Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Rui Hachimura Will Come Off the Bench In His Return... Will That Be Permanent?
Episode Date: January 12, 2026The Lakers get a big lift Monday night. Rui Hachimura is off the injury report entirely and, barring some sort of late setback, will be back in the lineup Monday night in Sacramento. No surprise, giv...en the time he was out, but JJ Redick said Sunday he'd be on a minutes restriction, and come off the bench. The big question for Lakers fans is whether this is just temporary, or if the minutes restriction is the entry point Redick will use to do the thing he should have been doing, anyway: Bring Hachimura off the bench. We've been calling for it in this space since the summer. The numbers, small sample size notwithstanding, indicate that the Lakers would be better off with Hachimura as a reserve. Redick, though, has resisted. But if the Lakers can find some rhythm over the next few games and Rui performs well, maybe things just stay as they are? With Jake LaRavia in the starting lineup, with Marcus Smart. Then when Austin Reaves comes back, another adjustment is made. The Lakers really need Rui back, not just as a floor spacer and an offensive weapon -- both of which are very important for this group -- but also to slot guys like Jarred Vanderbilt into a workload that makes more sense and helps maximize positive impact while minimizing the negative. Finally, former Laker Denis Schroder won't be playing Monday. Why? Because he was suspended by the league for three games for trying to fight Luka Dončić following the last time the two teams met, responding to smack talk Luka delivered, specifically about how Schroder dropped the enormous bag the Lakers tried real hard to get him to take. Crazy! HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: Rui is back! SEGMENT 2: Rui will come off the bench Monday... will he stay there? SEGMENT 3: The delightful story of Denis and Luka. Everydayer Club If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclubSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!DoorDashFrom tipoff to overtime, stay in your bag and order on DoorDash.Get snacks, drinks, gear — whatever gets you through the season — delivered right to your door.DoorDash. In your bag all season long. ZocdocStop putting off your doctor’s appointments and get the care you need.Go to htps://Zocdoc.com/lockedonnba to find and instantly book a top-rated doctortoday.WayfairGet last-minute hosting essentials, gifts for all your loved ones, and decor to celebrate the holidays for WAY less.Head to https://Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair. Every style. Every home. GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA and NFL seasons are here, 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
Discussion (0)
The Lakers are expected to get Rui Hachimura back in the lineup on Monday,
but he will not be starting.
Is that a permanent trend that's next?
You are Locked on Lakers.
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I'm Brian Kemeniske with Andy Komenetsky.
We've spent, oh, a good portion of the last 20 years
covering the Lakers for ESPN, for the athletic, and more.
And Andy, the Lakers are playing the down and out Sacramento Kings.
Excuse me, the just beat the Houston Rockets,
Sacramento Kings.
Find a team that's been hotter than Sacramento since Sunday.
I'm just saying they just beat the Houston Rockets.
I believe they've beaten them twice this season, maybe even thrice, for whatever reason.
They are the Houston Rockets kryptonite.
It's funny you mention that because I always, I mean, I think this is true.
It is hard to beat a team three times, certainly in a relatively short span.
Lakers, this will be the third time the Lakers have played.
in a very still,
reasonably young season.
We're not,
you know,
and even at the All-Star break yet.
And I think this might be the exception to that.
Like,
you know,
it can be hard to beat the same team three times in a row,
even a bad team.
But even if it is,
Andy,
the Lakers absolutely,
positively need to make sure
that they beat the Sacramento Kings
on Monday night because they just can't afford
to give away games against the,
the worst teams in the NBA.
And red hot as they may be,
the Sacramento Kings are one of the worst teams in the NBA.
Especially, too.
They cannot afford to do this on the heels of a loss to the bucks
that was very disappointing on a bunch of different levels,
in terms of a lot of the overall execution.
Certainly, Luca Donchage's performance,
I think it's worst as a Laker,
and it's probably if you go back over the,
course of his career, top five worst performances he's had. Also, the Lakers have actually only played
the Kings once in like the last month and a half. Oh, I'm sorry. I may have misread that then. I thought
this was their third meeting against them. No, they played them the third game of the season.
Okay, right. So they've played three times this season. Okay. This will be the third. This will be
the third time. This will be the third time the season. But it is, but they had not beaten them.
