Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Schedule Reaction Show! Did the Lakers Catch Any Big Breaks? Plus Other Highlights

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

It's not exactly the summer equivalent of Christmas Day -- that's the start of free agency -- but without question Schedule Drop Day is always a big one in NBA circles. Who's on TV the most? Where are the big matchups? How many back-to-backs? Where are the big rivalry games? Thursday, we started to get those answers, as the NBA (after leaking some of the big event day games) finally put out the whole thing. As for the Lakers, there's no way you can look at a Western Conference schedule and not think, "wow, that's brutal," but all that aside did the schedule gods make things even harder? How many long trips? Challenging travel in B2B's? Do they open with a home heavy schedule? Finish with a ton on the road? And when are some of the big event games -- like the night Pat Riley's statute gets unveiled outside Crypto.com? (Which always begs the question, who gets the next one?) So much intrigue and so many questions for a season that's still weeks away.  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: Schedule reaction! SEGMENT 2: Where the Lakers have the biggest challenges. SEGMENT 3: The Riley statue and statues to follow. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first yearGametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone, welcome to Lockdown Lakers for Friday. Brian Komeneski, Andy Komeneski. The schedule is out. We break it down all 82 games. 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.

Back in Locked on Lakers, first listen to every day, Monday through Friday, no matter how or where you get your podcast. This one's always going to be free for you. It's never going to be locked behind some grotesque and obscene. Paywall. Locked on Liquors on YouTube is ready to go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel, Andy, all of whom are pouring over the 82

game schedule release, 83 if they qualify for that. IST, the NBA Cup. Final, we will break all of it down. Big challenges, intriguing matchups, when Pat Riley gets his statue. But first, Andy,

I need to tell people that today's episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. the code locked an NBA at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. I won't say this is that this is Christmas Day for the summer because I do think the first day of free agency is like offseason Christmas for people. But this is like a very significant holiday. The the day the schedule is released, it causes a ton of excitement, always around this time of year, Andy. And this year is no different. Plenty of intriguing stuff coming out of today's

schedule drop. We'll call it Halloween. A lot of celebration, a lot of festivity, and you don't need to go to church or temple or mosque or wherever. You just get to have fun with this. And for the time being, unlike the deadline or free agency or whatever, there are no immediate ramifications. Kind of like Halloween. You just get to go ham. And the worst thing that comes out of it is maybe a stomach egg. Yep. So look, there are all kinds of places that you can start when it comes to a schedule release. You know, the one thing that I think it always jumps out, at least of late, is that you

can't look at a schedule for a Western Conference team and not go, wow, that's brutal. Like when we talk about Andy, the easy stretches or the. good stretches and all that kind of stuff. None of it is easy. Like there are no, you know, 10 game stretches where you look at and go like, wow, there are eight bad teams in there. Like there's just, it just doesn't exist. And so, you know, first and foremost, what is my reaction to the Lakers schedule?

It's hard. It's very, very hard because they all are in the West. Yeah, that's just life in the West. It's just a matter of easier versus easy. Like there are a few pockets of the schedule that I think get easier, but that's only because compared to the parts of the schedule that are an absolute bleep, like a B word that I can, I'm not 100% sure I can say on this show. Better not to.

Yeah, better not to. It's just rough, man. It's just, it is extremely difficult in the Western Conference. You just, this is, you know, I've said this now, the everydayers have heard me for, probably three or four years at this point, whenever the subject of LeBron and load management and taking games off and stuff like that gets mentioned, my answer is always,

they don't have the luxury doing it. I mean, putting aside the fact that LeBron genuinely, and I think admirably, does not want to take games off unless absolutely necessary, or maybe it's the last game of the season, everybody's taking it off. You just don't have the luxury of doing that in the West too often, if at all, and getting yourself a sixth seat or higher, unless you are maybe OKC, I would say for the rest

of the Western Conference, you're just going to have to bust your ass like every other schlub out there. Yeah, it's pretty tough. And, you know, there are certain things people look at every year. How many back-to-backs is a team playing? Where are the big road trips? Where are the big home stretches and stuff like that? I always kind of like to look at those first, you know, 10 to 12 games or something like that and just just get a sense for how difficult it will be to get off to a good start. I mean, I remember those seasons a couple, you know, two, three years ago, the Lakers had a couple years in a row where they just kept getting off to bad starts and putting themselves in a hole that you have to climb out of.

