Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Luka Dončić and Anthony Davis are Both Stars, but Luka Is On Another Level

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everyone, welcome to Locked-on Lakers for Friday. Brian Komenetsky, Andy Kaminetsky, some impressive statistics about the post-Luca Lakers, just as we're getting to the playoffs. Good news for Lakers fans, we'll explain. You are Locked-on Lakers, your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers. First listen to every day Monday through Friday, no matter how we're going to get your podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:35 This one's always free. behind a paywall. And of that. Locked on Lickers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 34,000 subscribers to the channel. They subscribe there on YouTube, Andy, their own Spotify, they're on iTunes or Apple Podcasts, I should say, whatever it is. That's where a lot of people show up. And they're all getting ready for the playoffs and not the play in, Andy, the playoffs.

Starting point is 00:00:58 And to that end, there are a lot of very encouraging numbers that we are going to get into in this show today that will should give Lakers fans a lot of hope for what is going to come in this postseason. Do want to let people know that today's episode is brought to you by Game Time, download the GameTime app, create an account, use code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. But before we get to some of the data, take that for data, there's a few more things we noticed both of us from the Luka game,

Starting point is 00:01:32 the Wednesday night game in Dallas. not just about Lucas performance, but about understanding what's different about the Lakers and the nature of the superstars that were traded. Well, before. Yeah, I was just to say, and like it's worth touching on before we put that game in the rearview mirror. Go ahead. I was going to say before we even get to that in terms of everything that came from Lucas returned to Dallas, I had mentioned upon describing that incredible fourth quarter circus shot that he made, that according to Google Translate,

Starting point is 00:02:07 that would be Sarkuski Postnetek. And I heard from some of our lovely Slovenian listeners and viewers, the Dravo to all of you, that Postnetic actually is either like a camera shot or a clip. It's not exactly, it's technically a shot, but not really the right thing. The actual phrase for it would be, Circuschi met

Starting point is 00:02:35 Circuski met would be a circus shot. Thank you to Zupi 7, a Pophis 7 Dejanzega 1986, the Metell, and really to all of you not just thank you for, you know, thank for everything, but I could just say

Starting point is 00:02:54 Havala Zavese, thank you for everything. Yes, let it never be said that we don't lead with the show with the most important stuff. No, look, man, I want, I want to pay off both the engagement and also just make sure that moving forward whenever I talk about Luca making a circus shot, because I doubt that's going to be the last of his time with the Lakers.

Starting point is 00:03:18 I want to make sure I describe it as a Circuschi met. Yes. Well, thank you. And it is, it is important to get that stuff right. Maybe we can have, like, fun little placards and things we use as visual aids for this show. But as far as the actual basketball. Right.

Starting point is 00:03:34 But I digress. You know what? This feels good because I'll be honest, usually it's me who does this. Usually I'm the one who takes us in places, at least in times of the show that the overlords would be like, that could have come later. But anyway, it was really, it was fascinating to watch AD. And I don't mean this because, you know, AD did not have a great game on Wednesday. You know, statistically it wasn't a great game. We know that sometimes statistics about AD can be misleading.

Starting point is 00:04:07 They don't always measure his impact. You and I have seen a lot of Anthony Davis games. This was not a great impactful Anthony Davis game. I'm not trying to judge it just on this, but man, you could see just the contrast in what, for me at least, just the difference in these two stars and the impact they have on a team. Yeah, it was interesting. He had 13116 and a block, which again, it's not terrible, but it's not a particularly great game from AD for turnovers and just not a lot of presence. And what was interesting is the Lakers continually doubled him with defenders both fronting and on a back line like they've done with a lot of opposing Biggs as a group that

Starting point is 00:04:53 often operates without a true rim protector. And the Mavs really struggled to get them involved. And there's some mitigating circumstances when, you know, Spencer Dinwiddie or Marcia are your best passers or facilitators currently healthy unless you actually think the best one is Anthony Davis. Your team is going to struggle getting the ball to that big and blanketed coverage. You know, 80's not entirely healthy, learning new teammates. It's been in a lineup, yada, yada, but it's indicative of the strategy that the Lakers have been using a lot. And I think one of the things that jumped out of me is in particular it can be effective, depending on how good of guard play I think the opponent has, like against a team like the Clippers, if you're looking

