Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Luka Dončić Shines Against Great Britain, Dalton Knecht Falls in 2024 "Re-Draft"

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Everyone can exhale. After last weekend's injury scare for Luka Donćić, he was indeed back in action on Tuesday in Slovenia's Eurobasket prep exhibition against Great Britain. Just being healthy en...ough to play was encouraging (yes, it was reported that he was fine, but people want to see the evidence) but it was even better to see Luka dominate. In just over 28 minutes of play, he had 28 points (7-17 shooting, dragged down by a 2-11 mark from 3-point range, but boosted by 14 trips to the FT line), along with six rebounds and 10 assists. So once again, things are looking good, and it's a lot easier to once again focus on the potential for a huge year from Luka. The Lakers are also still holding out for big things from Dalton Knecht, even if others are more skeptical. To that point, The Athletic did a re-draft of the 2024 class, and Knecht, who was seen as a steal last summer but took some knocks as the year went along, following it all up with a less-than-stellar Summer League run. Knecht wasn't even in the top 20 of the re-draft, even in a class that wasn't considered that strong. So is it fair? Even if it's fair, does it "mean" anything? What can the Lakers reasonably expect from Knecht this year and going forward? What is the best case scenario?  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: Luka looks good against Great Britain.  SEGMENT 2: Knecht falls in the re-draft...  SEGMENT 3: Big questions around the rotation?  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first yearGametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everyone, welcome to Lockdown Lakers for Wednesday. Brian Komeneski, Andy Komeneski, Luca Donchich lights up Great Britain. And Dalton Connect is falling in a 2024 redraft. What exactly does that mean? We'll tell you next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcasts Network. Your team, every day.
Starting point is 00:00:30 Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers, your very first listen of every day, least Monday through Friday, no matter how or where you get your podcast. This one is always going to be free for you. We're never going to make you pay for it. And Lock on Lickers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel, Andy, all of whom were excited as we often get in America for another chance to stick it to the British, just like we did, George Washington, Battle of Concord and other things like that with the content.
Starting point is 00:01:03 Hashtag never forget. That's right. taxation without representation. Yeah, we got your tea right here, Great Britain's basketball team. We see you still, King George. Tax this. And Luca stepping up for Slovenia.
Starting point is 00:01:21 The enemy of my enemy is my friend or something like that. The Slovenians, they beat up on Great Britain, led by Luca on Tuesday. We'll get to that in a moment. Obviously, Lakers fans. most excited by the fact that Luca was out there looking good, not necessarily at the satisfaction of our traditional basketball rivals, the British. So we'll get to that in a moment.
Starting point is 00:01:51 We'll get to Dalton Connect and a potentially disturbing evaluation of his rookie season. Or as we may get into, also potentially a bit illuminating with our conversation. about the evaluations of Dalton Connect. Those things are not mutually exclusive. Good point. I do want to let people know that this episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money.
Starting point is 00:02:17 Use the code locked on NBA at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. It's like we took 50% off the life of the British today, thanks to Slovenia and Luca Donchich. it was not a surprise to see Luca back on the floor. We actually talked about it on Tuesday show, Andy, that Luca was back at practice for Slovenia and expected to play against the British on Tuesday. And that he did. And so the injury was obviously not that big of a deal,
Starting point is 00:02:54 the injury scare over the course of the weekend. But it was still not only good to see Luca on the floor, but then turn around and play. a strong game against the Brits. 21 points in the first half, 28 overall. He had 10 assists and six rebounds. Made it to the free throw line 14 times. That's where he ate most of his production.
Starting point is 00:03:19 I don't know. Just he ate. That's where he ate. But in a good way. So it's clear. Luke ate in a good way. Yes, that's true. He's made so much progress this offseason. I want to make it very clear.
Starting point is 00:03:31 This was positive eating for Luca. Right. This is the sort of thing that he's supposed to be eating. He's allowed to eat like this. The dreams and hopes of the British. And so had Luca been able to hit a shot from the perimeter, he was 2 of 11 from three point range, so not terribly efficient there. Had he been able to do that, he probably would have been,
Starting point is 00:03:57 somewhere in the 40s before he sat down by, He didn't even need to finish the game. So a strong effort for Luca Donchich, you know, thus far, it hasn't gone great for Slovenia in terms of their results in the ramp up to the Eurobasket competition.