And it's just not, it's not where you want to be. again, particularly given the difficulty of the conference. So if you want to look at those first 10 games, they open with Golden State, they come back with Minnesota, got a nice, you know, two off days between those games, both of them at home. First road game is against Sacramento. Third home game is Portland,

so three of the first four are at home. Minnesota again. So two games with the wolves in their first five. Then you travel to Memphis. You get Miami at home. You're at Portland. You're San Antonio at home. Then you go on the first extended road trip of the year starting in Atlanta.

So, you know, when you look at those first nine or ten games, Andy, I know there's no such thing as an easy stretch. This is probably as doable of a 10 game stretch as I think you're going to find. I was going to say, I think as far as opening stretches in the West go that, I guess, for whatever reason, didn't decide to open you against all Eastern Conference teams. This is about as manageable as I think it's going to get realistically. You know, you get the warriors to open and the warriors are not going to be a pushover, but the Lakers have traditionally, or traditional, over the last few seasons, they've played the warriors very well. They've matched up well against them. I think they're going to be a better team than the Warriors anyway.

Then you've got Minnesota. We know that's going to be difficult, but the Lakers are going to be playing them, the team that knocked them out in the first round of the playoffs. They're going to have a roster that at least on paper with more proven guys, I think, has improved more than the Timberwolves who lost Nikola Alexander Walker. And they're counting on some internal improvement and growth

from guys like Terrence Shannon Jr. And Jalen Clark, Rob Dillingham, who I think can be good players, but I think there are more unknowns about them than some of the Lakers being brought in. Right, and more than that, I think, too, the internal improvement, who got better, who got worse. It's just the Lakers got better in places

in terms of what hurt them with the matchup against Minnesota. Very much so. So I think they should match up a little bit better. I mean, granted that too, they did find, if I remember correctly, they did okay against Minnesota. in the regular season, just the playoffs where they got.

Right. And well, it's hard to know what to take away from that because in the regular season, some of the success they had. I'm guessing off the top of my head involved Anthony Davis and or Max Christie and those guys are not there anymore. But, you know, two games against Portland. I think Portland is going to be better

this year, but they, on paper, are still not better than the Lakers. The Lakers should be better than them. They should be able to beat Miami at home. I don't think Miami is going to be much. better than a play-in team in the east. Memphis, I think, is still a team that we need to see exactly what they are. I think they're going to be solid, but I think the Lakers should be better than solid.

Then the 10th game, for example, of the opening 10, you go to Atlanta. Atlanta's going to be better. That's still a home game for the Lakers. Like, every time the Lakers go to Atlanta, that is essentially a home game. Then game 11 is Charlotte. The Lakers better be able to kick the bleep out of them. So again, it is going to be tough just because there's no such thing as easy life in the West. But I think you are correct that as far as what you could reasonably expect to open the schedule with some leeway while still giving you some information,

because it's important to learn things in these first 10 games, I think this is about as, it's about as good as Laker fans could have expected. I think it's a seven and four is a very doable in those first 11, you know, for example. I think seven and four is a reasonable goal better than that, you know, is great in a little bit. But like if you have that kind of start, say even six and five, seven and four, somewhere in that neighborhood, eight and three would be great. You're not hurting yourself. You just, you don't want to hurt yourself over those first 10 or 15 games to where you are then trying to climb. out of a hole, you know. And I also like the mix.

I mean, we'll get to some of the other little fun quirks in the scheduler, but I like the mix of teams they're playing, you know, Golden State and Portland, for example, are stylistically very different teams. You get a team where, you know, not that the Warriors can't play defense, but, you know, they operate on offense in a very different way than the Blazers will. Blazers are an excellent and athletic,

stand to be an excellent, the defensive team, very athletic, very challenging to play. So I think it's, you know, it's, it provides a certain kind of test. You get San Antonio with Victor Wenbinaima. And I just, I like this mix that they get before they go on the road. And then you see an improved Atlanta team. You see Oklahoma City and stuff like that. So, um, a solid run of teams that they can win against, but have to play good

basketball, which is I think about, um, what you would want as a coaching staff. We'll get into some of the interesting schedule quirks, some other really difficult or easier stretches of the schedule. All of that coming up next. Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Monarch Money. Most people cannot name all of their financial accounts or even what they're worth, whether 401Ks, properties, investments. Get on it, people, by the way. And when you don't have the full picture, you end up leaving money on the table. And that's why there's Monarch Money.

