Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Marcus Smart RETURNING for Lakers? Plus, the Vando-JJ CONFLICT, Minutes for Thiero?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Lakers aren't healthy Thursday in Golden State, but they might be healthier. Will it be enough to knock off a struggling warrior squad? 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 everyone for joining Locked on Lakers. I'm Brian Komenetsky with Andy Kamenetsky,

Starting point is 00:00:30 plenty to get into over the course of today's show, including more common. off of the big JJ Reddick Jared Vanderbilt dust up, which I am not kidding, has me really impressed with the enthusiasm and the sort of aggressiveness of the Jared Vanderbilt hive, the Vehive, as I've called it. You've got a lot of supporters out there. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about potential minutes for a due thierro over the course, not just the rest of the regular. season, but potentially into the playoffs and even who might be the nine guys, the JJ Redick says he needs to find between now and about 10 days when the playoffs begin. But let's start, Andy, with a game that the Lakers need to figure out a way to win if they want to try to hold onto that four seed and keep home court advantage in the first round of the

Starting point is 00:01:29 playoffs. It's the Lakers against the Warriors, two of the most. banged up teams you are going to find in this or any other basketball association. For the Lakers at the moment, it is an uphill battle, but you are correct. It begins with a win over a warrior squad that I'm going to be honest. If the Lakers can't manage to pull this thing off, quite frankly, the four seed should be taken from them, whether they actually legitimately get it from Denver or not. because here is the list. Yes, from Houston, excuse me.

Starting point is 00:02:08 It should be taken from them whether they get or not. You're looking at a Warriors injury report right now that is Steph Curry questionable with managing the knee injury that he's coming back from. He's played two games since both of those games off the bench. Steve Kerr did say that the Warriors are going to be on a back-to-back like the Lakers Thursday and Friday. He's only going to play in one of those games.

Starting point is 00:02:30 Charles Bassie, questionable. Guise Santos, questionable, Will Richard, doubtful, Christops, Brazingus, out, Al Horford, out, Quentin Post, out. We already know Moses, Moody, and Jimmy Butler are out. Given who we know will be available for the Lakers and potentially who could play for the Lakers, I'm sorry, man, they have no excuse whatsoever not to win that game. They just don't. I tend to, I would like to agree. Especially considering the one.

Starting point is 00:03:00 By the way, Andy talks about who's going to play. LeBron is going to be back in the lineup for the Lakers. And Marcus Smart is at least, it's at least possible that Marcus Smart plays. He has been upgraded to questionable for this game. And, you know, Jackson, really of the players that they, you know, obviously beyond Luca and Austin, Jackson Hayes will still miss the game with soreness in his left foot. So, you know, these are two very short-handed teams. certainly if LeBron plays the Lakers and Steph doesn't,

Starting point is 00:03:32 the Lakers would have a one star to zero advantage. It's, we can argue about whether or not they should win, could win, must, whatever. But the point is to hold on to that four seed, they probably need to win twice, I think is the best recipe for that. They need to win at least two games. The Phoenix game, who knows, that's a little bit more of a wild card. Utah isn't trying to win. The Warriors are.

Starting point is 00:04:09 So at the very least, the Warriors will be playing. They need to figure out a way. It's not going to get, I will put it to your point, should, could whatever. They're trying-ish to win. They're pretty locked into a 10-s. It's not going to get easier than this one. And I will say, and the other thing about it, too, is it's not just holding on to the Forsy that makes me say the Lakers need to win this game, if they want to create the sort of

Starting point is 00:04:36 mental edge that they need to have going into the postseason, there's got to be a little bit of proof of concept. And, you know, again, this is the, it doesn't matter who it comes against. I don't think we do not need to be picky, that kind of stuff. but if you're the Lakers and you're playing on the team, you just need to see that it can work. We can go play 48 minutes of NBA basketball and outscore another team.

