Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Jeremy Sochan to Sign with Knicks. Did Rob Pelinka Make a Mistake Signing Kobe Bufkin So Fast?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Jeremy Soand plans to sign with the New York Knicks by signing Kobe Buffkin early. Did the Lakers lose out on him and other potential players that might have helped more? That's 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 first listen to every day, Monday through Friday, sometimes on weekends, even on holidays,

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Starting point is 00:00:49 in this or any other known universe. Brian Kamenetsky with Andy Kamenetsky, nearly 20 years covering the Lakers for ESPN, for the L.A. Times for the athletic. Jeremy Soan was a name that popped up on Wednesday as the San Antonio Spurs said they were going to let him go, couldn't trade him at the deadline. He is a

Starting point is 00:01:11 fourth year player who has totally as you would guess fallen out of their rotation. And rather than wait to move him or let him go in the off-season, they let him go now. There are a lot of people around Lakerland who were trying to figure out ways for the Lakers to go get him, even though They just used that 15th roster spot to sign Kobe Buffkin.

Starting point is 00:01:37 And the mechanics of getting Sohan after that, while not impossible, got a lot trickier. Well, kind of a moot point. On Thursday, it was reported by Shams of ESPN fame that once he clears waivers, it is expected that Sohan will sign with the Knicks. So this is a player that has come and gone. Sohan reportedly had interest from 10-ish teams, none of which were presumably the Lakers, because they didn't have a roster spot for him. So the question is, did the Lakers miss out on an opportunity to do better?

Starting point is 00:02:19 Will they continue to miss out on opportunities to do better with that 15th roster spot? because they chose very quickly to get in the Kobe Buffkin business last weekend. Yeah, I think there are two pieces of this that are interesting. First is the question of whether or not Buffkin is worthy of that spot in the first place, like separate from whom might have been a better choice. Just in a vacuum, is he worth the 15th spot? Right. And JJ Reddick, in talking about the signing of Kobe Buffkin, noted that a,

Starting point is 00:02:55 most buyout guys at least for teams with trying to go on a deep playoff run generally do not make much of an impact, which is true. There are exceptions to the rule, Boris Diaz with the Spurs several years ago. Mark Keith Morris for the 2020 Lakers made an impact in the playoffs. But for the most part, they do not make the impact that I think the franchise or fans are hoping for. He also heavily intimated that Kobe Buffkin was somebody that they're thinking about for the future as much as or more than the present and this playoff run. He is signed for a team option for next year. They like what he's done in the G League. He had been tearing it up. The Lakers are a team that legitimately needs more access to young cost-controlled players. And it was intimated and I would like to believe

Starting point is 00:03:48 they had it on pretty good authority that if they did not act now, Kobe Buffkin was going to get snatched up by another team. So there is the question of just, is Buffkin a good choice? But then there's also the question of opportunity costs, whether you're talking about someone like Sohan or anybody else that is currently available or might end up available on the buyout market.

Starting point is 00:04:12 What I find interesting about that though, is you always have to think about what is in it for the player that's we're talking about. Like for example, Cam Thomas, who is now with, the Bucks is somebody that the minute he was waived. Put up 35 on Wednesday. Something like that.

Starting point is 00:04:29 Something like that. And the minute he became available, we saw a ton of Laker fans and even some Laker media wondering whether or not the Lakers could end up with Cam Thomas. And my, I said this on the show. I said it online before he was even with the Bucks. I did not think there was a shot in hell that Cam Thomas would even want to sign with the Lakers because the opportunity for him to showcase himself. as somebody who bet on himself taking a qualifying offer with the Nets and it thus far has not played out the way he wanted at all.

Starting point is 00:05:00 The opportunity would not be there with the Lakers and this rotation. Case in point, his debut with the Bucks took 20 shots in that game. That's more than Austin and LeBron get. That's barely below what Luca averages. Like that type of opportunity is there in Milwaukee, not there with the Lakers. So you have to, and I'm sure we will, after the break, talk about this with Sohan, in figuring out whether or not the Lakers messed this up, at least specifically with Sohan or maybe even broadly thinking about other candidates, you've got to think about what could be

Starting point is 00:05:40 potentially in this for Sohan with the Lakers. Is the appeal going to be there? Well, and also, too, you can't approach it with the assumption that you get the player. What you are trading is the opportunity to have Bufkin for the opportunity to try and get the player. As we noted, Sohan reportedly had eight, nine, ten teams that were interested in him. The Lakers would have been even if they were a strong suitor, not necessarily the clubhouse leader. So we'll break some of these things down and tell you whether or not Rob Blinkerman had a mistake. But first, we have to tell you about these things. Well, that Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by TurboTax tax season.

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Starting point is 00:09:14 headlines and all that stuff, but in the end aren't usually that consequential. And I think using that spot on a guy, a name that's thrown out a lot as a sort of avatar for somebody who would fit what the Lakers could use somebody like Haywood Highsmith. You can shoot three a little bit, a good defensive motor, pretty decent versatility. He's also been hurt all year, has not played a game this season. And so to use that spot on a guy that you're not entirely sure. sure how they're going to hold up, I think is potentially risky. Would somebody like Chris Middleton be a nice addition? Maybe, maybe not. I think you can make an argument for it. He's also

Starting point is 00:09:58 not available yet. And he will also be the type of guy who has a lot of competition in terms of teams that would want to pick him up should the wizards decide to buy him out to mercifully free I guess, yeah. I mean, you know, Utah is, you know, Darren Jackson Jr. is out for the season. You know, now he has to have a search. I think it was I found like a, like a tumor or something needs to be removed. So actually it sounds, it doesn't sound like threatening, but I glanced across that. It's a knee procedure that it did,