It's an all-in-one personal finance tool that brings your needs. entire financial life together in one clean, easy-to-use interface on your phone or your laptop. You can link all your accounts in minutes, see clear data visuals, get smart characterizations of your spending, and finally feel in control of your money without even touching a spreadsheet. Like, as an example, my daughter is about to start high school, which means I asked her thinking about college and tuition, dorm expenses, and that stuff is daunting. Monarch money can help me streamline my spending, figure out areas where I can be more. more efficient, save better, maybe not spend at all, and create a plan that is there for my next

step. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use the code locked on MBA at Monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. That's monarchmoney.com code locked on NBA for 50% off your first year. So one of the things that I know you do, I certainly do when the schedule is released. I give it a quick look. And then I go over to... to Lakers.com where Mike Trudell has very conveniently laid out all of the interesting stuff that I would otherwise have to do by hand. And so you get a lot of great information from Mike. Of course, does great work as the sideline reporter for Lakers broadcasts.

And then in Spectrum Sportsnet, we see him on 710 ESPN Radio a lot. He's everywhere doing good work. Some interesting schedule bits for the Lakers. They do play one more back-to-back this year than last. 14 versus 13, but still not totally brutal. Three of them are home back to back, so they're no travel. Three of them have very short flights. So one's New Orleans to San Antonio.

That's a quick flight. Sacramento to L.A. So things like that. And then six, I believe there was that leaves eight more where they have actual, you know, sort of travel in between. there. So back-to-backs is something that teams are looking at. And now also people look at not just the amount of back-to-backs that one team plays, but how often do you get an opponent who is playing on the second night of their back-to-back? And the Lakers get one fewer of those types of games

than they will be, you know, their back-to-back. So they come out basically even on that. They catch about the same amount of breaks as other teams get lucky playing them on the second. night of a back-to-back. They did well in back-to-backs last year, though, particularly on the second night. So it's not necessarily an automatic like, oh, they're going to lose, but it is worth noting, that's for sure. Another scheduling quirk that Mike picked up on is obviously we don't know for sure because the way the cup can shake out and when you get eliminated who you play, if you get eliminated who you play, if you advance all the way. Those things create a little bit of uncertainty with your schedule.

But for the time being, the Lakers play certain Western Conference teams three times, six of them, and they play eight Western Conference teams four times. I will say this, if you are looking for some degree of relatively speaking a break in the Lakers' schedules of Western Conference teams, I think they play fewer of the best teams in the West four times. Like, for example, these are the Western Conference teams that they are guaranteed to play four times. Golden State, the Clippers, Phoenix and Sacramento,

obviously because those are the Pacific Division teams. OKC, Dallas, but then the Pelicans and Utah. These are the ones that they play just three times, at least for the time being. Memphis, Minnesota, the Spurs, Denver, Houston, then also Portland. So several of the toughest Western Conference teams, the Lakers at least for the time being,

only face three times. So again, if you are looking for relative breaks insofar as being a Western Conference team, because there ain't many, that is at least a glass, I don't know, a quarter full. It's still going to be a rough schedule. One thing I find very weird about this one too is, is you set aside your weekends.

If you want to follow Lakers basketball, set aside your weekends because they play about half their games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 15 Saturday games if I did the count correct. And then, you know, 17 more on Fridays and Sunday. So they play a lot of games on the weekend. So that is something to keep in mind as well. I was looking at the schedule. And one of the things I always kind of keep an eye out, Andy. for our long road trips.

And I just look for the, at first I'm just looking at the at, at, and where the big gaps are. Like, oh, they look, they're home. And so you go to sort of the end of January. The Lakers take a very long and very difficult road trip. That goes Denver, technically at home back against the Clippers, but still difficult team. on their floor, then Dallas, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, New York, and Brooklyn.

You get a coast swing. That's eight games away from your own building for what it's worth. They have a home game on the 18th or 17th. They're at Portland. So that's a stretch of eight of ten, I'm sorry, nine of ten outside of crypto.com arena. And so that's a hard road trip. They take one of those every year. you got the East Coast blood and so on. And you're like, oh, well, then they come home, Andy.