Starting point is 00:05:09 And that will be enough for them to say, we can do that in the playoffs. If you lose like they lost to Oklahoma City and they lost to Dallas, if you do that three more times, I'm sorry. I find it hard to believe that they're going to be able to think they can beat Houston in the first round. Well, and that's what I'm getting at when I said before that if they

Starting point is 00:05:30 lose this game against the Warriors, the Rockets, and by the way, I apologize from the game. I'm so used to mentally keeping track of the Lakers versus Denver. I was thinking of the three, four race, really in the four or five. And Houston and the Lakers are tied right now. They are both sitting on 50 and 29 records. That's really where the race is. I'm just so wired now. The Lakers would be the four if they tie because of the tie breaker, but obviously you need to make sure that Houston doesn't finish clear of you, which means got to win some games. Right. But that's also what I'm getting at when I say if the Lakers cannot beat this Warriors team, one way or another, man, they don't deserve this four seed because you already have seen that loss against a Mavericks

Starting point is 00:06:14 team that isn't even incentivized to win. Like you're starting to blow your opportunities. You don't actually deserve to have it in part because it feels like you're just going to end up wasting it anyway. You're not going to make the most of it anyway if you can't win these sorts of games. And Golden State is, to be honest, only so incentivized to win because it's going to be really difficult for them to get out of the 10. And it's certainly not worth risking any type of setback for Steph in this recovery to get a win because if Steph gets hurt again, it doesn't matter what see there. They're done. They're basically done anyway, but they're even more done. All I mean, it's just there's a between the teams that are, you know, they're going to rest guys or, you know, you know,

Starting point is 00:06:59 don't have much of a chance. The Warriors technically can still move, but they, it's unlikely. Or it's, it's hard at the least versus teams like Utah that like might pull players in the fourth quarter if they happen to have a lead. So that, that's the distinction we're making. But I'm the first quarter if they have a lead. I am, I'm just really, I'm, I'm, I'm very interested and more interested in this, in this mental aspect of it. You know, obviously, you know, getting LeBron back, coming off of the controversial game against Oklahoma City, not the losing part, that part everybody expected. But the, you know, the comments from JJ afterwards about DeAndre Aiton's hands,

Starting point is 00:07:41 which I think if he could get that one back, I think JJ would probably, at the very least, have phrased the answer differently. He is not incorrect. And there have been a lot of mashups going on around. NBA Twitter on Wednesday of DeAndre Aiden in fact not catching basketballs. I actually made the joke

Starting point is 00:08:03 yesterday that DeAndre Aten was catching strays and catching a lot of flack for it and was very disappointed to myself for not noting that he would have dropped that flag had had been thrown to him. Missed opportunity. All of that stuff, they need a good bounceback game,

Starting point is 00:08:21 a nice palette cleanser just to sort of reset the tape. table. JJ is clearly trying and we'll use this sort of as a reintroduction into some of the questions that come out of that and what's look for Thursday. JJ in my mind is very clearly trying to set this team up with higher expectations to not let them wallow in, you know, what other people might consider to be their ordinariness. You know, this much maligned supporting cast has been blamed for a lot of stuff this year. And JJ's not, I think, is trying not to let them wallow in that.

Starting point is 00:09:03 But how he pushes those buttons is something that he has to figure out and do so under very difficult and suboptimal circumstances. And he's got to do it very quickly. And that's what we'll get into next. Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Wayfair. Wayday is here. And if you've been thinking about upgrading your space, this is the time to do it.

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Starting point is 00:12:21 because there are no real expectations anymore for the Lakers to do well. I mean, it would be very difficult for JJ, assuming that nobody comes back in the first round that isn't expected to be there. It's being hard to get too critical of what Reddick does in the first round. I mean, everybody knows Lakers can be undermanned and under talented. But aside from that, his job as a coach is to try to figure out how to maximize the opportunity for the Lakers to do something that nobody expects them to do.