Three times in a row is doing a lot of work, considering how much time has.
has passed. Fair enough, but I'm just saying beating any team three or four times, you know,
is just, it can be a challenge in any sport across anything. But the, you know, the Lakers,
they just don't have the flexibility to get away with that kind of. You mentioned the Milwaukee game.
That was a disappointing loss. And, you know, the Lakers have typically bounced back strong
from games like that over the course of the year. They got the full weekend to practice.
and Andy to get Rui Hachamura, presumably back into the lineup.
He is expected to play on Monday night.
And he will be a welcome addition to the lineup.
And he will also be coming off the bench,
which is not terribly surprising given the amount of time he's been out.
But it raises all kinds of questions.
Let's start first with just the basics.
They get Rui back.
And this is a big deal.
for an offense that needs
spacing, it needs
punch, it needs a lot
of things that
Rui provides. Yeah, and he's
off the injury report altogether.
The only guys on it are Austin
Reeves and Duthorro that we both
know are going to be out for, or that we all
know is going to be out for a while.
So short of a very
unexpected setback
for Rui on Monday,
he should be in the lineup. He said
during Sunday's practice, quote,
talking about the calf. I'm fine. It's been two weeks almost so my calf is healed. We've been
practicing. They were gone for a little bit. So I was practicing with the G League, trying to get
healthy and get better. And I feel good about it tomorrow being Monday. He also said that this
calf issue, it's been recurrent. And remember, he had missed some like a couple games or whatever
for the calf earlier in the season. He said, quote, I've had it for two years now. It's a different
side, but the calf is really important. I was always working on it, but just the fatigue.
and all kinds of recovery stuff.
You have to be really on it.
But it happens.
And I think with this,
you have to be really careful
with the workouts, rehab, and everything.
So I got to take it the most serious.
And then mention, you know,
obviously depends on what the training staff says,
doctors and all that on Monday.
But he is expecting to play.
And he was very optimistic in the way he was presenting this.
And, you know, it's just it,
the Lakers,
have, it's interesting.
Like the offense has been a struggle.
It seems like it sort of fits and starts all season long yet.
They're actually one of the best teams in the NBA in terms of half court offensive efficiency.
So like there's all kinds of contradictions with the Lakers offense.
But one thing that is really, and it's not just the ability to make three-pointers,
or the Lakers, you know, kind of lack for that on a lot of nights.
what you really see when Rui isn't there is just teams completely collapsing off of the three point line.
And so some nights, Milwaukee, the Lakers actually shot the ball pretty well.
It was two-point range where they were, you know, god-awful and particularly from Luca.
But not forcing teams to defend all the way to the perimeter makes a huge difference in what you can do and how easy it is
to do it. And one guy doesn't change that necessarily, especially when Rui just hasn't had the
volume from three point range that I think a lot of people would like him to have. But at the very
least, whereas teams will ignore Jared Vanderbilt at the three point line. They will generally
speaking, allow Marcus Smart to take as many three-pointers as he would like. You know, Jake LaRavia
get some attention, but you'll let Jake...
Rui Hachemora at this point draws attention.
You have to guard him at the three-point line.
And just little bits of spacing make a difference.
Yeah, the little bits of spacing do make a difference.
I think...
I think it depends a lot on who's on the floor with him.
I think when he was starting with what seemed like
JJ's preferred lineup, LeBron, Luca, Austin, Aiton, Rui.
I don't know how much is gravity necessarily mattered just because when the other four guys are getting so much attention, a couple of them are even going to get doubled a lot, particularly Luca, but sometimes LeBron, sometimes Austin.
There's only so many defenders to go around and Rui would be, I think, left open just by process of elimination.
Problem is he just wasn't getting the ball out.
Well, he's left.
Sometimes you will be left open, which is, by the way, good because, you know, you want to be the end.
result of the pavement. But whoever is guarding Rui, whoever is like, it's a step. It's one step
further out to the three point line that you don't, you know, because you need to be able to recover.
Whereas if it's in your game plan to please for the love of God, let that guy shoot, you don't,
you can collapse as much as you want. That's fine. I'm not saying that that defense has collapsed
off Rui. That's not accurate. He's known too much as a shooter and a scorer to ignore. Like,
It doesn't make sense to ignore Rui.
