Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Why Centers Could Be Key for the Lakers in the Stretch Run and Playoffs

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

The Lakers have received a lift in the last couple of games through the activity and production of Deandre Ayton. The mercurial center has come out with significantly more energy, and has generally played better since namedropping Clint Capela in a fairly disparaging way.  But the Lakers need him to keep it up, no question. They're a different team when Ayton produces (noted by the record when he logs 15/10 on any given night). But with a fully healthy team, the lakers aren't likely to be able to find Ayton enough shots to put up 15-20 every night, and meanwhile his minutes likely settle between 20-25 minutes rather than 25-30.  But the motor? That can run all the time.  And for the Lakers, the possibility of having a higher caliber starting center than last season (Ayton vs. Jaxson Hayes) combined with a better backup center (Today Hayes vs. Last Year Hayes) and a healthy Maxi Kleber (who has been deployed effectively at different times this year) means the center position is in line for a significant upgrade compared to last year.  That gives JJ Redick far more options, allows the Lakers to match up better, and then do things like go small -- still a very effective lineup -- when they want to, rather than because they have to. That's a big deal, potentially. So keep an eye on the bigs! Meanwhile, Austin Reaves had some very revealing, and potentially encouraging, comments about accountability following Tuesday's win.    HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky    Everydayer ClubIf 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/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! TurboTax This year you’re getting a major upgrade — Intuit TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. Visit http://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today. PrizePicksDownload the PrizePicks app today and use codeLOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNBA QuoMake this the year where no opportunity - and no cutsomer - slips away.Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to http://Quo.com/lockedonnba. 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. Betterhelp This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a qualified therapist.  Sign up and get 10% off at http://BetterHelp.com/LOCKEDONNBA.    5-Hour ENERGY Have your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at 5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel FanDuel is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a College Basketball Parlay Profit Boost.Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started — Play Your Game.   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.

The Lakers have a big three, but we'll tell you next why their three centers could be the key to a strong stretch run. 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 Lockdown Lakers first listen of every day, whether you're doing it through Spotify, Apple. The Lockdown Lakers YouTube channel, we appreciate you coming on an online. and helping make the lock-on podcast network, the number one sports podcast network anywhere.

You're going to find out of Brian Kimnetsky with Andy Kim Minnetsky, covered the Lakers for nearly 20 years. And stretch runs, Andy, in that time, are always super exciting. We have been focused, obviously, on how well the big three are playing together. Obviously, LeBron James, unavailable these days with a variety of maladies. Seems unlikely, I think, to play against the Bulls on Thursday. But I feel like the Bulls are.

give it one more game. As we've noted a few times, we still don't even quite understand the origin story of this hip contusion that he's dealing with. Last, I saw he was on the injury list. It was due to the elbow contusion plus the standard left foot arthritis.

The hip thing is new, and to this point, totally unexplained. Old people and hips. I just assumed it was that fall in the... So do I. Yeah, but we'll see. It's a nasty fall, man. Falling is also difficult for when you start getting up an age.

It's so unfair to LeBron how these jokes just write themselves. He's 40. They feel like cheap shots, but they're low-hangered. They're obvious. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. The point being, we have obviously, you know, how the Lakers and the big three play together is ultimately a massive determinant of whether or not the Lakers will win a lot. of games in the stretch run, their ability to go deep in the playoffs and all that stuff.

You know, stipulated. Okay, great. But the three centers that they have, Andy, I think if you're looking for something to differentiate, especially between last year and this year and their playoff chances, we talked about DeAndre Aiton for the short show on Wednesday, and whether or not Aiton is kind of coming around, making these at least the last week or so, you know, have been significantly better for the most part than what he had been doing throughout the month of February and late January, which is awful. To me, it highlights how much the Lakers need all three of those guys.