Starting point is 00:04:17 But Luca himself has played pretty well, particularly considering the long layoff and the fact that he gets a tremendous amount of attention from opposing defenses. Yeah, truth be told, because you mentioned the two of 11 from behind the arc, while it's going to be better for Luca in the regular season, and the regular NBA season, I should say,
Starting point is 00:04:41 like the games that Laker fans are truly most concerned about, I kind of feel like in some ways, Luca's three-point shot, when it is on and particularly with a stepback, it is deadly, but I don't consider it the strongest part of Lucas game, in all honesty. And if that's the part that is cooperating the least,
Starting point is 00:05:01 in, I don't even want to say it's a ramp up from his off season because he spent his off season working his ass off, but he didn't do a lot of basketball. So I'm sure there's some fine tuning going on. But if that's the part that is clicking least and we're getting everything else, then that seems really promising to me. I attempted to watch the game using Feeba's Courtside 1891 website and for whatever reason could not get through. So, I was not able to see anything other than just what was on the web, but the general consensus was that Luca looked great. And the clips that I saw, he looked great.
Starting point is 00:05:41 I also want to use this as an opportunity because a couple shows ago when we were talking about Eurobasket and my lack of knowledge, previous indifference towards it, I said. Monday's episode is what we will refer to now as the Andy's and Ugly. American episode. Whatever. I mean, you know, but here's the thing. First of all, I'm never ugly. But secondly, I don't consider this even stereotypical ugly American because as I'm going
Starting point is 00:06:14 to explain, I'm going to read a pinned comment that I had in the YouTube comments section for the show. And we always invite the feedback. We always invite the comments. We want to hear from you. There were a couple things that I had said in terms of I had suspect. that Luca, the enthusiasm for Slovenia and Eurobasket was going to be largely about Luca fans from Slovenia and got a lot of correction with that and some other stuff.
Starting point is 00:06:43 So I'm just going to read verbatim what I said to our audience and the viewers, because I felt it was worth mentioning. It's very clear that Luca fans from all over Europe get excited to watch him in Eurobasket and other comparable tournaments as opposed to merely the Slavlinean Luca fans. We, or at least I, assumed more of a pure Slovenian home country fervor, but that's apparently not the case. I remained confident about our assertion that most American-born Laker slash Luca fans are not as inherently invested in these tournaments, but it's still great to learn more about Luca's
Starting point is 00:07:18 international fan base and cultural consumption of basketball. Second, so it's clear, and the lack of clarity is on us, not the audience. neither of us was disparaging the quality of Eurobasket in explaining and joking how little we actually know about the tournament or how little interest we've paid to it pre-Luca. As I've said on many previous shows, I've always been an American-based league sports fan rather than somebody who seeks out sports everywhere I can get them. And because of that, I have not watched something like Eurobasket and I have not bothered to learn anything about it. and this is not xenophobic or jingoistic an attitude. I'm largely indifferent to Americans competing in the Olympics because, again, it's not a league. Brian is largely the same as well.
Starting point is 00:08:02 That indifference, though, is not a commentary on the quality or importance of these settings, just transparency. We don't pretend to be what we're not to please our audience. We'd rather be honest. All that said, we will cover these games to the best of our abilities. It's not always easy, given the time difference in other factors, editors note like Phoebe's website. But again, we will try either way.
Starting point is 00:08:24 Felt like this was worth clarifying because it understandably rubbed some of our audience the wrong way. So we're going to learn more about it. We're going to learn more about Eurobasket. We're going to learn more about Luca culturally. And honestly, it's really awesome. Actually, this has been something that I found really fun, like learning the worldwide audience for Luca Donchich. You guys can all treat Andy like he's a small child. covering the world for the first time, a babe in the woods of international basketball.
Starting point is 00:08:57 I am a babe in the woods of Eurobasket. I will be the first to admit it. I don't know Jack Bleep about it. Yeah, I mean, look, it's, it's, um, yeah, I mean, it is true. I'm not a, a big fan of, I don't, I don't care if the US wins the, the, the, the Olympics or things like that, because I don't really wrap my natural quiet in the success of our, of our, of our, of our basketball programs. And the rest of the world is really good at this.
Starting point is 00:09:24 And I mean, I watch Olympic basketball when, especially when the Olympics take place in time zones where it makes it a little easier. And when American or just NBA players in general are in it like USA, Spain in 2008 was awesome because it was basically an NBA game. Right. Like from my perspective, that was a great game. We would watch when Kobe was playing or LeBron or AD or guys like that because, you know, it's, I miss games.