My point was more that between the usage of LeBron, Luca, and Austin,
and the volume that they've at least at times tried to find for D'Andre Aiton,
and certainly the volume of all those three guys,
Rui was getting ignored to the point where I feel like if teams are paying attention,
the gravity only goes so far, which is why I know we're going to talk about this.
It has been, both of us have been saying for this entire season,
before the season began, it makes much more sense to play Rui off the bench.
A, I think his volume would just go up and his opportunities would go up.
But also, especially with, you know, La Ravia now in the starting lineup,
Marcus Smart in the starting lineup, there is no scoring off the bench at all.
Unless we're talking about one of the five, you know,
one of the five to six games per season that Nick Smith,
gets hot. If it's not Nick Smith or, you know, they're really running good, good pick and roll lobs for Hayes or Hayes is getting putbacks or whatever. There's just, there's no scoring to speak of. And there's definitely, unless it's Nick Smith getting hot, no designated score at all off the bench. They need the ability to spread that around 48 minutes. Ruy's presence there, I think, can change things a lot just because,
he is a score. That is what he does in this league. No question. And so look, we'll get into this because
JJ again said that really will be coming off the bench. You know, minutes restrictions and stuff
early. Very common the way that coaches are handling. It's now Victor Weimanjama has come off
the bench coming back from injury. Aaron Gordon finally got back into the starting line of after
three or four games coming off the bench. You know, a rock solid starter in Denver. And
Wemby is Wemby and he still is coming off.
Austin Reeves came off the bench for one game after the first time he came back from
the cap injury before re-injuring it. Now he's out for a while.
Right. And probably will come off the bench when he eventually comes back for at least a
couple games just because these minutes restrictions are difficult to, you know,
kind of manage where you want guys to be on and off the floor. But the bigger question is
not just what it, it's both what it means for the Lakers to have some
on their bench, at least for a game, but also whether or not this sticks and what it might
mean for the Lakers and the rest of the rotation. And that is what we'll talk about next.
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the same uh again check out the show notes for more details so i i am excited for ruy to come back
not just because the lakers need what he provides like they need i'm excited for austin to come back
because you know there's a lot in this team where you can start slotting guys to the most
ideal minutes and the most ideal floor pairings when when you get everybody back.
And, you know, I think this question of starting versus coming off the bench for somebody
like Rui, this applies to him.
I just, when you want to maximize a player, it makes sense to put him in a position where he
can do all the stuff that you want to do, particularly now when you have only two of the three
with LeBron and Luca available to you. You really want Rui coming off the bench to be able to support
most likely LeBron in a lot of those situations as another offensive outlet. And to put him on
the floor a lot while both of your stars are available seems awful. It just seems like a total
misallocation of a very limited resource. Well, I imagine because LeBron is typically the first
guy that subs out, Rui will be the first sub in, you know, taking over that exact same spot
in the lineup as, as LeBron did before. I would think, you know, and JJ said that. J.J. said that,
that he is not made up his mind whether or not this is going to be a permanent thing.
I would like to think that he is using this as the organic entryway to start playing Rui off the bench.
We all get used to it.
And then it just no longer is a thing that gets asked about, hopefully, because the Lakers are winning.
because the reality is this is a move that has been screaming to take place,
whether you are talking about the eye test,
whether you are talking about the data,
whether you are talking about things that would happen because of common sense.
If you just take a look at some of the numbers,
five games of Luca LeBron, Smart, Aiton, Jake, Leravia,
as a starting five.
77 minutes like every look with this team, not a big sample size.
But I mean, they are for the most part all fairly limited because the Lakers have had, I believe,
19 starting lineups this season.
But in those 77 minutes, not a big sample size, they are plus 20 for the total minutes
with a net rating of 10, positive 10, 114.8, offensive rating, 104.8 defensive.
contrast that with Luca, LeBron, Smart, Aiton, and Rui.
So Rui and Jake out, 36 minutes, but it's 97.3, offensive rating, 125 defensive rating, net minus 28.
Or just the three-man lineup in general of Luca, LeBron, and Rui.
106 minutes, much bigger sample size.