Starting point is 00:05:40 to use that same type of strategy against Aviza Zubots, who is both having a terrific season and bigger than AD on top of it, that advantage or I guess the approach could get mitigated to some degree by the fact that they've got Kawhi Leonard, they've got Chris Dunn, who is a good passer. Nick Batum is a good passer. Kawhi Leonard can be a good playmaker. Like, it's going to be more difficult, I think, to do that against the clippers than, you know, some other teams that we've seen this year that the Lakers have looked to do that against. I think a lot of it, it's dependent on the center, obviously in question how good they are, but also I think the guard play. And then also in the case of like an Alpern-Shingun or certainly a Nikola Yokic, a lot of times, like, do those guys start with the

Starting point is 00:06:26 ball to begin with as opposed to get them the ball. But I just thought that was really interesting during the game. Yeah, it's just, there is a difference between the 12th best player in the NBA, wherever you think Anthony Davis is, and the third of the fourth or fifth, you know, wherever you think Luca is. And that to me is really what stuck out. And part of the reason Luca is ranked higher, you know, he's just better. than Anthony Davis is like you were saying.

Starting point is 00:06:57 Like he has the ball. He can, you know, but he still rebounds. He still scores. But he is able to orchestrate like unless again, unless you're Janus and you're 60, you know, running the floor like he does at basically seven feet or Yokic or whatever. There aren't a lot of those guys around. That's basically the list.

Starting point is 00:07:16 And I, it's like, you almost sound or I almost sound. I feel like I sound like I'm somehow, um, diminishing a guy for being, you know, second team all NBA or third team all NBA, first team all defense, second team all NBA, whatever it is, whatever combination. But it's like, you know, you and I had spent a lot of time talking about how rankings of players are kind of silly from a numeric number of numerical. But tiers of players aren't. Like that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:07:51 And Luca is just in another tier than a. AD. And AD is a tier that most players would love to be in. But there's that, that next one, that has Yokic in it, that has Shea in it this year. That's got, you know, that LeBron used to be the king of about like, and that's, that's the space where Luca resides. And the upgrade there is noticeable. To be able to improve off of Anthony Davis is kind of an amazing thing to be able to say. Well, think about how few players in the league are better than Anthony Davis. Like, there are not many. Right. But I'm saying, like, there are only 10, 12, something like, where, wherever you put Anthony Davis, there can't be more than 15 players in the league better than him. He is elite by any reasonable standard.

Starting point is 00:08:47 So think how much better you need to be to be better than that. You know what I mean? Like LeBron, especially over the course of the last, I don't know, two or three months of this season. I think people have them in the top 10 in the league. I think most people have put in their consensus certain days, top five. But think how good you have to be to be better than that version of LeBron. The number doesn't matter. It's the tier because the tier speaks to which, you know, it's like a Russian nesting doll

Starting point is 00:09:21 with like the 1% of the 1% of the 1% and Yokit Shea Yonis, they're like the doll furthest inside. Do you know what team? Right. But like if you're the starting doll in this metaphor, you're still really good. Like you're one hell of a rust of a Russian nesting doll.

Starting point is 00:09:39 But like that inner one is the one that everyone waits to get to. And again, if you can be better than Anthony Davis, you know, Beyond, I want to get into this a little bit later, too, like beyond your talent, you start becoming a better fit, too, with a roster. Then you realize just what kind of a space the Lakers are in right now. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:05 And the game that AD had in part in the game that the Mavericks had, the way the Lakers were able to clamp down on the fourth quarter, all that stuff is indicative, again, both of the fit questions and then also, too, it's an you know Anthony Davis became another um data point another something in the in that long line of okay the Lakers do know how to defend Biggs like they figured that part of it out that doesn't mean that there aren't teams that could give them trouble but the oh my God how are they going to defend that with only one viable center part they have shown that they've demonstrated they have you know have a plan for that sort of thing but let's get to your questions about

Starting point is 00:10:47 fit and some of these questions about encouraging numbers next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by DoorDash. NBA fans get ready. They swoosh you save. Thanks to DashPass every time a player drops 50 or more points in the game, you score a huge deal the next day. It's really simple. When any player scores 50 or more in a game during the 24, 25 NBA regular season, DashPass members get 50% off an order up to 10 bucks the next day from noon to midnight.

