The Deep 3 Podcast - The Lakers Already Have Their Next Star | TD3 Clips

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

The Lakers have 3 stars and the NBA should be scared! #nba Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at TELUS.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. One thing I learned about the Los Angeles Lakers this season, Austin Reaches the true star. No more caveats. No more. This is one of the best bench players in the league. This is a sneaky, good starter, six men of the year. Awesome third option, better third option than XYZ.

This is an all-star player. This is a building block superstar in the making. Obviously, superstars generous. But this is a building block that we should build around for the next five years with Luca Donchich. I think we've seen him ascend these conversations year after year. He succeeded in so many play types, so many team roles and constructions, so many different things have been asked of him. Now he's being asked to be the one option with Luca and LeBronher.

he's dropping 50 he's getting 16 assists the next game hitting game winners over go bear he answers the call every single time and i just think this time we recognize him as a true star top five shooting guard in the league okay yeah top five top five shooting guard that's stamped the top three at teflon fourth best shooting guard in the league that stamped in my in my opinion i would take him over desmond bain right now i would take him over jalen brown right now yeah and i guess so if we agree that austin reeves is cleage is this guy and is playing an all-star pace i feel very good by the state of the Lakers. One thing I've learned is that

when LeBron and Luca are healthy, I feel pretty vindicated to my optimism for this team. DeAnd Dayton has played pretty goddamn well. In pretty much all the ways I thought he would, I think I'm not going to take

any victory laps yet on DeAndreighton, but through five games, it's looking exactly like I said, it would, 18th best starting center to league, whatever, very good, all-around player. He's been playing really good rim defense.

Not the most mobile active defender to plug holes, but he locked up Subonis, has outplayed Gobert twice, looks very good when he's in position. Outplayed Gober. He rebounds from game,

Gobert. I know. Hang the band and we didn't mention it. Gobert also looks like shit. He also looks like

he lost his stuff again. We forgot to talk about that with two rules. But nevertheless, he's looked good defensively. He is rebounding fine.

He's not going to be the best rebound in the world, obviously. And the mid-range scoring has been a real impact thing. And in the one game you have with Luca before he got hurt

when they figured out, the lot of the lot of stuff looked pretty real. Feel good there. I feel pretty good about La Ravia. I feel pretty good about smart. I feel pretty good about every single spot.

So once LeBron comes in, I feel like we're going to be able to see low usage LeBron, especially with Austin Reeves ascending that can focus on defense and plug a lot of holes there. This team's going to be really goddamn good, I think. Yeah, I said it on our stream. Monday, 2 TD3 Lives. Tap in 430 Central Time live every single Monday. I said that, you know, we've been looking for the next Jalen Brunton type player.

Someone was going to take that type of leap within their team. Last year we thought about, we thought if it was going to be someone like Andrew Nemhard, he was heavy in those conversations in terms of. are like, okay, we know you're good, but are you like next level good? Austin Reeves has been there in front of our faces for the fucking longest. We just, we just been seeing this undrafted rookie, undrafted by choice, by the way, undrafted rookie a couple years ago, just continue to ascend to insane degrees. Last year we watched him drop 38, 37.

I remember he gave, I think the idiot of pace is like 45 points on a random night in 2025 towards the back half of the season. He's just so damn good and he's clearly like one of the best. handlers in the league when you compare him when we have like a overall guard conversation and seeing where he ranks i start to feel like very uncomfortable because of the type of conversations that he's like forced himself into like now i'm looking at him and i look at someone like dearen fox and i'm like what i rather have on my team that's a fun combo i look at him and i look at someone like not dare maybe darius garland i'm like what i rather have on my team you have to think

about it. Austin Reis has forced himself into your mind. He can't no longer look at him as if he's just like a good complimentary piece. No, he is the piece. Yeah, and I think we're seeing like he's capable, like the fact I said earlier, the fact that he can be a third option, be a second option, be a bench score, be a first option

and win multiple games against good defenses. Like, he is clearly one of the more versatile players in the league that can do whatever you need of him. I, you know, you try to imagine the perfect defender to draw up to neutralize what Austin Reeves does. His name is Jaden McDaniels. We saw it in the playoffs. Austin Reeves' biggest weakness is if you get big athletic defenders in front of him that he can't blow by, things get tough for him real fast.