And you're like, well, look at that. They get like a nine-game home stretch. Everything's going to be fine. And then you look at the teams that they're playing in this. It's like, okay, great. You get off this long road trip and you come home and you're all excited. It goes Philadelphia, which could be a very easy game, but might not be, depending if this is the week and a half stretch of the season where the Sixers might be healthy. Then Golden State, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Dallas, Clippers, Boston, Orlando. Each one of those teams is either a playoff team, a championship hopeful, or in the case of Philly, you could call them a total wild card that still has three outstanding players.

They just can't get them on the floor at the same time. So that is, like you come home off this long trip and you get that to look at as a nine-game stretch or so at home. That is brutal. Here's another interesting road trip. It begins on, actually, it kicks off, or the last home game is Denver on March 14th. Then on the 16th of March, you play Houston on the road. 18th, also Houston on the road.

So non-back-to-back, but consecutive road games against, Houston, then Miami, which wouldn't necessarily be too tough, but you are going back to back, Houston to Miami. That is a very long flight. Then at Orlando, at Detroit, at Indiana. And Indiana without Tyrese Halliburton, Miles Turner now in Milwaukee, I think Indiana is going to be a solid team, not great. And under normal circumstances, that might feel like a bit of relative relief to see them, except it's on the end of this very difficult and long, like, distance-wise, long road trip. So once again, there just are not many breaks.

It's, I think there's a lot in here that, again, as far as what you could realistically expect for the Lakers, it is about as fairly drawn up, about as non-arduous in terms of extreme back-to-backs, extreme travel. according to Mike Trudell, they are actually flying about eight. I think it's a thousand miles less than last year. Yes, exactly. Thank you. A thousand miles less than last year.

It's 8,000 miles below the most travel team in the West. I don't know which one it is. All I know is that team is flying around 8,000 miles more than the Lakers. And about 3,000 above the Western Conference team that will fly the fewest miles. So they knocked off a thousand miles from last year's travel. Again, there's a decent amount. The NBA generally has just done a better job, like doing things like you mentioned, they will now play consecutive games against one team.

You know, let a player, let a team stay in one city. You know, the Lakers host a double header, so to speak, against Memphis, for example, at the beginning of January. mentioned that, you know, they play two games in Houston in, you know, in March. Like that kind of thing where they're, they never used to do that, where you let a team stay in a city to play the same team twice. That just didn't happen. And now it does.

You know, the NBA is figuring out ways to try to cut down, I think, on travel. And then, like, the NBA Cup opens up some interesting. I forgot to mention this when we're talking about how the Lakers can push at the beginning of the season. There's a really interesting stretch for the Lakers where they played Milwaukee on Saturday the 15th of November and play one game between the 15th of November and the 23rd when they play at Utah. That is a home game on Tuesday the 18th. So they go against Utah. Against Utah.

They go Saturday. Saturday the 15th at Milwaukee, Tuesday at home, the 18th against Utah. And then don't play again until Sunday the 23rd at Utah. So like that is a, that's like getting a little bit like almost like an All-Star break in February or in in November. And too, if they take Utah seriously and don't play down to them.

and control that game decisively from the beginning the way they certainly should on paper, that could turn into a game where Luca, LeBron, Austin, Rui, Aiton, those guys play 30 minutes, maybe 28 minutes. And then it turns into, I don't want to say a break inside the game because you're playing basketball, but in relative terms, it's sort of a break within the break. Yeah. So, I mean, there are these little moments where you sort of think, about it, like can the, can the, the Lakers, sorry, I just saw some BC wrote, go Dodgers on the chat. So I saw that and started to talk about the Dodgers. Can the Lakers get off to a good start,

then use that mini break to kind of recharge? Like there are all these little stretches around the season that you have to wonder how the Lakers coaching staff will think of it strategically. Will they use that to practice? Practice time. This is. This is one of these things that sort of people often forget about in the NBA. Like practice time is rare. You don't, once the season starts, teams don't get to practice nearly as much as I think sort of the expectation is. And so to have that week, if the Lakers are struggling with something, if they are having