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Starting point is 00:13:05 You get it every single day, Monday through Friday, subscribe today, win by clicking the box in the description. And then, of course, too, you can help us out by having most subscriptions for Locked on Lakers, which means we beat all the other hosts, and that's really the most important thing. All right. So the fit question, there was at least some concern, Andy, that, oh, wait, you've got Luca.

Starting point is 00:13:32 Well, it's redundant with LeBron, and it's really going to make Austin Reeves not work. The fit's just not going to be there, whatever. I think that was answered probably faster than most people. It hasn't been perfect every single game, but it's very clear those three guys fit just fine. Yeah, and they're very easy to build around. As we've seen this roster come together before the show ends,

Starting point is 00:13:56 we're going to have some numbers that I think our viewers and listeners are going to find very encouraging heading into the playoffs, but also too, what I think is interesting about it is this merging of a new roster melding together, it comes at a time or after a time, I should say, when I think as much as LeBron and AD still played very well off each other, actually building around them had become much harder as the two of them mutually aged in a lot of ways. I think they were more functionally a big man tandem than they were a big wing. Like certainly defensively, they were much more like a too big tandem than the big wing tandem that they began as. And I think without knowing exactly how long LeBron was going to keep playing, which we've talked about before, as great as LeBron still is, it creates complications with planning your future.

Starting point is 00:14:55 It made it difficult, I think, to exactly gauge the best way to build around LeBron and AD. And that led to something I talked about a lot in the off season leading into this year. And then especially this season went along, it felt like the front office. was having, they were having difficulty talking themselves into going all in. Like it felt to me like they felt stuck. Like not stuck enough that they were ever going to do anything drastic, like blow it all up and rebuild because for any other reason, they don't do that. But it felt to me like they were not confident in this tandem moving forward.

Starting point is 00:15:39 And they didn't know what to do with that. And, you know, beyond all of the pluses that come with having Luca on this roster now, one of them, and it's really big is I think they feel much more confident in how to build around LeBron and Luca for however much longer LeBron plays than over the last couple of years they did with LeBron and AD. I think it's also, I mean, there are two parts of that. The first is, you know, the positional aspect of it, especially since, you know, the whole power forward center thing, which I, know is something that got your attention. But I think also the some of this is the gap that I talked about in the first segment. It is easier to build around a guy who is a two, three, four, five in terms of talent level, who is 26 years old, 25 when you made the trade. That's just easier to build around because they're better. They're younger. So you feel like we can do

Starting point is 00:16:39 things with a longer time horizon. You know, AD, while not out of his prime, is at the back end of it. And you certainly worry about the accumulation of injuries. And he's just not as good. And so, you know, it would be easier to build around, you know, Janus or Shea or Yokic or it could because they're better. And so you put those two things together. And then, like you say, you get into the fit question that you were talking about

Starting point is 00:17:03 and the positional aspect of it and where you can play the guy and all that kind of stuff, and it becomes pretty clear. Anthony Davis in this game against the Lakers was five of 13 first 13 points, and all five of his makes were in the restricted area, if not point blank. And all the misses were somewhere between the circles extended and further out. And this actually lines up with his time so far in Dallas, all the caveats, short sample size, yada, yada, as the team looks to honor his. Very well-known wishes to play at PowerFord per cleaning the glass.

Starting point is 00:17:43 Thus far, it's been a 6436 center power forward split. So 36% of his time at PowerFord, the highest total at PowerFord since the 2021 season. I'm sure that will increase once the full complement of centers for Dallas are all available, not on minutes limits. He's been taking more jumpers than shots around the rim than he did in L.A. shock of all shocks, AD's not as effective. And it gets back to that annual Anthony Davis wants a real center next to him so you can play Power Forward news cycle that went through LA

Starting point is 00:18:19 that every day knows as much as I've been a big proponent of AD, talked about being underappreciated. Brian, you brought up all the time how the bar continually moves for AD in the way people judge him. This has been the one area where I have had zero patience with Anthony Davis. like just the idea of dude, you're a center, accepted. That's what the monies for move forward. And then like you combine that annual story with his comments to sham shortly before getting traded.

