Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Rich Paul Says LeBron is Generating Interest from Contenders. Why That's Good for the Lakers

Starting point is 00:00:00 Rich Paul says everyone is calling him about LeBron James, Andy. Everyone will tell you why that could be a good thing for the Lakers. Next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everyone for stopping by Locked on Lakers, Brian Kaminetsky, Andy Kaminetsky. It is a Tuesday afternoon, and we got to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by

Starting point is 00:00:36 Fandul, right now new customers can bet just $5 and get $150 in bonus bets. Your first bet wins, head to fanduel.com to get started. And earlier this week, Monday, I believe it was either Sunday or Monday, I forgot. Rich Paul, Andy, said that everyone, Andy, is trying to get a hold of him to talk about LeBron James. Well, this was per Shamsherania on the Pat McAfee show, talking about LeBron's obviously decision coming up this offseason, whether you're talking about returning to the Lakers, looking to play for another team or retirement. And you and I have both emphasized over and over. We genuinely believe LeBron has not made up his mind. And this is something that he really

Starting point is 00:01:21 needs to mull over. But I will say I am more confident he's going to play again next year this summer than I was. I thought the possibility of him walking away was larger last summer than I think it is this summer, but it's still a possibility. Yeah, and regardless, I think this is still just pun unintended, a decision for LeBron, because as much as these are uncharted waters for the Lakers and for NBA fans and for sports fans, just LeBron doing what he has for so long still at the level he's performing at, there is no template or model, and it's hard to predict how your body's going to going to feel. It's hard to predict how your mind's going to feel, you know, over the course of

Starting point is 00:02:09 season 24. So I imagine there is a lot to think over. But anyway, Sham said on the Pat McAfee show, quote, honestly, I think LeBron more than in past years probably needs even more time with his family, with his inner circle. I do know a lot of teams are calling him and his camp. I spoke to Rich Paul the other day at the Chicago draft combine last week. And he told me every contender in the NBA essentially since the season ended has placed a call. And what is interesting about this and even acknowledging it is lying season right now, it is exaggeration season, not just for LeBron, Rich Paul, for every agent, every team, every leaker, all this stuff, all acknowledged.

Starting point is 00:02:54 Taking Rich Paul at face value, if every contender is interested in LeBron, that creates questions in and of itself because very few, if any, have the ability to pay LeBron even close to what the Lakers could theoretically pay him. And there are concerns that what the Lakers would offer wouldn't be enough to keep LeBron in L.A. So these other teams are going to have to figure out ways to appeal to LeBron if the money isn't there. Or maybe they would be looking to try to find a way to make the money more equal to what the Lakers could theoretically offer. Well, I mean, it's the only way that can be done is through a trade. And, you know, like there, the, the issue with the Lakers, this gets to sort of the asset management

Starting point is 00:03:50 quest for people watching on YouTube. You can see, you know, the, you see on the rail. The issue with LeBron isn't just, you know, do you want LeBron to go around? You can't let him go and not replace him with something. You may want to be as a fan past the LeBron show and all that kind of stuff, but you can't let him go for nothing because if you can't replace him, you're letting 21, 7 and 7 walk out the door. And even if you want to, that's not going to make you better.

Starting point is 00:04:24 You can be over the LeBron experience. If you want the Lakers to be better, you've got to replace that somehow. if there are teams that are willing to go over their exception to pay them. But like if you're Golden State, if you're Cleveland, if you're New York, if you're, you know, one of those teams that might have some of the Clippers even, you know, might have some appeal to LeBron, you know, the Clippers being a team that's usually pretty competitive and wouldn't have to move his family and all that kind of stuff.

Starting point is 00:04:57 If you want to be able to pay him more than your exception, none of those contenders can really do it. Not without removing players from their roster that you're just not going to remove for a player who's 42 years old and at most is going to play two more years. Like I can't imagine he's going to play beyond that. That pool of teams to which he could go and still make, I'll make up a number, $25 million, $20 to $25 million. If that's important to LeBron, if those teams are actually interested in them, maybe you can put together a trade that gives the Lakers a little bit of capacity to move on from LeBron without making their team significantly worse in the process.

