Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Rob Pelinka Says Luka Gives Lakers "Optionality", Plus, Horry says to (Eventually) Trade Reaves

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Rob Pelinka spoke with ESPN's Dave McMenamin last week, and needless to say had a tremendous amount of good stuff to say about new star Luka Dončić. Everything about this summer, McMenamin writes, has led Pelinka to believe the Lakers can do big things with Luka perhaps a little faster from a roster building standpoint than perhaps they originally thought. One big reason is Luka's offseason transformation, which either reinforces or reestablishes his status as one of the elite handful of best players on the planet. One of the best, if not perhaps the best, by the end of the season. But another is that Dončić has such a varied skill set that he gives the Lakers tremendous optionality. There really isn't anything he can't do, which means there aren't many players he can't play with effectively. That's a great luxury for a GM, because it broadens the portfolio of players that can be had in an effort to build a championship caliber roster. (Plus, when you have one of the two or three best players in the league, it covers a lot of sins.) But with that in mind, the Lakers will have decisions to make about how to build around Luka in the future. And to that end, Robert Horry, talking on his own podcast, expressed a thought we've kicked around here a lot - that Austin Reaves has too many similar qualities to Luka, and rather than commit to him long term, the Lakers might want to consider a trade. Is he right?  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: Pelinka talks "optionality." SEGMENT 2: What the Summer of Luka has meant for LA.SEGMENT 3: Better to trade Reaves this offseason?  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYEnough with boring, flavorless caffeine, it’s time to give your caffeine a flavor upgrade with 5-hour ENERGY®️ shots. Get the favorites you love or be bold and try something new in-store and online at https://www.5hourENERGY.com or Amazon today. SKIMSShop SKIMS Mens at SKIMS.com/lockedonnba. Let them know we sent you! After you place your order, select "podcast" in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at https://monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first yearFanDuelRight now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app now by visiting https://FanDuel.comto get startedFANDUEL 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.

Hey, everyone, welcome to Lockdown Lakers for Monday. Brian Komeneski, Andy Kaminetsky, Rob Polinka talks about the Luca Donchich era and what it means to have one of those dudes on your 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 everybody for making Locked on Lakers. First listen to every day Monday through Friday, no matter how where you get your podcast. This one's always going to be free and never behind a paywall.

Lickers on YouTube is where you go hang out. Over 36,000 subscribers to the channel, Andy, they are leaving questions and comments as we get closer and closer and closer to media day and the start of training camp and real stuff with real players on real basketball courts to begin discussing. So plenty of stuff to do over the course of this week as we prepare for that. Lots to break down in this show, Andy, including some interesting and provocative comments from Robert Ory on the future of Austin Reeves,

what it maybe should be with the Lakers and stuff to look there. Jared Vanderbilt's potential role news in the Andrew Wiggins trade market as a significant injury takes place in Miami. So plenty to cover. But first, Andy, Rob Polinka said a bunch of stuff to Dave McManaman in a story for ESPN that published, I believe, going into the weekend on Friday and very clearly putting Luca up into the ranks of the best players in the NBA, if not the best, something that was reflected in his play during Eurobasket.

And in particular, the stuff that jumped out at us is the stuff that Rob said when it comes to what a player like Luca means, as you said, one of those dudes, what it brings to your team, but also what it may mean right now for the Lakers and the approach this season. Quote, Lucas play in Eurobasket made it clear to the entire basketball world that he is on that incredibly short list of best player on the planet candidates, if not at the top in terms of team building. We've talked about the importance of having optionality. And when I use that word, it's not to say the future. I think optionality is also in the now, having both Luca as arguably the best player on the planet and LeBron James, who is still in the mix of being. one of the great players in our game, even at his age,

continues to allow us to think carefully about that value of optionality. Rob then later said, if there are smart ways to pour into our championship aspirations for the next year, we will execute on those. And having seen those two players on our team next year as an important moment, and we'll continue to try to do all of those to deliver the franchise its 18th championship. Later in McMediman's piece, quote, he being Lucas, stresses every single day that his goal is to win a championship, a source close to Donchich told ESPN. He trusts the front office to do their job and he trusts what they're building.