Starting point is 00:10:35 if I read it right, have a little more seriousness to it than a typical wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Jaron Jackson Jr. is out for the year. could they buy out Yusip Nurkich? Possible. There are guys like that around that could pop up even if they're not on the list today. Most of those guys I don't think are necessarily worth making a big deal out of. Sohan, though, was interesting because he actually fits the Kobe Buffkin template in that you're looking at a young player that you theoretically get kind of an advanced look at to try to get into your system. Soan has a skill set of defense and rebounding that could be useful for the Lakers, similar to how Buffkin has a scoring, you know, bench scoring skill set and, you know, presumably is a little bit of defensive capacity and length at six-

Starting point is 00:11:25 I actually liked his defense more than I liked his offense so far in the big club. You know, his offense hasn't been very good. So if you have to choose. So like, and Sohan compared to Buffkin has had a. significantly greater amount of success at the NBA level. And so you'd be doing essentially the same thing with a player that has shown that he can play in the NBA where Buffkin, and hopefully this changes, certainly rooting for the guy, has not.

Starting point is 00:11:58 He just simply has not shown himself to be an NBA caliber player yet. Would I have preferred to take a shot at maybe hopefully getting so in and, risk losing Buffkin? Yes. Yeah, probably. I would say yes. I think so.

Starting point is 00:12:16 That one is pretty clear. I'm giving an unqualified yes on that. I mean, I think that's in a perfect utopian world where they are both truly an option. Yes, I'd rather have Jeremy selling. I think, you know, maybe they had some advanced understanding based on trade deadline stuff where, who is interested in Sohan and where he might end up? Maybe they did.

Starting point is 00:12:35 Maybe they didn't. At the time that they signed Buffkin, the talk. the talk at least publicly was that Sohan was actually going to stay in San Antonio. That is, you know, but for your average six-year veteran who's kind of a street-free agent right now, I think this is an easy thing to get in on Polinka for going so fast. There could very well be two or three other names that pop up on this trade market, or I'm sorry, buyout market, where it's like, ooh, I'd rather have that guy too. And again, maybe the Lakers could make it happen, but the mechanics get more difficult.

Starting point is 00:13:18 Polinka, they moved quickly. They moved aggressively. And I think as you pointed out in the now scrapped version of this mini show, the important thing now is Kobe Buffkin turns out to be a pretty decent player. It's like a lot of things moving forward, Rob Polinka. You need to be right. Like Rob needs to be right in his evaluations because, as we've talked about before, whatever can kicking down the road, whatever, stalling platitudes, whatever, there was a different context for all that before, which was they were in the LeBron AD era,

Starting point is 00:13:54 which they clearly stopped believing in and also did not have the stones to just move on from it. I don't agree with that approach. But the point being, things have now changed. You have Luca to build around. you have a long runway, which means beyond no more can kicking, there's no more being wrong about blank. You've got to nail the overwhelming majority of the decisions. One last thing, though, in terms of framing this, because I mentioned before, there's always the opportunity from the players' perspective, the one that's on the buyout in this case, Sohan. If you look at the Knicks rotation and the guys that are currently in it, Jalen Brunson, Kat, Josh Hart, Miles Bridges, O.J. Annobie, Jose Alvarado, who,

Starting point is 00:14:35 was trade deadline acquisition, Landry Shammit, Mitchell Robinson. There are fewer guys that I think are more like Jeremy Sohan and two of the guys that are similar in terms of certain things that they do, Josh Hart and O'J. and Anobi, they're hurt a lot. So there's basically eight guys in the rotation, two of which get hurt a lot. A guy like Landry Shamit can't do the things that you primarily want from Sohan defense. And Jose Alvaraj. And size. I mean, shamans much smaller. Right. Size. And we can't defend, period, but he's also smaller.

Starting point is 00:15:11 Jose Alvarado can be a pesky defender, but he's also, again, much smaller than Sohan. There's certain matchups. Then you look at the Lakers, though, starting five, LeBron, Reeves, Luca, Aiton, Marcus Smart. Jake, La Ravia, I think Sohan may be better in certain defensive matchups than La Ravia, but I think La Ravia is a better overall player or can do more things better. than Sohan. Vando is like a less, slightly less offensively polished version of Sohan,

Starting point is 00:15:43 but they're very similar players. Luke Conard is the complete opposite player. And if you're looking for certain things that Conard provides, Sohan can't. Rui obviously is a completely different player than Jeremy Sohan. So I think you can look at this objectively and also just say, the Lakers rotation versus the Knicks rotation or maybe other rotations around the league, there's more opportunity for Sohan or buyout candidate X.

Starting point is 00:16:10 And that stuff always has to be considered in trying to figure out whether or not Rob made a mistake. I think the real decision on Rob making a mistake or not is going to be next season if Buffkin's on this team. How does he look? Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, maybe there's an opportunity for Buffkin to contribute this year. I think I'm probably a little more open to the idea that there's, you know, I think Sohan could have found. a regular niche in this rotation. I'm saying he couldn't have.

Starting point is 00:16:39 I'm saying I think, but I right. I agree, as I'm going to say, I agree with you that it's probably a cleaner path to playing time with the Knicks than it is with the Lakers. Anyway, we'll see how the rest of the buyout market goes and all kinds of other stuff. Lakers obviously playing tonight to round out the quote unquote first half of the season. The pre-all-Star break section will be back after the game to break everything down. what is hopefully a Lakers victory. Lock on Lakers on YouTube is we're going to hang out with over 36,000 subscribers. We'll see everyone after the game.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Jeremy Sochan to Sign with Knicks. Did Rob Pelinka Make a Mistake Signing Kobe Bufkin So Fast?

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