Starting point is 00:05:51 Yeah, and giving credit what credits do. Trevor Lane from Lakers Nation front of the show was the first person that I heard reaction. to the news thinking about this in terms of sign and trades. Because to be perfectly honest, when I first saw Shams talking about this, the idea of a sign and trade didn't immediately come to me just because that is going to be difficult for any of these teams that LeBron would be interested in. Right. I'm not even sure they can do it. Right. Because it's so complicated, it never dawned on me.

Starting point is 00:06:24 But the thing that's, I think, potentially interesting about it for the Lakers, and we're talking about later is just giving the Lakers an opportunity, if not to replace LeBron's talent in an apples to apples way if he leaves through a sign and trade, because I think that will likely be impossible just in terms of pure player. Right. Exactly. Like pure player talent. But the idea of at least helping the Lakers gain some depth that they desperately

Starting point is 00:06:57 need depending on which team we're talking about and who arrives with the Lakers, that, if nothing else could be an avenue towards a goal that the Lakers have this offseason that I think they may have been thinking about much more independently of LeBron, but nonetheless, it's a goal that they have that's going to be difficult. This might open some doors towards it. Right. I mean, and all of it's predicated on the idea, by the way, that LeBron wants to go somewhere else.

Starting point is 00:07:29 And so, like, if it's this, you know, and it's possible he would go somewhere else. You know, I'd rather go play in Cleveland. And, you know, they can only offer me 14 million and I just want to play in Cleveland so I can go play in Cleveland. And maybe the Cavs are like, look, if you want to come here, this is the best we can do. We got, you know, and that's good enough for LeBron. But maybe there's also a scenario in which they'd be willing to. And LeBron wants to leave.

Starting point is 00:07:53 They'd be willing to. Or LeBron wants to go to Golden State. They'd be willing to. but LeBron wants the extra six or seven or $8 million, whatever it turns out to be, that would be the scenario in which this becomes a thing. And like I, first step is wants to leave L.A.,

Starting point is 00:08:09 and I'm not sure we're anywhere near that yet. But the other thing that I think this points to is something that's not just relevant for the LeBron question, but everything the Lakers are doing this off-season. And we'll get to it next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Fandul the NBA playoffs are in full swing. Every possession matters.

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Starting point is 00:11:20 we went deep into the challenges that Rob Polink is facing this off-season. The part of the equation here is asset management. There are a million different ways you could do this. You can't stay in the idea of them letting LeBron go or Austin Reeves go. I don't care if they'll either way. If you can find a replacement for LeBron that is better than LeBron or makes more sense for next year, and down the road fits in better with whatever roster great you know especially if it's something that can build multiple years down the road i think that's a that's a nice exchange i agree with you

Starting point is 00:12:01 andy i think it's me very difficult to figure out how to do that and trade because our team's going is my you might want lebron um and you might be willing to pay lebron and you might want to make it a little more enticing for lebron to sign with you um because if everybody can just give him an exception, maybe you don't have as quite a good a leg up as somebody else does. Or it just stays with the Lakers. Right. Or just stays with the Lakers who can give him that extra. I mean a similar chance to win.

Starting point is 00:12:34 So maybe you're willing to go, you know, move some stuff to give him a little extra money, but you're not going to give up something foundational for a player like LeBron. Probably not. I mean, you could always ask. But, you know, so like I said, I think it's going to be challenging to find that kind of piece. Or if he's going to go anyway, at least you get something back. But Austin Reeves, if you can find a replacement for Austin Reeves, and I think, you know, there's a lot of chatter on NBA socials about the hypothetical Austin Reeves sign and trade to Detroit for Jalen Duren,

Starting point is 00:13:14 who would need to be extended with the Lakers and all that kind of stuff. I think we'll get into that maybe on for Wednesday's show. But like you, the bigger principle here is it's okay to let Austin go if you can replace him. What you can't have, whether it's Austin, LeBron, Rui, Luke Kennard. You can't let assets walk out the door and get nothing in return for them because the Lakers don't have. enough assets to get away with it. You have to turn everything into something if you're not going to keep it to the very best of your ability. Well, it's not even just the idea of them not having the assets to do all of this replacement proactively on their own. It's also not an extremely