So it speaks to not just Rob Polinka having perhaps a grander and more aggressive vision for the roster and its potential this season and the things that they might try to do, this season, but also working hand and glove with Luca and having Lucas approval. I think, you know, this relation, the two things about this. I mean, I think the optionality thing is an interesting, an interesting topic of conversation for a couple reasons and, you know, and is particularly relevant when you're talking about a player like Luca. But, you know, I think this Question, though, too, of the relationship is a great critical starting point because, you know, I don't think anybody was expecting problems when Luca was traded to the Lakers. I think everybody expected that he would sign an extension in L.A.

I think they expected that, you know, the Lakers would sort of roll out the red carpet because that's what they do. And like this, this aspect of, um, of sort of player management is, is kind of their specialty, uh,

in terms of making stars feel welcome and comfortable and like they are the center of the universe. This is what they do. But even with all that, it, it's gone better than anybody could possibly have outlined. Or at the very least, it's at the top.

ticked every box of like, what could, if you could just pick everything, what would you want to pick? You'd want to pick. Luca gets in fantastic shape. What it means for his health, we'll see. We don't know. Nothing is guaranteed in this world. But if you ask the Lakers, privately, they would have said, you know, publicly they'd be like, you know, we love Luca. We trust him to do what's right. You know, and we know he is going to be a professional, all that stuff. Privately, it'd be like, damn, it would be great if he just got himself in phenomenal shape. And that's, you know, That's exactly what he did. They would love, they would have been fine if the signing summer waited until after a euro basket.

Totally fine. That's typically how Luca's been doing it throughout his career. You put it privately, they'd have been like, it would be really cool as if he signed on the first day. Like, that'd be great. And he did. Wouldn't it be cool if Luca went out and recruited free agents for us? All these other things, like he, all of these things, Andy, every box in this relationship. And then you add, and I'm sure I know you think this sort of stuff is significant.

the Lakers hopping on a plane and going to Eurobasket and showing up at practice in Poland and all these like all of this stuff has gone letter perfect to what you would want it to be. Well, it's all been a part of continual communication and conversation and connection with Luca throughout since the moment really he's arrived with through that trade. But then once the season ended, like because I remember when the when reports first started surfacing of the 2027 offseason emphasis and the idea of not wanting to take on longer contracts or anything that went past 2027 because they were looking ahead to potentially Janus or potentially Yokic, stuff that we've talked about ad nauseum this offseason. And I have always maintained

my skepticism about just how hard and fast that really. You and I have sort of different theories about what's happening now with what Rob's saying. But one of the things, sure, but one of the things that I said at the time beyond, again, just not being, certainly not buying it as much as other people who cover the team or some of the people reporting it is one of the things that people would say as the danger of this plan would be you need to get Luca to sign an extension. And if you're essentially just sitting on your hands this offseason, you could risk Luca not signing. And my reaction to that was always, look, I don't think this is a good approach.

But if they're doing it, it better be because they're talking with Luca. And Luca is saying he understands why they're doing it. Again, in theory, reportedly, whatever. This is something that running past Luca and Luca approves it for whatever reason. As long as Luca is on board with the things, things that they're doing. It doesn't matter if you or me, Brian, or any of the people that cover this team, the fans, whoever, it doesn't matter if we approve of it. What matters is, does Luca approve of it? And it's become very clear, I think as this offseason has progressed, whether you're talking about Luca recruiting free agents during the off season, whether you're talking about Luca's very outward commitment to the franchise, Palingka.

Genie, the Rambi, everybody going overseas to support Luca. Like there has been a continual conversation with Luca and staying on the same page with him. And, you know, as much as I suppose maybe they gained inspiration from seeing Luca in Eurobasket, both of us find that kind of insane that all of a sudden watching him, you know, dominate with Slovenia, would make them say, you know what, we got a pretty good player on our hands. Maybe you ought to do something with it. But whatever is the impetus for all this, and I do want to talk about Darius Soriano and Pete Zayas over the Lakers Film Room podcast had an interesting theory that I think is worth

mentioning as well. But whatever the impetus is, what matters most is, are they doing the things that make Luca happy and as committed as possible to the organization? If the answer is yes, that's what matters most more than anything else. Yeah. Let's get to that theory that you wanted to bring in there. And then I want to get into a little bit more of this idea of optionality still to come. Robert Orie's thoughts on what to do with Austin Reeves.