Starting point is 00:18:46 And then Jeannie noting after the trade that AD had been complaining about the way he was used. And like, do I think AD agitated his way out of town? No. Like had Luca not been available or I guess somebody of Luca's caliber unexpectedly, AD would still be in L.A. I'm very confident of that. But this game yesterday reminded me of why I imagine the Lakers had become wary of the idea of we have a superstar that we are looking to continue with that we don't think we can make happy. Because the way he wants to be used, frankly, doesn't make sense. Like it does not make sense for him.

Starting point is 00:19:26 It doesn't make sense to build around. It doesn't make sense in the way you would allocate your roster assets and all of that stuff. the money you would spend on players. Like it doesn't make sense. And I love AD as a player and he has never seen anything short of like an awesome professional teammate and person. And I wish him the best. I don't think he is going to be as good in Dallas because they're going to be trying to

Starting point is 00:19:51 cater to his wishes. And I don't think they're in his best interest. Well, yeah. I mean, the question, it's not relevant to the Lakers. Questions for how long they do it. But the Lakers would have been.

Starting point is 00:20:05 Timmy, like, the older AD gets, I think the more you have to kind of just play in at center and you call it that and it is what it is. And so it's another reason that the aging thing, it gets a and why when this trade happened. And it seems strange to sort of keep rehashing like what the, every time you get these, you get these signpost moments. And those two guys playing against each other, to me at least, was another. one of these signposts things, you know, you, you, the, you get these, these moments where it's, it's, it's reminded, like, when the trade happened, sorry, I lost my train of thought there. Both of us were like, well, what, what's the catch? Like, what do they know that we don't? Because on its face, the idea that you would trade, Anthony Davis, you know, you would acquire

Starting point is 00:20:58 Anthony Davis, give up Luca, you know, with a minimal amount of stuff, uh, going with AD, doesn't make sense unless they're and you just start to see why we need like why this was a no brainer for the lakers in the short term in the long term why you and i never accepted the idea that they would suffer in the short term like well wait a minute it could be an adjustment but they did add a better player so all of it just works in their favor yeah they did not have a path before at least a path that they could see much less that you and i could see moving forward They now have a path. And man, the Lakers ended up all of a sudden in this position that they did not expect to be in.

Starting point is 00:21:44 That had it not emerged, I'm not sure what they would be doing. And I think more importantly, they didn't know. They were fringy and they knew they were fringy and they were too good to not kind of like LeBron's too good, AD's too good to not sort of get into it. But you're also clearly a step below all these contending teams. So it's not just the Lakers can clinch a third seed tonight against the Houston Rockets. We'll see who the Rockets actually suit up in this game or by winning Sunday against the Blazers, Andy. There's a lot of encouraging data about what this team's going to look like when they get to the postseason.

Starting point is 00:22:20 We'll get to it next. Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by time. There is nothing like watching basketball live, the energy of the crowd, the sound of sneakers on the hardwood, people chanting fire Nico. And if you ever want to catch a game in person, game time makes it. easier than ever to get tickets. Game Time's new feature, Game Time Picks, filters out the fluff and shows you only the best deals on great seats, so you don't have to

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Starting point is 00:23:01 with total confidence. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime picks, download the GameTime app. Create an account. the code locked on NBA for 20 bucks off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account, redeem the code L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-N-B-A for $20 off. Download game time today. What time is it? It's game time. So, Andy, we talked a lot about the impressive end to the fourth quarter in the game on Wednesday. The Lakers down with seven minutes or so left in the game and hit a gear the Mavericks could not handle.

Starting point is 00:23:38 they did that with a lineup what is becoming kind of the standard closing lineup for this team, obviously the big three joined by Rui and DFS. And that lineup, Andy, looks good.

Starting point is 00:23:54 Yeah, per Raj Chippaloo over at Silver Screen and Roll, among other places, they now have a plus 21.8 net rating in 12 games. And as Raj pointed out, his, by the way, His coverage of the Lakers is fantastic. Definitely be following him on Twitter.