Starting point is 00:12:51 He's obviously got to get the players to believe, and he's got to figure out how to get players who all year have been kind of asked to do certain roles to suddenly be like, nope, you got to need a bigger role, go out and be more aggressive, take more shots, do this, whatever, be a star, not a star in your role, a star. There's a lot of recalibrating that has to go on. They've got about five games in a week of practice to do it. And I'm very interested to see if JJ approaches Thursday

Starting point is 00:13:27 with the same kind of quick trigger and really high standards that he did in the Oklahoma City game. I think having high standards is fine. I think JJ's had high standards for the team all season. JJ's a very detailed process-oriented coach. I think most coaches of good teams have very high standards. The issue isn't the standards. It's how you exact them and how you go about communicating the standards. and how you go about letting the players know when they haven't met the standards and the methodology and the rhymes and the reasons.

Starting point is 00:14:05 Like at the risk of jumping to too much, you know, causation versus correlation, whatever, if the Lakers come out against the warriors and either are very flat, play poorly, somehow managed to win, but it's basically in spite of themselves or it's just because Golden State isn't very good, then. I'll take that. I'll take it. But in terms of what you were talking about earlier, the idea of building actual momentum, whatever is realistic momentum for a squad built like this right now heading into the playoffs, if they come out unimpressively on however many levels,

Starting point is 00:14:46 I'm going to have concerns that JJ's methodology versus OKC backfired and that he didn't actually get the messaging across that he wanted, that he didn't get the reaction from the players. I acknowledge from the top. It's a causation versus correlation thing. But JJ, if nothing else, he's not a man known necessarily for patience, certainly when you're towards the end of the road anyway,

Starting point is 00:15:11 I think it will be fair at the very least to wonder whether he came out too hot for his own good and the team's own good. Maybe. I mean, I think that I, what I, The parts that I think that are catching my eye about this are more just the the reaction to, I mean, I think internally this is probably playing very differently than externally. You know, for example, I, you know, Rui, who was pulled from the game, what, like four minutes in, you know, four or five minutes in?

Starting point is 00:15:50 Yeah. And, you know, because as JJ said, he wasn't doing his job. But again, if you're looking for players that are like, you need to be bigger, better, like, Flickers got to replace 65 points in their lineup, you know, 10 of those at least need to come from Rui, you know, 10 of on top of what he normally does.

Starting point is 00:16:15 And so, you know, getting Rui's attention and asking him to do more, be more and be more attentive makes a lot of sense to me. Ruy left the game, came back, and at the end of it, JJ, in the list of players he thought of, like, good things happened here, included Rui, you know, mentioned him making shots and doing all that other stuff. The difference between the two of them between Rui and Vando is that Vando stopped twice to argue with him about it. And whether he was justified or not in doing it, there was a difference in how the two of those guys reacted. And, you know. But there was also a difference in how JJ reacted because JJ gave Rui another chance. He didn't give Vando another chance.

Starting point is 00:17:00 He didn't. You can play both sides of this forever. I mean, you really can. You can, but I think, you know, did J.J. not give Vando another chance to go in because Vando stopped to argue about it twice? Probably. Was he punishing him? Probably.

Starting point is 00:17:15 Does Rui have a better sort of, does he have a higher sort of station on? on the team and does he have more of a, you know, kind of leeway from JJ? Absolutely. All of those things are true. I'm just saying they didn't, the players didn't handle it the same. And so, but the context for the players also isn't the same too. I get all that. I know the context is different. J.J. Reddick doesn't like Jared Vanderbilt. He doesn't like him as a player. He doesn't want him on his team. He doesn't want to play him. That is very obvious. My point is given the backstory, you can't expect. the exact same reaction from both players. And more importantly than that, what I think really matters

Starting point is 00:17:56 is he's going to need Vando. That's where I'm going to. That's where I'm going. And so I want to see does Vando play first and foremost? If he, assuming he does, how much does he play? Does Vando come out and play more attentively. Does he focus a little bit more on some of the little stuff that, quite frankly, is the stuff that he doesn't do very well, which I think is the reason he doesn't play. You know, offensively, we all know what he is,

Starting point is 00:18:33 but defensively getting hit by back cuts or being, you know, being, you know, definitely all of that stuff. Does he do a better job with that stuff? Does he play with greater energy than he did in, the brief time that he played on Tuesday. I'm interested in the reaction from him. I'm interested in the reaction from the team. I, you know, so, and I, I will be very interested to see if JJ pushes them in the same way against the Warriors.