So plenty left in this show coming up next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by five-hour energy drink. It is time to fuel up and turn it up with five-hour energy transfuse. Combining the grape, ginger and lime flavors of your favorite golf drink into a quick energizing shot, whether you're sinking birdies or just making memories with friends. It's a whole and one for your energy game. You never know when the perfect shot is coming. I have always said, what makes golf such an addictive game for regular people like you

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I don't have their exact quotes in front of them. But basically the idea. We're aggregating. We are. There are friends. I hope they don't mind. But the idea that if Rob Polinkas thinking on this has radically changed, like let's just say that the idea of optionality as it has often been interpreted as maximum cap space

and as few long-term commitments as possible. So in Rob Polinka's mind, you get the most accessibility and optionality towards landing superstar free agents that may, I guess may or may not be available, but that was Rob Polinka's main focus. Let's just say for the sake of an argument, that's what it was. And based on Rob's comments,

it is shifting whether you believe Rob or not that it actually did shift. If it has, it could be Darius and Pete positive. And I thought this was an interesting idea. The idea that Mark Walter, while he is not officially the primary owner of this team, it's happening soon. And everybody knows he is eventually going to be the guy that everyone has to please.

And therefore, what he wants already matters, even if he's not officially yet the top shot caller. If Mark Walter is looking at this roster and saying, why are we looking ahead to a couple years from now, when we have Luca and LeBron and Austin Reeves and a roster that at the very least, the top end of it is pretty talented. They won 50 games last year. You're going to have a full training camp with JJ Redick. Everybody coming in seemingly healthy, knock on wood for another week or so. Why would you look ahead towards a couple seasons at the expense of the right now?

And if Mark Walter is making that clear, Rob is jamming for his future job. and maybe there's been a shift because the new ultimate shot caller is making it clear. No, no, no, no, no. I want to maximize now. I'm not worried. We will worry about the ability to get or not get Janus in a couple years. In a couple of years. I want to mean now.

That theory is plausible to me. It is certainly based on the idea of somebody, you know, of the idea that, you know, the idea that, you know, the Lakers wanted to keep that flexibility. and prizing that perhaps a little more than new ownership wants them to. And that message being made clear, like, no, that doesn't need to be our top priority. It also tracks with the way the Dodgers are run as well. It kind of does. Well, I mean, the Dodgers are aggressive.

Right. Aggressive. The Dodgers really run in a way that the Lakers, you know, the Lakers fans in almost every way would want the Lakers to run. Different sports, things won't translate. fully apples to apples, but the Dodgers are excellent at, you know, obviously they are aggressive. They use every tool they can. They will, you know, in baseball, you're allowed to spend lots and lots and gods of money.

And the Dodgers do. But they are also really good at asset management. They don't just trade away all their prospects, trade away, trade away. They acquire guys. They know, they pick up players that they can then use, you know, spare prospects, guys that don't have a place in there on their team. They don't hoard them. They trade them and they use them, get some different prospects that they can use for

other trades down the road. And so they're very good at maximizing the ability for, for improvements along every track that is offered to them. And so I think the Lakers, obviously, you know, they have actually spent money on the roster, but they haven't spent money in other places. they tend to de-emphasize the draft. They have not historically been great on the margins and finding those extra two second round picks

that suddenly allow you to unlock this other deal a year and a half later, that nobody, like the interconnectedness of all that stuff. And I just think that some of this is just Rob. I mean, what Rob, to me, is kind of famous for is seeing where the environment is and putting out some sort of message that he thinks supports what the,

team happens to be doing at the time. And so he'd be a good politician that way. Oh, Rob is a politician. But I mean like an actual politician, but you are correct. He'd be a good politician in the sense of he has a lot of those qualities that I don't I'll put it this way. I don't think Rob would interpret what you just said as a compliment. I don't mean it as a compliment or an insult.