Starting point is 00:14:08 deep free agent pool out there in terms of creating your options. Because the Lakers are not steeped in assets, it could potentially limit the trades that they can make if say Trey Murphy the third for example who I know I've talked about before is having interest in possibly bringing him in there's questions about whether the pelicans are going to be sticking with this group that performed well for like the last couple of weeks when they were finally healthy and you know Trey Trey Murphy is just on the edge of being a little bit too old for where the pelicans can be but right he is not old enough that you can dismiss miss it outright, particularly because he's a good player and maybe you look to move other guys

Starting point is 00:14:54 on that roster and keep him around and hope that they can just really accelerate what they're doing. But like, you only have three total first round picks. Like is, is that going to be enough, not just to get you Trey Murphy, but to also handle all the other business that you need to do in the offseason? Like, even if you think three picks could get you Trey Mervy, Murphy, certainly could be possible, does that leave you with enough other options and avenues moving forward? Because while I don't expect the organization just in this offseason to all a sudden become equals with the thunder and the spurs, because that's not realistic for one summer, they do need to be tangibly better this off season. Like if you don't see them looking

Starting point is 00:15:44 tangibly better, that's a failure. straight up that is failure. And it's a catastrophic failure if they've used a lot of these assets and having gotten demonstrably better. Like it's one thing to be like, well, the right trade didn't come along. And it's frustrating as it is, Andy, we held on. The next deals, it's going to be the trade deadline when we really get to do again. Like this has been the pattern with Rob Polinka, but you still can't do stupid things just because there's a lot of pressure on you to do something. just because you've kind of talked yourself into a corner,

Starting point is 00:16:18 which the Lakers have periodically done. But the other thing you have to be able to do, because you can only trade these picks once, this is why, you know, when we talked about it for Monday, I just, as tempting as it would be, to try to use a first round pick to get rid of Jared Vanderbilt or something like that, I just think it's a terrible idea. Whatever you do with those picks needs to be something foundational

Starting point is 00:16:43 that will continue to make you better for the next couple of years. Because once those picks are traded, that is the last time you can trade that stuff. Like you have no flexibility, no options, no control over picks going forward for a while. So there's an argument to be made. They need to use that 25th pick on a person that will play for the Lakers. Like there's a very compelling argument for that. Yeah. Or at the very least, if you're going to trade it, can't be traded.

Starting point is 00:17:13 It can't be trading for somebody who's over 24, 25, 26. Can't trade it for a 31-year-old player, you know, that kind of thing unless it's a damn good one. So just, you know, we spent a lot of time for Monday or for Tuesday's show talking about just how difficult it is. But this is a part of it that that makes a difference. And where the Lakers have been lacking over the last half decade is even when they do, you know, even when they do good things. and they've obviously made some good moves. There's some bad ones and some good ones, whatever. There is often a lack of respect for especially marginal assets.

Starting point is 00:17:54 You know, whatever, it's a second round pick. We'll undo this mistake. We'll open up a roster spot. We'll do whatever. And everybody loves, look, they're doing it. But like, every time you use up one of those things and you don't replenish it in a different way, it makes it harder to do the next thing. And so the Lakers just the asset management,

Starting point is 00:18:13 over the next couple of seasons is going to be incredibly important because the Thunder and the Spurs to use the competition, they don't have that problem. The Thunder don't need to be particularly precious about asset management. They have so many of them. They could draft dead people just to troll the league, like, you know, dead classical musicians just for fun. I want one year, Sam Presti, just to make the draft call

Starting point is 00:18:48 and the call is, we're good. We're not using this. No, we're just, that's fine. Just put whatever you want. Burn it. Doesn't need it. You know, the Spurs can, like, these are teams that don't need to hit on everything,

Starting point is 00:19:03 that if they do need to give up a second round pick or a first round pick to get off a contract, like it won't punish them that much because they have so many good assets available to them. The Lakers don't have that luxury. And so in addition to the challenge of scouting and forming the right deal and whatever, they have to be real careful on the margins

Starting point is 00:19:21 and make sure they're using all their assets properly. So I watch on Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 38,000 subscribers to the channel. We'll be back later on for Wednesday's show. Unpacked some more off-season intrigue. We'll see you then.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Rich Paul Says LeBron is Generating Interest from Contenders. Why That's Good for the Lakers

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