Starting point is 00:09:51 I'm not going to lie about it. But it's it is one of these things where, you know, multiple things can be good at once. Where, you know, most Lakers fans, I think most Lakers fans are not, have not to this point, been Eurobasket fans. Most Lakers fans, I think, if you pin them down, not that they would say Lucas shouldn't play for Slovenia, because I think basketball fans generally recognize not only how hard it is to tell players of any nationality, you can't play for your national team, but particularly players like Luca who represent smaller countries with smaller programs and understand the value and the importance that they play inside, not just their own basketball programs, really inside their own nation in ways that transcend sport. They take this obligation seriously.
Starting point is 00:10:51 You can't tell them that they can't do it. All of that said, if you could pin down most Lakers fans and say, would you prefer Luca play and however small the injury risk might be, allow that to happen or skip it this year. Why don't we just skip it this year? Most Lakers fans would say skip it this year in the same way that a lot of Lakers fans didn't want A-D to play or LeBron, let somebody else win a gold medal. So all of those things came in.
Starting point is 00:11:20 They're going to be nervous watching and play. None of it means that it can't be fun. Like, it's still fun to watch the Olympics. It's still fun to watch this stuff internationally. It's still fun to see Luca play well. And so, you know, it is a thing that we will certainly be talking about on this program for as long as Luca is competing in it. And then when it's over and Luca has gotten through it playing well and not hurt himself. We will all breathe a sigh of relief and move on to the next thing.
Starting point is 00:11:53 So congratulations to Luca for a good tune-up against Great Britain. And I believe that was that the last one before the real competition starts? Or they have one more. Remember, I told you I couldn't get on their website. Right. So someone can, in the comments section, can tell us how many more of the tune-up games they have before the competition begins. And by that point, Andy Nile, both figured out how to make that app from Feebo. to work. Things that aren't working, Andy. Dalton Connect. I'll explain next.
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Starting point is 00:13:45 Okay, Andy, we have spent plenty of time talking about how Dalton Connect had a roller coaster of a year, to say the least, in his rookie season. It was filled with some highs. It had plenty of lows. But in the end, it was seen, I think, as disappointing in part because he just, as the games grew more important, he played less and less and less and less. Costa Garagatos, Georgia Gatos, I apologize for getting the name wrong, points out. I did ask at the end of the last segment,
Starting point is 00:14:23 how many more tune-up games? They play Slovenia on, the Slovenia plays Serbia on Thursday. That's the last game before the tournament begins. Thank you very much, Kostas. So, and then I think it was compounded by what everyone agrees was a lousy summer league.
Starting point is 00:14:43 There's no question Dalton did not play well. So it's not uncommon, particularly this time of year, to revisit drafts. You revisit all kinds of free agent signings, all this other stuff. So the Athletic went back and did a redraft of the 20-24 draft
Starting point is 00:15:03 where the Lakers were stoked to have Dalton Connect fall to them. And he didn't make the top 20. And this was not a draft full of superstars. The redrafters at at the athletic, did not put Dalton in there in that top 20, which was not necessarily unfair, but certainly not what you would have expected had you guessed what was coming, say last November.
Starting point is 00:15:36 Right. And as a reminder, Dalton was picked 17th overall. And Sam Vassini, who did this for the athletic and for what it's worth, he, one of his main specialties is the NBA draft, which does,
Starting point is 00:15:49 doesn't necessarily mean his opinion here is the be all end all, but it does mean he spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff and knows drafting and says a lot of work figuring. Right. Yeah. He had at 17 now, Terrence Shannon Jr. with the Timberwolves who was originally picked at 27. And what's interesting about that in and of itself is it's one of those things where on one hand, I would say right now, I actually find Terrence Shannon Jr. more intriguing in in certain respects than Dalton.
Starting point is 00:16:21 He did not play a lot in the playoffs for the Timberwolves, although when he did, he looked very good. And his playing time was up and down with Timberwolves as well. But when he played, he did often look good. Dalton, as you mentioned, Brian fell out of the top 20. The thing that they said about, or that Sam said about Dalton at the end, quote, Dalton Connect is another notable omission. his defense was a mess all season for the Los Angeles Lakers,
Starting point is 00:16:51 and the 17th pick didn't look particularly good on offense after the Lakers tried to trade him in the ill-fated Mark Williams deal. And I remember we talked a couple weeks ago about Dalton in a show in reaction to a podcast with Yovam Buha and Cranjus McBasketball talking about their projection that for the time being Dalton won't be in the rotation or does not project to be in the rotation the way they see it, which is obviously not official. They don't get a vote in this stuff.