And if all three of them are healthy, the impact that that could have for them in terms of, again, making this playoff run something that's different than last year because Aiton, Jackson Hayes, Maxi Kleba, if they're all there and they're all available, that is a very different roster that they're going to the playoffs with. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's an optionality that they did not have last year with the center position at all. The list was Jackson Hayes and Jackson Hayes until game five

when JJ, you know, decided to give Maxic, Maxiclaib, a crunch time minutes. Like the first time he had played with this team, like he was still wearing a name tag. Jackson played well for a while. And I think you can argue that JJ went too extreme in terms of, you know, going from starting center to out of the rotation entirely not playing at all. Maybe there was a middle ground. But regardless, it reinforced the. idea that they were dealing with so little in terms of choices and different looks that they could

show a team like Minnesota that's huge anyway. Like they're a team where size really matters and the Lakers were really, you know, when they would go their small ball look, they were bigger than a lot of other teams around the league, but Minnesota was still just far bigger than them, far more physical. The idea of being able to play D'Andre Aiton as, you know, like a pick and pop guy and a roll guy and somebody who can grab boards, especially when he's most engaged. Jackson being this lob threat and a vertical spacing threat and a guy that really does put a lot of pressure around the rim. He's also pretty good at switching out defensively. I think, you know,

that's something that he can do reasonably well. Aitn, actually, lately, I think has moved his feet pretty well, too. And then Maxie, I think he is more conceptual, a, Floor spreading option. Oh, he's not. He's not at all a floor spreading option. What he is, though, is a really, really good positional defender. He is somebody that's in the right spaces a lot. He can move the ball well.

He sets really, really good screens. And he is somebody that you can put out there. And as long as you have enough raw production around him, he can grease the wheels without screwing things up. And either way. And is a strong defender. And so different looks. It's three different looks, but it's also a higher level.

Like, Aitin, when he's right, Aitin is a better player than Jackson Hayes. And certainly a better player than Jackson Hayes was last year. And so, you know, you're upgrading your talent there. You know, you have a legitimate, you know, scoring option number one center guy, even if you find Aiton to be overall disappointing. He's still an improvement. Now you then slot Jackson in the, you know, into playing against backups where he tends to be more effective.

And it's also a better version of Jackson. Jackson is a better player now than he was at this point last season. Yes. You have a better version of your backup center properly slotted against backups. You have a credible starting center. And then you have this weird weapon that, you know, or weird tool, I'm not sure. weapon might be overstating it. If you're talking about maxi slowdown, weapon, slowdown.

I self-corrected. But you have this tool at your disposal that has been shown to be effective deployed in specific ways at specific times. And a small lineup that has been quite good. But now you don't have to play at every single moment. So I just, I look at, you know, obviously, Luca. Austin LeBron are determinant of how the Lakers, how far the Lakers go in the playoffs.

I'm not delusional. But if you are looking for other, like those X-factor type things, other differentiators, I really do think that the production the Lakers get out of the center position down the stretch and definitely in the playoffs is one of those things that if you want to be an optimist

about the team, you can look at and say, this ought to be better. Really quick before we go, the break. The idea of having these three very different center options, plus the small ball group, you can weaponize now in ways that feel more strategic as opposed to just trying to keep yourself afloat because it's really the only look that works at all. It reminds me also, too, of how defensively they are starting to become better in part because JJ's been using

more looks. He's been, and more looks that I think he was, frankly, comfortable or willing to try last year. Like he is going with more zone. Going zone, baby. It's been going with more zone. They have been doing more two on the ball type coverage, you know, up high pressuring that JJ has said he does not like to do. He has been working more with rotation.

Different things that I think can either go against JJ's basketball philosophies or that he isn't entirely confident about from a personnel perspective. but I think he's come to recognize I have to work outside of what seems most logical to me because simply working with the thing that makes most sense to me, it's not effective.

And too, I think also, the more he's, in a lot of ways, I think this is something I thought would be the case, the more he's asked of these guys defensively, like the more he's put on them as opposed to always trying to cover for them, I think they react better to it. Like the more responsibility in a lot of ways he puts on them,

the more he actually makes them work, the more they actually work. Some interesting comments from Austin Reeves about sort of where the team is headed in chemistry and vibes in that locker room, especially on the defensive side of the ball. We'll talk about that next. Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by five-hour energy drink. Welcome to the five-hour energy flavor draft.

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Locked-on-Leggers is also brought to you by DoorDash, Andy. This season's heating up. It's red-hot, even, you might say. And DoorDash has a way to keep fans in their bag the whole way through, whether you're watching the highlights, the tunnel fits, are just a favorite player. DoorDash makes the entire

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are being handled right. Head to turbotax.com slash local to find a store near you and to book your appointment. Okay. So, Andy, this is what Austin Reeves had to say following the Lakers, playing, beating Minnesota on Tuesday night. This from Dan Waikie following the game, quote, I think accountability is being held not more so from coach to player, just person to person.