Starting point is 00:24:12 Silverskin Roll, all that stuff. If you can't punish them with size on one end, they're destroying you on the other. They have a 127.4 offensive rating together and a plus 22.5 net in fourth quarter. So it's not just that they play well together. They play really well as a closing group. And that's the thing, too. It's like this gets back into the, can the Lakers compete with teams that have so much more size than they do? And it's important to recognize that's not a little lineup.

Starting point is 00:24:46 It's a lineup that doesn't have a center in it, but it's not little. And, you know, physically, LeBron can body up and strength, you know, strength on strength with just about every center in the league. Not all of them. Like I don't think you want him trying to do that with, you know, Zubots all day or whatever. because Zubats is a strong human. But in terms of dynamic that have a real offensive presence, you know, LeBron can hang with most of these guys. And then when you combine that strategy that they've got,

Starting point is 00:25:20 Rui is big. DFS is long. And, you know, the shortest guy on the floor there is 6-5 in Austin Reeves. So that lineup gives them so much optionality on offense and so much switchability on defense that it's not surprising that it's that it's done well to me, but it's really encouraging that they can, that they've fallen into this lineup, which is, I'm sure the lineup they hoped would be the one that they could lean on, but you don't need to have Jackson Hayes out there to make it work who has, will have exploitable limitations

Starting point is 00:25:59 in playoffs. You don't need to have Jared Vanderbilt out there who will have exploitable limitations in the playoffs. Those other guys really don't. Your weakest player defensively is Rui, but in the team context, he's doing pretty well. Your weakest offensive player there is DFS, but he fills his specific role very well. So I'm cool. You mentioned that strength factor in talking about LeBron or Rui or sometimes DFS in the role they'll have playing centers. And like we talked about early in the show, that can often be a group assignment, you know, with one guy fronting, one guy playing from behind, and guys really being active in the way that they switch and rotate around and just make things difficult for that big, whether you're talking about him trying to operate or even just getting him the ball. But like the overall strength, like physical strength of the group, I think can get by even against groups bigger than them. like Austin is maybe the only guy in that group that you don't feel like has plus strength,

Starting point is 00:27:06 but Austin is willing to get physical. Like Austin is in his own right, a very physical player. He definitely does not shy away from contact. Like say what you will about Austin, but that guy will give up his body on both ends. You know, he whatever he lacks in strength along those lines, he will make up for it in the way that he takes charges, in the way that he just, he will put himself in a place where he will draw loose ball files,

Starting point is 00:27:32 things like that. And then offensively, everybody has a function. Like, everybody provides utility in ways that will work for this team. And like, it's not surprising that they can start getting on roles offensively because everybody makes sense. Like, there is nobody in that group. that you can get away with not guarding. Like DFS may be the weakest offensive player in terms of overall skill,

Starting point is 00:28:05 but you may have to leave him open depending on some of your other options, but you're not going to like leaving him open. That's the difference. Like DFS is a proven three-point shooter. You know, he's a proven 40% behind the art guy. He's played in big games before. Like, he's the guy that you're going to have to ignore, but you're not going to like it.

Starting point is 00:28:27 And that's a big difference between a lot of other groups, even some very offensively potent groups that they may face. There's going to be guys that you're okay with leaving open. You're not going to be okay with leaving any of these guys open. No, and you're going to have to in some point. Somebody's going to be open. And the ball movement and the ability of these guys to find the open player. And sometimes that open player is going to be LeBron James,

Starting point is 00:28:51 who has become a very reliable three-point shooter, or Austin Reeves, who has morphed into Steph Curry for the last month. I mean, there are very few teams that have three defenders big enough to deal with Luca, LeBron, and Rui. Like, Rui is going to be the beneficiary, and we've seen it, of so many mismatches. Remember, the recent game that they lost against Golden State, like, Rui had multiple possessions where, because Golden State had no other option, Steph is guarding him. Like, that is major advantage, Rui Hachamora, and Rui punished him on those possessions.