I'm talking about that is similar to political instincts. Right. Like the way political instincts are. Something that people dislike about politicians is that they feel like they're just being delivered a message based on whatever it is. But like, going into this summer, they are still allowed to deliver after, you know, looking their finger and seeing which way the wind's blowing. Right. People, we forget now. They are actually allowed to do things.

Right. Right. People want conviction and a plan and like some of it and people who actually behave based on what. To go too far, far down field. but they are actually allowed to do things. A reminder. Both are parties. You are allowed to pass laws. So I think Rob had a summer where he promised bold, big bold action from the Lakers.

And big bold action didn't come. The Lakers did good stuff. I'm not saying that it's not, wasn't a good summer. But like people wanted trades. They wanted that first rounder thrown in. They wanted those expiring deals. because that's kind of what they were promised going into the summer. I don't think they made mistakes because those things weren't.

I don't think there were good deals available to them. The closest thing is maybe this Wiggins conversation, which may have shifted a little bit. We'll try to get to that in the next segment or through the week. But he still responds to whatever. And so what are we doing? Don't worry, folks. It's not because we can't make stuff.

It's because we have a plan. It's because we know what we're going to do. We're maximized. don't it's all it's all on it's all purposeful luka goes out and plays really well and looks again like the most dominant player if not the second or third most dominant player on our planet earth and rob again sees like well you know this message of i gotta make sure people don't think that like we're just going to hang out until 2027 like you know don't well we we would improve ourselves right now we're willing to take contracts on. And he can say all of these things, Andy, as we've both pointed out, knowing full well,

there is no contract for him to take on right now. There is no deal for him to make that is, quote, unquote, all in. So I just, I think Pete's theory and Darius theory, I love that. I hope it's true. If that's it, that it's a great strong signal from ownership. I just think this is, a lot of this is just how Rob operates. Like, this is a moment where the Lakers are feeling really good about themselves. And Rob gets jattier when the Lakers feel really good about themselves. And so I just, before we go to the break, though, I want to touch on this question for a couple minutes on optionality because the star you have matters.

Like part of the reason LeBron's teams were always so dominant was both because LeBron, but also because while there is an ideal formula, to put around a LeBron James operated team. He's so good. And the skill set is so vast and diverse. He can kind of make anything work. You can, you know, Luca Donchich is such an otherworldly offensive player.

Nikola Yokic. These guys are so good and so visionary and so next level on that side of the ball. They provide you not just optionality. And like, you know, we can go out and sign another star. You can kind of go out and get a lot of different combinations of things. You don't have to be locked into one.

If you have Trey Young as your star, your second, third, fourth guys kind of need to be a very specific thing. There are other players like that around the league who are excellent. They are your number one. They put up big numbers. But they don't offer you quite as much because you have to compensate for them. And really the only thing you need to compensate for with Luca, so you need to make sure you can find some defensive players. That's what I was going to say is the main difference between Luca

and LeBron. So it's clear, Luca is a better player than Trey Young by a significant margin, just because you mentioned Trey specifically. And Luca is clearly a at worst top five player in the league. You could put him four, three, two, maybe depending on how this season shakes out, he might end up looking like the best player in the league. I don't think that's impossible at all. The difference between what is now, we've just entered Prime Luca, and Prime LeBron is Prime LeBron was a two-way force. Sure. Like an all-defense level two-way force. And I was going to say it's part of Kobe versus LeBron argument. Kobe had that two-way ability. Yeah, absolutely. You didn't have to compensate as much. Obviously, he wasn't tall. So, like,

But like you didn't need to find somebody to be like, okay, we've got. Crime Kobe was a lockdown vicious defender. Correct. And like, you know, there are stars where, you know, you need to find, you know, and as they all of them as they get older. But, you know, right, I agree with you. But you have optionality to build around Luca in multiple ways. Right.

Right. That affords a flexibility to your GM. That makes, so you are less likely to fall into that. that trap of like, this is the other star that becomes available. These are the other players that become available. It's not a great fit, but we just kind of kind of shoehorn them onto, you know, what we got because this is the only opportunity that we have. Luca for, Luca lifts a lot of that, a lot of that burden.