We saw Anthony Edwards and Jayden McDaniels put him in a torture chamber in the playoffs. In this game, Jaden McDaniels did slow down his scoring. He couldn't get to the rim quite as well and he shot poorly from the field. He had 16 assists and had the game winner over him and Gobert anyways. He finds ways to be valuable with the ball in his hands. That was one of the most encouraging games I've seen from somebody to shoot less than 40% from the field because he did everything else. shout to him he's going to be extremely rich from the lakers they're going to pay him whatever's needed

he's getting a bag and shout out to jj reddick and everything that like that he's done helping helping empower austin rich to really get to this to like this next level and you know how those that story about the sons a couple years ago and like bringing in moni williams about like what the owner said about the coach basically essentially for this version of like Austin Reves and J.J. Reddick, that Cracker needed a Cracker. You know what I'm saying? And he's out here. He's out here hooping. And so I do think that like for

for J.J. Austin and like that combination is perfect. And it's so funny because you see a lot of a lot of Mavericks fans are watching Lakers games and watching what Austin Reeves did and they're like, he's doing what Prunson was doing for us. And it really does feel like, hey, anytime that you give Luca another two guard who's also dynamic

who can also score playmake a little bit and even for Austin Reeves 16 assists like there's not just a little playmaking but you know what I'm saying they go they go on deep playoff fronts he went to the conference finals

with Brunson they've been to the finals with him and Kyrie and so if everybody else can be average and you're inserting a LeBron James into this equation I can see where Lakers fans are getting a lot of the hope from for a solid playoff run

trade Maxi Kleba uh gave vincent and whatever the salary filler hopefully shared vannebilt probably don't want him whatever you need first round pick bring me dylan brooks on a platter and this team can make a conference finals give me a plenty of attack defender like that that can hit a three this team can make a run guys i made a game on the fly okay we're going to play easy hard impossible austin rees edition easy hard impossible will this will austin ruse be better than these players and i'm about to name okay Okay, first player up, Trey Young. Well, so who would I rather have in a playoff series?

Yes. Like, at the end of this year? Yes. Well, let's talk about right now. If I'm the Lakers, I'd certainly rather have Austin Reeves playing with Luca Danchich. And I guess I'd rather have Trey Young as like the engine of my team number one option. But like just barely, that's a looking suspect. For most teams, neither one of these guys should be your best player.

I want Austin Reeves as a second option more. So you can see Austin Reeves easily passing up Trey Young at the end of the year. If he's playing next to Luca Dantzic, yes. I won't say in a vacuum, but with Luca, yes. In a vacuum, yes. Oh, you're going all in. Fuck it. He's better than trade.

Okay. What I've seen from trade is very disturbing. This guy just getting disturbed. Okay. All right. Next name, Deeran Fox. Is it going to be hard for him to pass up De Aaron Fox? Yes.

I think so. No, it's not going to be hard. Same type of thing. I think I love Deeran Fox, but same type of thing for a team that has a lead ball handler like Luca Donchich, or any team that has a superstar, Austin Reefs, clearly can play on, off ball is a worst defender than Fox but it's not like that makes up for the gulf and value

there that he clearly can bring. The only reason why I think it's going to be hard is because everybody that is going to play on the spurs this year is going to look better than what they are because Wembe's just making it so easy for everybody. So that's the reason why I think it's hard. In a vacuum, I do think that that

conversation is a little bit tougher. And it could skew Austin Reeves away in a vacuum, but just based on the fact like they're both playing with these like otherworldly superstars. Yeah. Fox also gets a boost. I think they're both very good.

People are doing way too much Fox revisionism, trying to trade him too early as if the spurs can't have two good guards. So it's not anti-Fox at all. But I think Austin Reeves will be in those combos. I agree. I think simply because of Austin Reeves shooting and how we just forces his way to the rim with these so like elusive, these long, slow elusive crosovers and getting it and how is his ability to get to the paint. I think he can. And he's a good playmaker.

He's a good passer. Yeah, exactly. Is it impossible for him to surpass Donovan Mitchell? Oh, hell yeah. Of course, it's impossible. I'm not going to get too crazy. No, he fails. Yeah, when.

If Austin Reeves had that athleticism, then we could talk. That would be a different type of player, but no. I'm not seeing Austin Reeves having Tomahawk backscracking dogs. That's just not in his back. Listen, I'm a glaze of Laker. I'm not going to be stupid about it. Damn, damn, damn. But we can put him in the combos with those lower all-star level guards.

We can definitely have those conversations. But Donald Mitchell is a different animal. Yeah. He fails. Okay.