a little trouble getting rhythm or whatever it might be, to have that week where you can get three or four practices in without really even taxing your guys that much. That is a huge luxury for the coaching staff. And in the meantime, there are some games that I have marked as what I think are interesting storyline games. So we'll get into that coming up next. So taking a look at some of the games in the schedule that I found interesting just from a storyline look on the 24th. We already mentioned it briefly, but the 24th of October, they're going to be playing their first game against the Timberwolves. It is obviously a playoff rematch, but like we noted

earlier, very different roster for the Lakers and one better suited to at least deal with some of the issues they had against the wolves in the playoffs. It is also the first game on Amazon Prime of the season for the Lakers. The thing we're just going to have to get used to saying

and thinking, like the game on Amazon Prime and stop thinking about is this a TNT game or not, because the answer to all of them is no. It's It's not a TNT game. I hope that means, because by the way, when we talk about what a TN, like for most people like, oh, is that a TNT game they're thinking is, is that Kenny and the gang, whatever?

For people who cover it, it's this game is going to take 40 minutes longer than normal one will. So I'm hoping that Amazon Prime means, like, it does, it's not going to take that much longer. Like, I hope the broadcasts on Peacock aren't unnecessarily 27 minutes longer than a game needs to be. because that's how it always managed to be with the TNT thing. I don't even care. Set aside the broadcasters questions about the pregame show and stuff like that, which we've talked about. I'm all about running time right now.

We're all getting older. On November 12th, they go to OKC. It's the first game against the truish measuring stick team, the defending champs, a team that the Lakers actually played very well in the Luca era. They beat them once. Then they were on the verge of beating him again before Luca was ejected for playfully jawing back and forth with a fan, which a moronic rabbit-ears ref thought was directed at him

and tossed Luca. It was ridiculous. The Lakers ended up losing that game. But I think they were on their way towards winning it. But either way, it is always useful to see how you stack up against the defending champ. So the Lakers are going to see that. On November 25th, you got your first game against the Clipper. They've done a good job of late eveninging out this series because there was a long stretch where the clippers were just waxing them.

But I think they're roughly at the same tier in the West, the Lakers and Clippers. They're likely going to be jockeying for position. These are two teams that at minimum are trying to avoid the play in. Then on November 28th, health assumed, this is the final scheduled cup game for the Lakers, Anthony Davis playing against the Lakers in L.A. For the first time. He's played against the Lakers before, but that was in Dallas. The big story, the overarching story, was Lucas return.

He vastly outplayed Anthony Davis, and the Mavs got smoked in that game. And I imagine AD is going to be very motivated to have a better showing personally and for his team in L.A. against the Lakers. This one I think is interesting. December 23rd, it's the first game of the season in Phoenix. And obviously, I know this is not DeAndre Aiton's first time in Phoenix since he left, but it is his first time as a member of a good team.

And the sons have been disappointing since DeAndre Aiton. They jettitit him and they did not leave on very, they did not part. ways on very good terms. So I am curious to see how much DeAndre Aiton seems motivated to give Phoenix double middle fingers while backed by a much better team than the past ones he visited Phoenix. On the 20th of January, they go to Denver. We talked before about that long road trip, but they've done a better job of removing the boogey man factor with Denver last season, but it's still a matchup that's instructive.

I'm also curious, we've talked about this before, Brian, for all the talk about Yokage and for a while, AD versus Yokage, I'm curious to see how much changes for the Lakers specifically without Michael Porter, Jr. Because that's the guy that I think has actually been the real problem for the Lakers, like game to game to game. Right, he's been a match-up problem when he's playing well. He's a match-up problem for everybody because nobody, you think of him because he is such a perimeter oriented player.

You don't rarely see Michael Porter Jr. at the bucket. He's so flipping tall. Like, he's just a terrible matchup because most teams don't have somebody that they can stick on somebody that tall who can get in the way of his shot. Because if you do, he's guarding a center. He's guarding a different forward to have that luxury, you know, for Denver as a, you know, is their third or fourth best player sometimes.

It's just a really tough cover in the Lakers have struggled with that. It was interesting. I will say one thing is the Lakers do have two 8 p.m. starts on local starts. Like a local time, 8 o'clock, which is, and one, I think, at 8.30. But like a couple really late starts in L.A., which is, you know, you rarely see something after 7.30. So I'm curious how those play out in terms of both a TV product and a, you know, if that has any effect on on how players kind of get there's so, so much creatures of routine. And then I also notice that the Lakers have three games during rivalry week. None of them are against Boston, which I guess some people would have assumed.