Starting point is 00:29:29 Yeah. The other number of this from John Schumann from NBA.com, you're starting to get enough of a sample size of what this team looks like against good teams. The overall record is a little bit skewed because they keep losing to Chicago. But the record against good teams, they are nine and two against teams over 500. That includes a lot of Western conference teams. That includes some big wins against the East. I realize good teams beat bad ones, and the Lakers, for the most part, have done that. But they are beating good teams with this group together as well.

Starting point is 00:30:08 And while they're not, like, had this happened in October, and you had an extra, you know, two and a half months or whatever, that would be three months for this team to come together, you're really from the beginning. with Luca instead of AD and build over the course of a season, DFS, swap out DFL. I think they would be a clear cut two seed. I don't know if they'd be so good

Starting point is 00:30:34 that they'd catch OKC because, you know, they've been damn near on a 70-win pace most of the year, which is a lot, but they'd be ahead of Houston based on what we've seen. And that is a threatening team in the playoffs. So maybe they,

Starting point is 00:30:51 maybe they can't reach their ceiling this year, but their ceiling is clearly higher than a lot of people guessed that it would be. And that isn't just they've got Luca, they've got LeBron. It's their nine and two against good teams. Teams with winning records, they've gone on the road.

Starting point is 00:31:09 They've played a, and that's with a brutal, brutal schedule that no team in the NBA has had to deal with, with the extra games that came following the fires, everything that would be rescheduled. like JJ Redick said after Wednesday's game, I do not know how far the Lakers are going to go, but I know they're really good. And they've got a chance, I think,

Starting point is 00:31:30 to do something pretty impressive. And I think at worst, they're probably the fifth best team in the NBA, at worst. And increasingly over this time in the post-Luca era, you were seeing it before the trade even happened just because they had been playing well and they have been starting to gel in ways

Starting point is 00:31:48 that felt promising, when it was DFS is the new guy and who knows if they're going to make another trade. But especially in the post-Luca era, their own self-belief is palpable. Like you can tell just how much they believe in themselves and how much they really think they are a dangerous team. And that doesn't necessarily guarantee anything like JJ said. you and I covered the 2008 Lakers that, you know, upon the Powell-Gasol trade, and they had been happening, they'd been playing well even before that trade happened, but then especially once Powell was in the fold and, you know, five minutes into their first game together, Kobe and

Starting point is 00:32:31 Powell looked like they'd played together for like 10 years. Like, you knew that team was going to be great. And they began steamrolling through the playoffs. And then they ended up not ready for that Boston Celtics team. So, none of the, None of that self-belief guarantees anything. But you and I have also covered enough Lakers teams, and enough teams, period, in different sports, that I think we have a pretty good gauge for teams that actually believe in themselves and the ones that don't,

Starting point is 00:33:03 because we've covered teams that didn't believe in themselves. And that was also painfully obvious. This is a group that does. And it's, and it's, there's also we believe in ourselves because there's reason to. Like, you know, the, the end of the three-peat team, you know, when they go into, we ignored, I'm sorry. It's the 2011 season. I'm sorry, not the two-peat team, the back-to-back.

Starting point is 00:33:28 The one that was looking to three-peat with. Right. Right. Thank you. Like, we kind of, we, we, not kind of, we all acknowledged and sort of ignored all of the warning signs said that team wasn't good enough. They weren't playing well enough. The quality wasn't there.

Starting point is 00:33:42 They felt they had the confidence that we could make it happen when we needed to, but there wasn't a body of evidence to back that up. This, they believe that, and there is a small because they haven't been around that long, but it's a good body of evidence that there's something to that belief, and that's really important. Let's see if the Lakers can lock up the three seat tonight against the rockets. We'll see who the rockets put out on the floor. Lakers have an incentive to do this so they can sit a bunch of guys on Sunday, turn a week-long rest into like a 10-day rest.

Starting point is 00:34:16 and really supercharged Luca and LeBron for that first round. In the meantime, we, of course, will be back after Friday's game and break it all down. Locked on Lakers on YouTube's where to go hang out with over 35,000 subscribers. We'll see everybody after the game.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Luka Dončić and Anthony Davis are Both Stars, but Luka Is On Another Level

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