11.4, offensive rating, 121.7.
defensive rating minus 10.2 net.
Luca and Rui together have a positive net rating.
Luca and LeBron for the season together, it's net negative,
but in the last six games without Rui, plus 4.6.
LeBron and Rui net rating for the season minus 8.4.
Are you noticing a pattern that's forming here?
The three of them together, Luca, LeBron, and Rui don't work
in basically any combination.
LeBron and Rui together
really don't work.
And the reasons are fairly obvious.
And they're the reasons that we said
heading into this season, it won't work.
When you put Luca, LeBron, and Rui
on the floor together for extended time,
you have three guys
who ideally would be guarding
fours or maybe small fives,
or maybe the three that you don't care about.
Maybe.
But you've got three.
guys that basically need to guard the same type of player, which means somebody, if you only
have one guard out there, Austin, or I guess Mark is smart right now, that means somebody's
going to have to guard out of position and it is always Rui. So you are taking a, you know, somewhere
between net neutral to minus defender. He's not a good defender. You're taking a weak defender.
Right. You're taking a couch it. Oh, I just meant there, you know, he occasionally is all right in certain
ones, but he is overall a minus defender.
Even average defenders are occasionally
good. Yeah, he's overall a minus defender.
And you're asking him to guard
out of position as a minus
defender, out of necessity.
It won't work for reasons that are obvious.
Is Jake La Ravia
a perfect guy to put on
either smaller wings or guards?
You know, the one that Marcus Smart is not guarding
right now, he's not perfect.
He can sometimes be too slow,
but he's clearly much better for the role than Rui.
So the reasons that those combinations with Luca,
Rui, and LeBron don't work are glaringly obvious,
glaringly predictable.
It's not about Rui doing anything wrong.
It's about floor combinations.
It's not Rui doing anything wrong in the sense that he is,
it's it's Rui
he's not playing badly
is my point he's doing he's trying to do
what he's supposed to do he's not good at the things
you're asking him to do and so
gets to the point I was making before
it's it's are you using all of your
pieces in the ways that make the
most sense and you know
La Ravia particularly of La Ravia is hitting
shots he
the reason Gabe Vincent for example
started at the beginning of the season is you're trying to find
that little bit of extra defense
with a little bit of floor spaces
and a little bit of all, like, what is the best happy medium that I can find?
Luravia kind of serves in that way.
He is, you know, provided a lot of defensive energy.
He, you know, is a little better.
Some ways, he's not great, but he'll be a little better, you know, than the package
might indicate.
And all of that.
And still provides you with a little bit of that floor spacing.
If he's shooting as he has been over the last, you know, week and a half or something
like that, when he was shooting, you know, 28% or,
22% 25, then he wasn't, and it was problematic.
The Lakers with Rui, whether he's helping provide bench scoring for LeBron,
wouldn't surprise me based on some of what you're talking about, too.
Do you go a little small, depending on the combinations and the matchups,
can you let LeBron play a little bit of small ball five?
They've had success with that kind of lineup in short spurts against the right
lineups and things like that.
I want to talk, though, too.
And we can start it, you know, kind of start it off here and go into the next segment.
The other thing that this does, that is really important is it allows you to take 25
minutes of Rui when he comes back is going to cut into Jared Vanderbilt's playing time,
for example.
It's going to cut into a few other people.
and I see this as a positive because, you know, I was looking through some of the stuff
that our friend of the show and a great, great cover of Luca and the Lakers,
It's Stock Franco was writing, kind of going through some of the Vando stuff,
the Lakers suffer from having to kind of play four on five when Vando's out there.
Is it a problem at 15 to 20 minutes a game?
Not necessarily.
It gets to be a larger problem when you're playing 25 closer to 30.
If you can balance that stuff back out, again, now you're starting to maximize what everybody
can do in the most successful ways and the Lakers can squeeze the most out of this rotation.
And I just think that is really critical because they're extremely top heavy.
So you've got to figure out a way to get more out of who else is there.
We'll get to that stuff next.
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So, like, to disappoint, like, Laker 0-8-20,
that makes sense, 0-24-08-24, noted that, you know,
Vandaloreans effort is unmatched,
responding to what I was saying at the end of the last segment.
And that is true.