Starting point is 00:19:07 Then he did go. Then he did Oklahoma City for two reasons. First of all, you know, just the consistency of it. And it's like, is this really the tack he's taking? But also, too, this is a game they can actually win. The difference between this one and Tuesday, Tuesday was kind of a good lab for it because it was a really easy game for the Lakers

Starting point is 00:19:26 just sort of woe is me their way through it. Because even if they played great, they weren't going to win. This is a game they actually can win and need to win. Again, the issue I have with it, at this point, it's not even about what JJ thinks of Vando as a player. And if you want to say Vando is a back end of the rotation

Starting point is 00:19:47 player at best compared to the rest of the league, fine, whatever. Like I'm not looking to even argue it for this particular team, given who is available and the players they have what they can do, he needs to find a way to make Vando work and to be in some way, like Vando has an onus and has agency too. I'm not trying to downplay Vando's own responsibilities. And of course, he has to be attentive and things like that. Vando also, I think very rightly and understandably, plays looking over his shoulder because he expects his coach to yank him at any minute. And that's not productive for getting the thing out of Vando that you need.

Starting point is 00:20:31 And in order, I think, to get the best out of Vando, it would be helpful if J.J. would not advertise so loudly, I think you suck. I don't think you're a very good player. At some point, the juice needs to be worth the squeeze in the way that he treats Vando and the way he approaches it because right now he needs him. But if Jared Vanderbilt, I mean, I want to get into this nine-player thing because how the Lakers think about the back end of the rotation, it's going to be interesting. And it could include a DuPhero, which would be an interesting twist on the postseason. If Vando can't go out and play 15 minutes a night, even if he despises JJ Redick, that's on him.

Starting point is 00:21:13 When we get back, though, when we get back, I want to actually widen this from Vando because you've talked before, and I think you're correct, that in some ways when people talk about the back end of the rotation, they're really talking about JJ and Vando. But I actually think that this is potentially about something bigger than Jared Vanderbilt. So we'll get into that coming up next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Indeed. There's workplace chaos.

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Starting point is 00:24:20 So like I said, I want to expand this conversation beyond just Jared Van derrick ville because it can become easy to become too myopic about it. And we've clearly gone back and forth on the Vando piece of this. We don't agree on it. Fine. Whatever. The larger concern that I have with this that I think Vando is an avatar for even if it's not specifically about Jared Vanderbilt is JJ falling back. into the instincts and reflexes that he had in the playoffs, where dissatisfaction with imperfections that he sees in players leads him to start narrowing down his choices in ways

Starting point is 00:25:00 that not just make it too difficult to achieve what he wants because you simply have too few players you'll put out on the floor to many players playing too many minutes, and that becomes a real problem when one of them is, is 41 years old, you also just put yourself in a position where you lose your roster. And your roster at some point, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A handful of players don't give you what they want because they feel like whenever I go out there, I'm not going to be giving you what they want.