Reeves told the athletic, again, to Dan Woiki. I'm not saying I'm running around holding people accountable, but if you say something to somebody, it's not throw your hands up in the air. It's not like, poor pitiful me. It's like, yeah, I'll do it. Everybody that has stepped up on the court did an amazing job, said Luca, everybody fought until the end. So, you know, a few weeks ago, we were talking about this team and the vibes being quite dark.

Now it seems like they are turning around and in terms of like the culture that you would want. When you hear Reeves talking about accountability, people taking on the onus of solving problems and stuff like that, these are very encouraging things to be hearing. Obviously winning makes a difference, but these things feed the winning. Yeah, there were a lot of examples Dan cited during his piece about what's gone well across the board, including, as Dan mentioned, this was something I noticed during the game. LeBron being a really active spectator against the wolves during that game and being up a lot, being cheats. hearing a lot, being very reactive, and that stuff matters. And if you don't believe me, just look back to game one when LeBron was on the bench with the sciatica looking like a frozen statue, likely because he could not move.

But everybody was reading into that and body language and wondering what was going on with LeBron. Like, this stuff matters. I think it's also, too, in a lot of ways. It gets back to something I've harped on a lot with this team, which is that against good opponents, they have no choice but to play very hard, very focused, very intentional basketball for as many minutes as humanly possible on the court. They don't have a plan B. There are certain teams that have so much inherent athleticism. They can paper over that. There are certain teams that

have such great this skill, such great that skill, such great star power, like whatever, such incredible roster balance that they can get by with a higher margin for error. The Lakers are not one of those teams. And, you know, like the pure star power that people had predicted with Luca, LeBron, and Austin together becoming this like offensive supernova that would trickle down to Rui and D'Andre Aiton and even to some degree Marcus Martin, Jake LaRavia. the offense would become such a supernova that the defense would just need to be passable

and that would be the best version of the team. That's not the way things have worked out at all. The three of them have not gelled. The offense has not been where things have expected. We've seen the last couple of weeks. They need, if they play at this type of level of effort and intensity and treating every single possession with serious urgency,

that's the way they become the greatest sum of their parts, even beyond any individual performance from Luca going crazy or Austin stepping into the type of player that I know internally the Lakers believe that he is, like more than any of that. They have to play their asses off. And there's an accountability that comes with everybody treating every possession with that type of importance. It is easier to do these things and easier to kind of dial into that mentality

as you get within, you know, under 20 games left in the regular Cs. And you can see sort of the end. It is, you know, it is, it is harder to brush off. They lose to Chicago on Thursday night. Heaven forbid. But if they did, please don't. Like, you can't brush off that loss. Like that is a, it's a, you know, a loss is a loss in March just as much as it is in

November. But the difference is you lose to a bad team in November, it's like, okay, we need to, now we have 60 games. to get that game back and then some. In the Western Conference, where the Lakers are essentially in like a statistical tie for the third seed as well as the sixth seed, and not that far ahead of the seven,

like this stuff really matters. You want to host a playoff series, which becomes a major advantage. I realize the Lakers haven't been great at home this year, but you still want to first round match on your home floor. Like, you can't, you know, the pain of losing to Chicago, the losing to Washington,

games like that, that they've got a couple of those games left in the schedule, is that you just can't. So it is easier to focus in these things. It's easier to dial in. There is less, I think, time for drama.

And for all of that with the Lakers, they're still good. For all the hand-wringing and all this and that, like they've won now six of seven, and they're still near the top of the conference. Every team, it seems like in the West is going through in some way, shape, or form.

And it's just that the Lakers' failures are, I think, probably louder than some of these other teams. Jay just said as much. Yeah. So I, I, uh, it's good. Those are the kinds of quotes you want to hear from a player like Austin, uh, that a lot of this stuff is just self-directed, self-winding. Like there is a, doesn't require somebody out there, you know, slamming people with steel chairs to get them what you need them to do.

We'll be back after the game Thursday night. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 37,000 subscribers. See everyone then.