Like the Lakers need what Vanderbilt is providing them.
But especially when you get a lot of lineups with Vando and Marcus Smart on the floor at the same time,
you're cranking up the defense for sure.
And that's great.
But if you have him out there with any of the Lakers centers,
this floor spacing that you have at that point is catastrophically bad by NBA standards.
And so what you need is just a little more balance.
And the Lakers need to be able to distribute that.
Go to that Vando smart combo when you really need to.
But it's not something you necessarily want to run,
I don't think, big minutes to or have to run big minutes to
because those are the only players that you have.
And so I just, I am looking forward to seeing what the return of Rui does
just to the rotation in terms of providing spacing throughout 48 minutes and giving that
half court offense a little more room to operate, making it easier for Luca to operate.
At some point, that lack of space, I think, starts to impact his ability to be efficient
and things.
They had a bad game against Milwaukee.
I'm not blaming that on anybody other than he had a bad game.
but were this to continue over time, I think it can genuinely wear on him.
Look, teams need their best players back.
Rui is one of the five best players on this team.
Whether he starts or not, and him coming off the bench as I've wanted to see happen
since before the season even began, that is not indicative of Rui being sixth or lower
in the pecking order.
He's one of the five best players on this team.
it's about floor combinations and matching skill sets on both sides of the ball.
He's been missed.
When he has gotten enough opportunity, his efficiency as a three-level score,
his ability to act as a finisher, like finishing plays for the Lakers,
or just serving as a safety valve.
We've seen, I mean, think about particularly against the Bucks,
how many of the possessions we saw,
particularly if it was just Luke on the floor
or just LeBron on the floor,
because the other one was getting arrest,
and there was no safety valve out there at all
when things start coming up.
Rui can be hugely important.
Like him coming off the bench does not in any way detract or dilute
his importance on this team.
It just better balances.
is if frankly, I think he's going to get more opportunity to actually be the best version of yourself.
You're less dependent on guys like Nick Smith, like to provide you with offense in ways that you ought not to be dependent on somebody like Nick Smith.
We didn't mention this earlier because, you know, this Rui stuff is really important.
And it hopefully is the beginning of a trend, Andy, that you and me and so many Laker fans have been pushing towards for a long time.
as you noted, but
we would be remiss if we didn't
note that one of the strangest
stories in the
NBA this year will be
playing out in the absence
of Dennis Schrooter, former
Laker, who is suspended
former three-time Laker, I believe.
I got a look. I think he...
I thought it was twice. Let me look it up.
I may be mixing him up with Dwight Howard,
who was a three-time Laker.
I believe Dennis was just twice.
He may have just been twice.
I will verify
Dwight was definitely three.
Yeah, what you were getting at
is I think somewhat relevant
to why Dennis Schroeder won't
be on the court for
the Kings in this game.
He was suspended for three games
by the league
for
apparently
trying to beat up Luca in the tunnel
after the last time these two
teams played.
Luca was taunting.
Dennis.
I believe it was over the contract that Dennis didn't sign.
Oh, no, no, no.
There's no believe it absolutely was.
I just haven't heard anybody say like that's what Dennis, like, Dennis had been reporting.
Yeah, that's why I went to beat him up.
There's been reporting that that was part of it.
He also said that reportedly you can't refer to me as a bleep on the court and have everything be cool.
the court. I don't know the exact vocabulary in terms of referring to Dennis Schroeder as a bleep on
the court. But I would imagine also bringing up that he fumbled the 80-ish million dollar bag,
felt if nothing else like calling him that word I can't repeat, even if he didn't call him that
word, I can't repeat. It felt like referring to him that way. It look, Dennis Schroeder, not
not taking, what was it? It was like $84, I believe. Yeah, from the Lakers.
Remains one of, if not the, single worst financial choice that any NBA player has made in certainly my lifetime.
Well, I mean, they were, the Lakers were desperately trying to overpay Dennis Schroeder.
Because I really wanted to try it's hard. When we first got word,
that this was a possibility for Dennis.
We were like, wait, 84 million American?
Like, have you lost your effing mind, Rob Polinka?
Like, what?
You're offering him four years, 84?
Like, what?
Like, that was, it was arguably more insane that that was actually the offer
than that Dennis.