Starting point is 00:25:34 And they become self-conscious with it. And belief is important with all this stuff, particularly if you're going to, if you're going to try, if you're going to try to pull what is. likely going to be considered an upset in the first round, whether they play likely the Rockets, but maybe the Timberwolves. They're not going to be favored in either series. And I don't think they should be favored in either. Whether you think it is realistic for the Lakers to pull off an upset or not, you still

Starting point is 00:26:05 need to instill belief in these guys. And again, standards are mandatory. I'm not saying that JJ should be coddling his players. I don't believe he should be. These are grown-ass man. Grown-ass-man, it's a real job. But you still have to make sure that you are approaching this in ways where the players feel empowered and supported

Starting point is 00:26:27 to do their job. Like to actually go out there with a mindset that they need, regardless of whether you think JJ is correct about this or not. In some ways, I think that misses the point because you're tearing down Vando's belief in what he can achieve out there because he may not even feel I'll get the opportunity to work through inevitable mistakes that other players will because mistakes are going to happen. And then, and this lead, I think, leads to a due thero because his minutes against OKC were very

Starting point is 00:27:01 intriguing. And I think JJ likes certain elements that he saw. And I think it's a live possibility that he could be somewhere between a half and a whole man in the rotation, maybe get 10-ish minutes. But that can only happen if JJ is willing to live with some imperfections. And like truly willing to live with it's worth noting. He pointed him out. Like I like what a dude did in minutes restrictions and all that kind of stuff.

Starting point is 00:27:27 Made a lot of mistakes. And I think he said that in part because he recognizes, oh, the, the, look at, you know, Thero is so different than every. buddy that the Lakers can put out on the floor that you want you know it's like he just jumps off the page with the athleticism in in speed the physicality sure all of it and I think you know if you if you sort of understanding how these things get talked about um I think JJ was trying to do two things there. I think he was trying to praise the kid and point out that he played hard, he played well and all that stuff and really temper expectations about what's coming.

Starting point is 00:28:18 Because the reality of it is if you put Thero out for, you know, like you say, half man or whole man minutes in the rotation, there is a very good chance that teams are going to take it, you know, in a playoff atmosphere. that he's going to get cooked because he has barely played this year. He's barely played at the NBA level. He's really not played that much at the G-League level. He's been hurt for half of the year. I wish it wasn't that way.

Starting point is 00:28:56 So, I mean, I think you're correct. If you play Thero, I think it's going to be either something very specific. You need to, you need four minutes where, like, the energy is low. People are kind of flagging. You need one guy to kind of go. out there and just raise the energy up. Just run around and jump and get out of the break. Yes, exactly.

Starting point is 00:29:19 And then I think maybe you deploy him for five minutes or something like that, three minutes, whatever it might be. If you were, that, that's a different role than one of your nine guys. And this is why I don't think there's necessarily going to, I think there's going to be seven guys. To your earlier point, I think JJ is going to be very tight with it. When they finally open up this first round series, I think in the end, he's probably going to play seven and a half guys. There are seven guys who are locks.

Starting point is 00:29:49 Right. LeBron, smart, Rui, Aiton, Hayes, Knard, LaRavia. And I think most because, you know, in the same way that most playoff coaches, most coaches tighten the rotation in the playoffs. So you see guys, if you play a 10-man rotation, normally it drops down to nine, eight and a half often. You know, guys might get two minutes here or there or whatever, but like functionally you're really playing eight guys, not 10. If you play nine, you might get closer to seven.

Starting point is 00:30:22 In this particular, we only weren't talking nine because JJ said nine. That's a right. And I think, you know, nine for the next three games. Like I don't think he's going to start playing seven guys. But, you know, the minutes were pretty big in, even on Tuesday. I'm sorry against Dallas, you know, for the starters. I mean, I think that's just how it's going to be. So to the extent that Theero plays, it's going to have to be, if you really are going to play and play,

Starting point is 00:30:48 and then yeah, you're going to have to tolerate mistakes and you hope that the good stuff outweighs it. I actually could see Adieu getting some of the minutes you might normally say maybe those would be Vando minutes in a first round matchup. I don't know if you're going to see both of them. I think my guess is you're going to see a little bit of Thero, a little bit of Vando, a little bit of Kleba, just kind of depending on what's going on. I don't think it's, I think those seven guys and anybody else is going to be matchup dependent. And I'm putting Vando in the probably matchup dependent. I don't think JJ wants to play him in the playoffs. And I don't think he's going to in terms of the belief.