Starting point is 00:17:21 But you combine that with some of the other. I mean, stop for a second, though. If you were drawing up, you know, the not that Dalton will never play, but the night in, night out, nine guys who likely play consistent minutes. Would you put Dalton in that group? I wouldn't. I wouldn't have him in pen. I think there's a possibility you can write them in pencil, but definitely not pen.
Starting point is 00:17:44 Yeah. I don't think as the season starts, he has a spot in the sort of assumed rotation. Certainly not the assumed rotation. I'm not saying can't get there. And I'm in there, he's going to play. Guys get hurt the same nine guys don't play all season. But I, you know, Yovans making this list.
Starting point is 00:18:04 Tim underscore NBA, Cranches McBasketball. Lakers exceptionalism pod. He didn't have him in there either. I've heard others, you know, Anthony Irwin's been very down on. I've heard others as well. Right. most people are not including Dalton in the presumed rotation as they go into training camp in a month or a month and a half, whatever it is.
Starting point is 00:18:27 What I think that was interesting about this. Like we had talked before, the conversation from Yovat and Karan just led to us discussing the idea of Dalton's basketball IQ, which is something you in particular have been concerned about and increasingly skeptical about, particularly because he is seen. because of his age, he just turned 24 as more of a finished product. And you and I talked about how I don't think that that is, it's not the way I would evaluate Dalton and for what it's worth. It's what I said about him when they drafted him that I actually thought that he was at
Starting point is 00:19:03 the time, a 23 year old, that because he had advanced in so many different levels in college from Juko to Northern Colorado to Tennessee and just one year at Tennessee, my assumption was that he's actually the rare 23-year-old with at least theoretically a pretty high ceiling for growth just because he's not like he's not a 23-year-old who spent three years at Tennessee and you would at least theoretically see as a more finished product. He's also too, I don't think it's fair to think of him as more of a finished product, but then also get upset that he doesn't seem to be picking up quickly the totally new asks of him. as an NBA player versus what he was doing in college.
Starting point is 00:19:48 You've got to pick a lane. Just to stop here for a second, I do think finished product to me is not necessarily, it's close to but not exactly, at least in my mind, the right way to think about it. It's not that they think he's a finished product in the sense that he's undergone all the polishing
Starting point is 00:20:04 and all that kind of stuff and has a refined game and an innate set. It's that generally, a hard and fast rule. more improvement happens, more growth happens. The perception is that for more players, you'll get more growth from 19 to 23, 19 to 23, then you do from 23 to 26. It's not that people expect Dalton to show up in the league with all the fine points
Starting point is 00:20:36 taken care of. It's that there's just generally seen because, you know, broadly, and they're all always going to be exceptions on both sides of this, you see less of that sort of big leap improvement for players who enter the league older. Doesn't mean it never happens. But that to me, I think, and it is highly relevant to a redraft for something like this. The perception of there's less room for growth with Connect that then plays into all the questions of defense and basketball IQ and all that other stuff we were talking about.
Starting point is 00:21:21 That to me is where sort of the age and finished product, so to speak, thing plays in. Right. And again, like I said, I consider Dalton very, very different in terms of his path than probably 90% of other players who enter the league at 23, which is why I personally consider him very different. But coming up, though, I want to explain why, at least, and you and I were talking about this offline, I think there's been some over-indexing going on with the way we've evaluated Dalton both negatively and
Starting point is 00:21:59 positively. I think that's affected everybody's perceptions. I'll explain that coming up next. So it's interesting, obviously, Dalton's second half of the season was seen as very disappointing. His playing time went down. He was an absolute non-factor in the playoffs. He seemed to have been shaken in some respects by the rescinded trade, which is understandable. It's a very difficult thing to wrap your head around. Really, I mean, veteran players often have a difficult time wrapping their head around a trade. even players that have been traded before, much less somebody who had only been in the NBA
Starting point is 00:22:44 three or four months. And the whole thing, he actually reported to Charlotte. Like, it's not even like this. He found out about it and then it was rescinded. Like, Powell Gasol never went to Houston in the Chris Paul vetoed deal by the league. Like, I don't think you ever left the state.