LeBron is about as you can put anybody around them, around a minute will work as we've seen in the league. Luca is pretty close, but there are some degrees of difference in specifications, which leads to the points raised by Robert Ory. Get that next. Yeah. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Monarch Money, and most people, they cannot name all of their financial accounts or even what they're worth,

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Tyler Hero, who is the co-star of the Miami Heat, depending on whether you think he or BAM and better play, whatever. But he is one of the two big stars on the Heat. He's certainly their leading score. Offseason ankle surgery is going to cost him some of the regular season. And so the Heat have been kind of, there's sort of a marginal, I think, Eastern Conference contender, if you want to call him that, like playoff team, not contender, but like a marginal playoff team. I consider them marginal to get into the play-in.

That's what I'm saying. Well, okay, so a marginal playoff team in the... I'd be surprised if they finish top six. Fair. Right. Yeah. So you take away Tyler Hero from an already marginal team. It could change the calculus of what they would insist to get back for Andrew Wiggins, other trades they might be able or willing to make over the course. Unless Wiggins gets thrust into a role where he just starts crushing it and all of a sudden his, I'm serious, all of a sudden, his value just rises because he looks closer to the dude who had his career year in Golden State the year they won the

champion. Right. So it just, that is the context that could change the shape of the Andrew Wiggins trade market over the course of the first couple months of the season. But Robert Ori, Andy, some provocative comments about the future of Austin Reeves with the Lakers. Yeah. On Robert Rory's own podcast, he was talking about Austin Reeves and said, quote,

if the Lakers are smart, they would do a sign-in trade talking about this coming off season. And the reason I say that is because when you have a team with two players who are pretty much the same, meaning Luca and AR, I'm not saying they have the same skill set. They play the same position, pretty much do the same thing. It's a wash. Don't get me wrong. I love AR, but you don't need two of the same players. And this is ORI echoing some of the concerns I've talked about a lot with Austin Reeves,

who like ORI, I think is a very good player, full stop, no caveats. I think Austin's very good. But I think Austin and Luca require a lot of the same support system around them to offset a lot of the same weaknesses. and Austin next season is no longer going to be one of the best bargains in the league. Like when he starts making 30 plus as everybody expects, I think there's a very good chance that the contract won't seem bad, but it's not the same thing as what he's making right now in the teams. And even though 30-ish mill is not an insane portion of your cap, it's not insignificant either.

And when you start thinking about the pieces that I think are best needed to reinforce Luca and where your cap space is allotted, if you have two primarily one-way players or maybe the best version of Austin, one-and-a-half way. I think if you slot him in the right spot defensively, it's fine. But he can't be slotted. He's been too often slotted into the go out and guard somebody's primary player. And that's clearly not where he plays. Right, but part of the problem is, to the point I was raising, in order to slot him into the theoretical right spot, you have to bring in more players that make it possible, as opposed to Austin just kind of being able to do it on his own organically. Jaylon Williams type. And I've expressed my concerns before about the potential limitations and problems that can come when your top two players, if the later.

envisional Austin that way, neither of them are bona fide two-way players. It is difficult to find contenders without that sort of setup. Maybe you could look at Denver and say they don't have it. Houston, maybe not, but at the same time, Houston has so much defense around Kevin Durant who can crank it up if he needs to. Maybe they become exceptions, but for the most part, most of the... Houston's a good defensive team. For the most part, most of the top end teams, one of their top two players is a bona fide two-way player.

And I think that's extremely important. I think a couple things about this. First of all, I don't think the design is for Austin to be the two, so to speak. I don't think, like people talk about when LeBron's done like that Austin ascends into, I mean, might in the short term. But I think the long-term plan would still be to bring in more talent that is either arguably better than Austin on the same level of Austin or whatever might be. It's got to be better than Austin. It has to be.