Starting point is 00:31:34 I mean, it's a catch-22 because you need to give guys the opportunity to, you know, build that confidence, but you don't have the time to do it. And so, I mean, this is, this is sort of what the regular season is for and why what has happened to the Lakers is such a kick in the nards, because it's not just robbing you of obviously two of your three best players, including one of the two or three best players on this planet. It upsets the dynamic of everything else that you've been trying to do and create over the course of the season where you're trying to get guys to feel comfortable doing that thing. And now they can't do just that thing anymore. You know, it's tough. I mean, it's this is unenviable position for anyone. No, as Mr. TD 331 said, Lakers have been kicked in the canards. They have.

Starting point is 00:32:34 They got to live with it right now. And yeah, it's a really difficult proposition right now for this team. It's a difficult proposition for JJ. And I'm talking more, again, about the process of it and the methodology for trying to get what you want, even if you can't ultimately get what you want because you simply don't have the factors at your fingertips necessary, the ingredients necessary to get what you want. want. It's still a matter of trying your best to somehow make that happen or somehow at least put people in the position to best try, even if it's a pretty impossible ask. And like I said,

Starting point is 00:33:23 the situation that we saw, largely with Vando, but I guess you could talk about the comments with Aiton or maybe even just coming out so hot to begin with, with Rui. And obviously, it worked out well with Rui, whatever. He got another chance. He played well. But just the general tension that you saw from JJ in the way that he approached this, if it's a one-off, it's a one-off fine, whatever. I don't know if it's how I would have approached it, but if it's a one-off, it doesn't necessarily matter, assuming there's no negative residual effect from it. If it continues sort of that way, it does in a lot of respects remind me of some of the bad stuff that happened during the playoffs.

Starting point is 00:34:05 Well, it could. It could. But I also think you kind of need to just pick a lane. Like what you can't do at this point in the season sort of ping pong back and forth between stuff. The Lakers, JJ's got to pick an approach, I think, and sort of stick with it.

Starting point is 00:34:21 Like it doesn't have to look exactly like it did on Tuesday. But, you know, if this is sort of like the, you know, because I, people will say he's tearing down the guy. guys at the the opposite side of that coin is you are showing belief in players when you raise the expectations on them when you say this is what's coming you are a you are going to be a player that we lean on to try to do this thing um by me if i didn't hold you to the standard raise the standard make you raise your expectations of your

Starting point is 00:35:03 yourself, I would actually not be believing that you could, I would just pack it in. But it's important the player actually feel like you do believe in me that I could raise that the standard could be raised. And I think to the point you were making earlier, we quit here, when people talk about this stuff, I think it would actually, like you were saying, it would be very helpful to remove Jared Vanderbilt entirely from the equation. because what JJ is doing isn't about Vanderbilt. It's about the eight guys or seven guys or nine guys.

Starting point is 00:35:41 I actually think he's got plenty of faith in Maxi. He just uses him sparingly. About the eight guys he's planning on playing. It's not about Jared Vanderbilt. He doesn't care about Jared Vanderbilt. He doesn't want to play Jared Vanderbilt. No, some of this doesn't reflect well on JJ. I get it.

Starting point is 00:35:56 But it's not, what he's doing isn't about Vando. I hope it works with Vando because they need all the play. players that you can get. But he's doing this to try to elevate Rui, to try to elevate La Ravia, to try to elevate Aiton. Like, we just, that's why I thought the worst, I thought the biggest misstep he made was with D'Andre. And, you know, I thought that was in the L.AWRcelo, the same thing. But I think that was in the case. And I think that I'm curious to see how that looks and stuff like, you know, did he talk to him? Does he go back to him like did that kind of stuff? But, you know,

Starting point is 00:36:31 JJ has, you know, is still an inexperienced coach and I think is sort of feeling his way through some of these things. So we'll see how it goes. Locked on Lakers on YouTube, where you can hang out with over 38,000 subscribers through the channel. We'll see everyone later in the day.

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