Starting point is 00:23:02 Like, Dalton Connect was actually in the Charlotte facility. Like this was really strange But also too Like you think you got to keep Like if they gave him some swag Could he keep it or do you have to give that back? You can't you cannot ask for it back You can't ask for
Starting point is 00:23:21 First of all If any organization is because like you can take the jersey back And just like take the lettering off Like if any juror if any team's going to do that It's going to be Charlotte I feel No man I'm sorry they're they're owned by billionaires Dalton is still on a rookie scale deal you let him keep the swag.
Starting point is 00:23:38 I would. I would. I'm just wondering. I wonder if he got to keep any stuff. If they, I'll say this, if they didn't let Dalton keep anything from Charlotte, shame on them. Well, you know what reminds me up. Remember that day when you and I, Andy and I used to split an apartment when I first moved out here. And I, like, I used to be a teacher.
Starting point is 00:23:58 And about a week before school, I got a call. I got, come into the school, whatever. And I told Andy, I was like, I'm, I'm. I'm losing my job here. And he's like, that's ridiculous. School starts in a week. I went in, I had this meeting, totally got laid off. The only thing I could think to do was steal a lot of paper.
Starting point is 00:24:18 So if I took like five reams of paper with me on my way out of this school, Dalton Connect should grab every piece of Hornets gear he could find. Absolutely. I certainly hope that he did, if that's the case. I would like to think that Charlotte did the right thing. He just said, you know what, keep the stuff in trouble. But, you know, it is. And also let us validate your parking.
Starting point is 00:24:42 But it is Charlotte after all. But if you actually look, though, at Dalton's stats in the second half and his splits in the second half, for example, it would be a little bit hard to read them right now. But I try to post them in a graphic. But from behind the arc, before the All-Star break, Dalton average, 36%. Post-all-star break, almost 41%. Basically the same amount of attempts despite playing three or four fewer minutes per game. His overall field goal percentage, pre-all-star break, 46.4. Post-all-star break, 45.7. So negligible. It is basically the same production. If you look at
Starting point is 00:25:27 Dalton's numbers compared to other rookies in the league, like his points per game, He's 11th in the league, really tied for 10th with Eve Misi, 9.1 points per game. And if you look at this list of players ahead of him, Stefan Castle, Alex Tsar, Zachary Risha Shea, Jalen Wells, Justin Edwards, Bob Carrington, Kyle Filipowski, Kelle Ware, Zach Edie, Eve Misi. Like, Dalton's one of the only guys playing on a team that did anything of worth at all. He had the highest three point percentage of anybody top 10 or high. for points per game. And in some ways I've been wondering,
Starting point is 00:26:09 caveat stated, I have concerns about Dalton as well. I don't think there is no reason to have concerns about him. His summer league was, to put it mildly disturbing. But I have wondered, I've really been wondering now, if we are starting to over index towards negativity
Starting point is 00:26:29 in evaluating the second half of this season, in part, because I think in retrospect, we were over-indexing just how good he played pre-all-star break. And in particular, the first couple months, you know, that 37-point explosion came, I want to say like in November. And, you know, this is at a time when all of a sudden the national conversation is, can the Lakers even think about taking Dalton Connect out of the starting lineup? And like, I think we may have been overdoing it, like all of us, including you and me, Brian, like everybody. Oh, no, there were times.
Starting point is 00:27:04 I was like, wait a minute, can, you know, and he did start a couple games. But like, do they need to make more room for me? Yeah, there's no question. We all got it. I think in retrospect, we were over-indexing some of the way we were propping up Dalton. And now in return, in return, we are, I would say, over-indexing his post-all-star break season, you know, really post-trade deadline to be worse than it actually was, even with, again, concerns being valid.
Starting point is 00:27:34 Yeah. I think there is definitely truth to that. I think it's a great point and, you know, prisoner of the moment in both, you know, moments. You know, that's where the expression comes from. But I will say this. I would agree with you even more if statistics were the basis and the core of the,
Starting point is 00:28:04 the foundation for why people, I think, got down on Dalton. I think it is less a statistical argument than an acknowledgement of why he was finding it so difficult to get on the floor. It wasn't because he couldn't hit an outside shot, although he did tend to play better in fourth quarters, play better, you know, like kind of find his way. And some of that's just rhythm. Some of it's maybe the pressure's off. Some of it is his role changing. And in the fourth quarter, when it's garbage time. And he's going to say something, but he's not playing any other time but the fourth quarter. You know, he would play in games a little bit and then they'd leave him on the floor in the fourth quarter.