I had a very similar reaction to that in the news that the Lakers
were like desperately trying to give Clayton.
Thompson like 60 million or 80 million I was like what oh my god um so in the
basketball beef over the last few years yeah there's there's stuff there's stuff there and
you know but that is brutal on court trash talk because this is not brand new like you're
you're kind of dredging up some stuff that like, you know, you finally think that that scab is healed over and there's Luca just clawing at it.
And it says two things about me.
First of all, Dennis is a very fiercely competitive guy who can say whatever he wants.
He's still really upset that he did not take that money.
I mean, at this point, you, I mean, he actually had a post making fun of himself on social media.
Sure, but we're not, we're not past it as my point.
No, I wouldn't be.
Never.
But the second part of this is like it just gives you an idea of what Luca is on the floor.
Like he's soft spoken off of it.
He's very kind of signs every autograph.
I mean that literally.
Like he will stand outside hotels and sign, you know, and every kid who's out there.
Everybody like he signs everything.
He's a phenomenal sort of ambassador for the game.
You put him on the floor and he is savage.
Like he is just brutal with the trash talk and with the commentary and with all of that stuff.
And Dennis is a huge irritant himself.
He's hardly an innocent bystander.
No, he's not.
You know, he's, he is an innocent bystander who is poorer than he could have been.
But he is not an innocent bystander by any stretch of the imagination.
Dennis and, you know, I found.
And Luca knew what he was doing when he was, you know, Luke and knew what string he
was tugging at with a guy like Schroeder in particular given all their other stuff.
I just think like this this sort of thing I don't it wasn't I don't think it was more common
like when you know when we first started this or when we were kids or something like that but like
you just don't hear many stories anymore about players going to try to beat up other players
in the tunnel. Well I want to thank Dennis Schroeder for bringing that back.
Well I mean remember after the Spurs loss.
Vando and Jeremy Sohan got into it a bit.
But that was on the floor.
Right.
But I believe Sohan said something like, you know, meet me after the game.
And Vando was more than willing to meet him after the game.
There was recently a few years ago.
And I remember what it was.
I'm trying to remember what happened.
Like within the last couple years, there was a tunnel altercation or like,
near the bus's altercation.
I can't remember who off the top of my head,
but I know there's been one relatively recently.
You know, and Vando seems like somebody
that would be willing to meet you after the game.
Oh, yeah.
As for that matter, so does Sohan.
But it is actually-
Yeah, Vando got up and poked him in the face.
Right, right.
He did one of those.
And, you know, we'll see what happens the next time
the Lakers and Spurs play.
But Dennis will be unavailable for this game against the Kings.
I'm sure Russell Westbrook will find a way to bring some of the personal for him and Dennis
because both of them have different reasons that they could create to dislike the Lakers,
dislike Luca, dislike, you know, certainly it seems like Russ don't like LeBron.
You know, they can find ways to make this person.
I would like to think the Kings can't find ways to make this competitive.
That's what really matters.
Yes.
And look,
losing a player like Shirt or hurts the Kings.
They are, of course, the hottest team in the NBA since Sunday.
So, you know, the Lakers, look, you've said this before.
And, you know, I think it's true.
The Lakers aren't good enough to be cocky in any game.
They are plenty good enough to win this game without a lot.
Austin Reeves. They should win this game without
Austin Reeves. And even, you know,
oh, it's on the road. Well, when they go to Sacramento,
Lakers fans flood that building. So it doesn't
feel like a game in enemy territory.
The beam should stay
unlit Monday night.
And it needs to in a big way.
I think they boxed up the beam and sold it.
I don't even know if they've had a reason to keep that thing around
whatever hell the buildings, go golden one or whatever
it's called. I think that's what it's called.
I have no idea.
But last detail, though, from this Luca Dennis Brouhaha, Aiton was apparently in the middle of this breaking them up, pulling Schroeder away.
We're not far removed from a recent situation where Jackson had Lucas back very much out in front of him, protecting Luca.
Just goes to show both these guys, these centers recognizing, this is my meal ticket.
You are not going to hurt this man.
Dennis, we already know about the money you screwed up.
I am not going to allow you to screw up my money.
Get your hand out of my wallet, man.
Exactly.
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