I would think so. Or you need two or three. Again, you look at the New York model or something like that where you have Brunson, but then you also have Kat. And we've seen some limitations with that. Right. But they've surrounded those guys with a lot of really. good two-way players. New York's a pretty good team. I mean, you know, everybody's got

some sort of weakness except for apparently, you know, look, I mean, Denver almost beat Oklahoma City. Sure. So it's like, you know, they are not a perfect team either. So, I mean, I think ultimately the plan is still to go out and get another

player who slots somewhere in between Austin and Luca. The issue becomes who is available. who can you get? What can you use to get them? New York made some shrewd moves to acquire some of their players, but they also gave up massive amounts of stuff to go get McHale Bridges.

And the Lakers, it's going to take six years for them to come up with that kind of stash. So I do separate those things a little bit. I don't have a problem with the idea of trading AR. If like there's a deal out there where you can get somebody who is, because I see it less as can Luca and A. I like can you and more, can Luke and AR play together? The answer is yes. Obviously the answer is yes. I think the bigger question for me is can you maximize Reeves in a system with Luca, presumably another star and then Austin?

And I think at $35 million, maximizing doesn't have to mean he has a massive usage rate and all these. But like, can you get everything out of him? Or would your resources be better, allocated towards a true 3&D, whatever?

And I think that's fine. But again, I'll go back to the optionality thing. Reeves, in some ways, is a pretty versatile player himself. And he does provide you a pretty, broad skill set, mostly on one side of the ball. I'm not denying that. And, you know, everybody says, well, go out and get like a, you know, just go get a three and D wing. And it'll be like,

I, like, everybody wants those guys. Everybody wants those guys. And so to get a true difference maker on that side of the ball, a true three and the star, there aren't very many of them. And can you use Austin Reeves in a sign and trade for that? Maybe. Depends on what the other team needs. Right. I just, I think what you're saying, and I'm not trying to pick on Robert Ori, but like, I think

it was essentially saying here is if you can go, the point he's making is the same as one that you've made, and I think it's a valid one. Is he saying like, can you go get a better player? Can you go get a better fit? And if the answer to those things is yes, then you can trade Austin. I just don't know.

I am skeptical of what will be available for him in an environment where making sign and trades is increasingly more challenging. I'm skeptical as to what will be available. And I am only open to the idea of trading down a level in talent to upgrade your fit. I'm only open to that to a very small extent because fit changes yearly. You might think it, what fits really, look like it fits really well on paper this year, next year could be a disaster.

And I generally think you are better keeping more talented players. Look, talent matters in the NBA. And Austin is a talented player. I mean, the last thing I would say on this, just though, in terms of the complications that arise, with a Luca Austin, if not foundation, big piece of that foundation, is the third best player on the team needs to be a high-end defender at that point. Like, needs to be. No question.

There's no way. There's no way. It needs to be able to defend. Right. And like this gets into the reasons why I harped on why it was so important for the Lakers to end the one plus one setup with LeBron in perpetuity, regardless of whether they bring back LeBron in 2026 or not, which I think is still an open live possibility, depending on how things go. But a potential setup moving forward where you are locked into Luca, LeBron at a max contract,

and Austin at 35-ish-mill, those three guys at this stage of LeBron's career, all being very much offensively forward players with a lot of, I don't want to say redundancy, because I think they can't play well off each other, but there's a lot of replication. I don't think you can build a championship roster that way. And this isn't, I'm not making this about LeBron. I'm talking about just skill sets and needs. Like this is, if anything, more of a question about Austin than LeBron,

because Austin is the guy that is projected to be around longer than LeBron. But if Luca was a two-way player, I would say perfect, bring in Austin. If two-wide player would be the best player of the planet. Oh, absolutely. But I'm just saying, or if say the Lakers had ant as their star, I would say, Austin, perfect, fine. Like, even someone like Shea, I would say, perfect, fine.

But. Yeah, you know, you still need support. It's just they, you need support anyway, but I'm just talking about their foundation. The flip side of that is that third star, that fourth player, however you wanted to find it as a star, fourth player, whatever. in the fourth player, fifth player, whatever, they do not need to be offensive juggernauts.

They need to be functional offensive players. And so you have a lot of, you have more flexibility that way. We'll see. They have a lot of time to figure this out, which is the other benefit to how everything has gone this summer. Lock on Lakers on YouTube is where you go hang out.

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