But there's a Boston thing coming up that we'll talk about. Right. I mean, there are a lot of reasons, too. It's like, especially with the Eastern Conference team. you only get two of those games. So, you know, scheduling in these sorts of gimmick weeks, for lack of a better term, is a challenge. But I will say this.

They get Denver, the Clippers, and who's the third team? I think it's Houston is the third team in rivalry week. Point being here, it's all of them. Like, there is no team near the top of the Western. conference that you look at and say the Lakers don't make sense to be playing in rivalry week. Every team wants the Lakers during rivalry week. It's just a matter of whether or not Lakers fans think of them as a rival. Well, the league has decided what the Lakers feel passionately

about, apparently. January 24th, the Lakers go to Dallas. Obviously, we've already seen Luca back in Dallas. But this is the first time, at least in theory, we will see Luca in Dallas with his revenge body. I was to say Dallas is the third team during rivalry week. Right. With he is in Dallas with the theoretical ability. He obviously has to maintain things. But I am, we've talked about before, Brian.

We're both pretty bullish about Luca's commitment to what he's done in the summer and maintaining. I am 100% confident about him at least maintaining it long enough to show off a little. leg in Dallas and show Nico and all those people up close you know basically the X that viciously dumped him he wants to make sure what they're seeing what they're missing I'm pretty sure he may not even wear a jersey

back here he may not wear clothes he may just not wear clothes a wika wearing cloth and that's it January 28th the Lakers go to Cleveland you think there might be some in Spain some insane speculation hovering over this one

it's an ESPN game like Stephen A. Smith has already on first take suggested that the Cavs trade for LeBron not examining how or acknowledging it's damn near impossible but that thing is going to be out of control it's an ESPN game on top of it

work for ESPN but they are not above hyping the living crap out of this thing. February 1st they go to New York. Substitute everything I just said about Cleveland cut and paste New York. Same thing, same speculation. They play February 5th on trade deadline day. So we'll find out who's still on the team.

Everybody gets to exhale. And then February 22nd, the Lakers hosting the Celtics, that is the day that Pat Riley gets his statue. The Lakers have announced Pat Riley will get a statue in the plaza with all the other Laker Great's obviously well, well deserved. Phil Jackson, I imagine, will be the next guy in line. And while it could make more direct line sense to do this earlier in the season when the heat are in town, because even if Riley, because of age, doesn't travel with the team all

the time, I imagine he travels. If you're giving you your statue, they'll. Well, but I just meant more. He probably goes to L.A. because he has a home here. He might. He might, he might not. But if he wasn't was or wasn't planning, if they said we're going to put your, that's the night you're getting your statue.

they'll get on the flight. Right, but I'm saying like it could make more direct line sense for the Miami game, but I imagine they just want to do this with Boston and town, the biggest rival of Riley's career as a player or as a coach or as an exec, like maybe all of his exec stops, arguably people may remember when he was Heat president and Danny Aange was criticizing LeBron. And the Heat put out a statement. like they actually had somebody from the heat formally read this.

Quote, Danny Aange needs to shut the bleep up and manage his own team. He was the biggest whiner going when he was playing, and I know that because I coached against it. That was a formal statement from the heat that they had someone read out loud to the press. So this is a fun setting for Riley to get that statue. It's great, clever points. It's a fun way to get a league, a league, uh, league, uh, league, uh, league, uh, team to root against your opponent mentally, if not openly, because we know Riley will be rooting for the Lakers to beat the self things to see.

So just settle in. Riley is going to, that's, that is not going to be a, a brief Gettysburg address style, uh, addressed from, he'll address the, it'll address the Lakers pregame. It's, you, but like that speech when he gives, that is going to be a long, long speech. Anyway, Locked on Lakers on YouTube. Let us know what you think about the schedule. Leave us questions, leave us comments. Locked on Lakers on YouTube.

You can go hang out. There are 36,000 subscribers. Do not forget. If you are not an audio subscriber, you should be. So go over to Apple, click on search on Lock on Lakers, make that a daily download. Go to Spotify, however you like to get your podcast. Make sure we are your first listen up every day. We'll see everyone on Monday.