being able to put the proper pieces around those three with the money left over and the amount of very similar concerns you have with those three. But that aside, it doesn't change the fact. It still may be the best option for LeBron. And depending on how the Lakers played, it might be the best option for them. All right. So plenty more to unpack over the course of the week. Obviously, of course, the big event for the week for the Lakers will be Rob Polinka and J.J. Reddick speaking to the media. That's Thursday. So Friday's show we'll bring you all of that. And then, of course, next week, training camp begins. So we are getting there. We are so very close to kicking off Lakers basketball for the 25, 26 season. Locked

on Lakers on YouTube. It's where I can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel. Of course, you can get the show through Apple. iTunes podcast app thing that they have and Spotify anywhere you get your podcast. We will see everyone tomorrow.