Starting point is 00:28:45 And he would really thrive because he's got the ball in his hands more. The offense starts to revolve around him and he's playing maybe a role that he's more conventionally used to, like what he did at Tennessee versus what he's being asked to do in the NBA. But, you know, and this was mentioned by Sam in his story. we've talked about it. J.J. Redick has alluded to it. Other analysts have alluded to it. It's the fact that he did this, particularly defensively,
Starting point is 00:29:14 didn't seem to be picking up what needed to be done. Not that you would expect to become a plus defender, but just that it became harder and harder and harder as the games grew more important to allow him to play because defensively he was really screwing up their defensive structure. So I think that's part of it. And then you start to add in the questions about, you know, is he picking it up offensively what he's supposed to be doing?
Starting point is 00:29:42 Like I think it would be. I mean, the defensive concerns were there when everybody was going crazy about it. No question. But we also pointed out like he needs to, you know, if the defense doesn't get better, he's got to produce offensively at a pretty special rate. He's got to be a difference maker as a shooter, as an offensive player so that kind of like we were talking about with the trio of Austin,
Starting point is 00:30:07 Luca and LeBron, like those guys, one of the reasons you want them to really click is so that offensively you're through the roof and you can, you know, relatively speaking, if you're pretty good or average defensive, it works out well in your favor. Dalton's got to be a really plus offensive player so that being, you know, ideally a neutral defensively, you still get to play him. He wasn't that. And so I will say this, NBA defense is really flipping hard. And it can take certain players a long time to get the hang of it.
Starting point is 00:30:45 So I think it's way too early to write him off. But a lot of it is the age. Yeah, it's funny because when you were saying before, the offensive production needs to be through the roof to cover the defense, the offense was basically the same all season. And again, I think some of the reason he stopped playing, it was pointed out by a commenter, I don't have it in front of me, but Jordan Goodwin's very unexpected, A, place on this team,
Starting point is 00:31:13 but then B, performance, that squeezed some of Dalton's minutes. No question. It became... Especially early Goodwin, who was hitting three-pointers. Right. And it's also being pointed out by Oletsky-Norri. I apologize, but we're running low on time. Are Ukrainian friend?
Starting point is 00:31:33 On Dalton, in my humble opinion, he was drafted for a Bron and AD team. Now they're trying to figure things out with a Luca and Braun team. NBA is tougher than college. Give the guy some more time. Sure. I think there's a lot in there. And again, I don't think people are over-indexing the idea of being concerned about Dalton. Like that, I totally understand that.
Starting point is 00:31:55 Again, I have concerns. I just think in retrospect, there was too much hype over the way he played in the first couple months. And that only makes it so some of what happened in the second half, which includes rookies typically start playing less on serious teams the closer you get to the playoffs. I think that has led to some over indexing towards the negative. That's all. In the end, Dalton still has to be better. I think the fundamental question with all of this is at the NBA level, level he is likely and like i think you know people pointed out like you got to adjust to being a luca lebron like all that like on paper he's the type of player who should thrive around lucca donchich
Starting point is 00:32:37 you know good outside shooter can shoot from any any way shape of form he can shoot coming off movement as a catch and shoot guy all of that like so that's how he's gonna it's can he develop maybe one more skill because he's not going to have the ball in his hands as like as a primary attacking player, but he could over time become sort of your primary bench score, something like that. I think that's a role. And can he get good enough at the stuff that he's bad at that you can justify playing him? Because the NBA is littered with players who are really good offensive players and are so bad defensively that they can't play. They can't stay. Or players who are, you know, difference makers defensively, but are such net negatives offensively you can't put them on the
Starting point is 00:33:22 floor. And so the Lakers just need Dalton to move past that. It's a lot. It's just a really it's an interesting space that the lakers are in we're interested in your thoughts about dalton leave them in the comment section um and leave us questions leave us things topics that you want to hear us discuss on the show uh locked on lakers on youtube is we're going to hang out with over 36 000 subscribers all of whom should be doing exactly as i said leaving those questions and comment subscribe on apple subscribe on spotify to the audio version we'll see everyone tomorrow

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