The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA Power Rankings: Will LeBron James & Anthony Davis power Lakers to championship?

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Jason Timpf breaks down the Los Angeles Lakers ahead of the 2022-2023 NBA season. How far can Los Angeles go with a healthy LeBron James and Anthony Davis? What impact does Patrick Beverley bring? And what should LA do with Russell Westbrook? #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Although, as fate would have it, there is a massive hurricane that is climbing up the Mexico Coast that is going to pound Rocky Point with rain on Friday and Sunday, a place that if you've ever been there, you know doesn't get a whole lot of rain. So it should be a very interesting Mexico trip. That said, I'm still looking forward to some R&R. We are continuing with our power rankings today with number 13, the Los Angeles Lakers. I'll go ahead and read the show announced. while you guys are freaking out for a minute.

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I'm still, my respiratory system is still completely messed up from whatever I had. last week, so just bear with me, a little low energy and some coughing. So if you guys remember when we started this process, I talked about the four tiers of the teams that we were going to cover. Now, and you also know that when it comes to this sort of thing, I value the playoffs. That's the same way that I've always been. I've been consistent with that ever since I started doing this show. I've always cared more about what a player accomplishes in the postseason, what a team can

accomplish in the postseason. That's always been where I place the most value. Not that I don't place value in regular season or other types of accomplishments. That's just the primary source where I find the most valuable information, the most informative basketball is in the postseason. When we were sorting the teams into tiers, we had the bottom tier, which was the non-contenders, right? Like when I was talking about Minnesota and I was talking about Chicago and I was talking about New Orleans. Those teams are all interesting for one reason or another, but I don't think any of those teams are capable of winning a championship. The types of, like hell would literally have to freeze over for things to break right in a way for them to be able to eventually be holding the

Larry O'Brien trophy in this particular campaign. But if you remember, the next tier I had above that was the punchers chance contenders. And this particular set of teams are teams that don't have nearly as much talent top to bottom on the roster as the best teams in the league. But they have something about them, a player or a couple of players that make them exceptionally dangerous. And so, for instance, with the Lakers, it's LeBron James and Anthony Davis. You know, LeBron James and Anthony Davis won nearly 80% of their games in the first two seasons when they were together and they were both on the floor at the same time. Now, last year was a complete disaster. And I promise we're going to get into that when we get into the last year section

of this particular show. And we'll talk about all the reasons why. But one of the bigger reasons why was injuries. The reality of the situation is that LeBron James and Anthony Davis weren't available often enough for them to truly be a good basketball team. That doesn't change the other issues. The other issues needed to be addressed. Many of them weren't addressed. We're going to talk about those issues. But at the end of the day, if you end up in a playoff series, and the Lakers are healthy, and LeBron James is on the court, and Anthony Davis is on the court, and Patrick Beverly is on the court, and let's call it Austin Reeves is on the court as a fourth player, regardless of who that fifth guy is, they are dangerous. They can beat you because they have LeBron James and because they

have Anthony Davis. That's the reality of who the Lakers are. And in a playoff series, against any of the top-tier teams in the league, if your best player is Anthony Edwards and your second best shot creator is Carl Anthony Towns, I don't think you have enough to be able to beat a Steph Curry or to be able to beat that Boston Celtics team or the clippers if they're healthy. But if the Lakers happen to everything go right throughout the season,

everyone's healthy. Anthony Davis gets back to what he was. They absolutely have a puncher's chance to beat those better teams in the league because of who LeBron James is and because of who Anthony Davis is. That's why they are punchers chance contenders. Do I think the Lakers are the 13th most talented team in the league? No.

And we're going to get into all the reasons why. But I do think they have a legitimate chance to win the title if everything breaks right for them. And that is inherently going to push them up in my list because of the way that I value the postseason. Obviously, the far more likely outcome with this particular Lakers team is that they're dumpster fire. I know that. Lakers fans know that. And all of you guys who are fans of the other 29 teams or of the league in general know that. The most likely outcome is that this is a disaster. LeBron James and Anthony Davis miss a bunch of games. They barely scrape into the playing tournament or

they don't make the playoffs and they end up losing in horrific fashion. That's the most likely scenario. But there is absolutely some in that pie graph, there's a piece of it that is everyone stays healthy and you've got to beat LeBron James and Anthony Davis four times out of seven. And I promise you, even if you guys aren't scared of them, I promise you the other 29 GMs in the league absolutely are. So last year, they were 22nd in offense, 21st in defense. LeBron only played 56 games. Anthony Davis only played 40 games. Kendrick Nunn, who is the player they invested in with a mid-level exception, played zero games. Russell Westbrook and Malik Monk were the only players on the roster who were available for more than 70 games during that

entire season. So injuries were a significant chunk of what happened. The rest of the problems come down to a couple of specific pieces, and I want to get into them really quick. First is Russell Westbrook. Now, before we go any further on Russ, I wanted to tell you guys about my rule for Russell Westbrook this season. There is this weird perception among some Lakers fans that I love to trash Russell Westbrook or that I look forward to opportunities to talk badly about him. That is not the case. I don't do it opportunistically. You guys see the numbers. Our Russ videos don't do that well. This show is at its best and performs the best when we talk basketball. That's what I like to do. That's what actually leads to success here. I don't talk

about Russ to try to get hits or to try to go viral. That's not what I do. It is authentic. He bothers me with the way he plays the game. And when I was covering the Lakers last year, I had to talk about him a lot. It was just the reality of the situation. But I was hopeful that the Lakers would trade Russ so that we would not have to do that this year. But it's looking as though he might be coming back. So I was talking with the guys on our team and we were trying to come up with some ideas. And I think we're going to have a rule this year. This is the last time that I'm going to talk about Russ in depth. And after today, we are going to have a clock, a limit.

And any time Russ comes up as a topic, we're going to limit it to like one minute. And it'll be one minute of a take on Russ, and then we're moving on. Because it's not something I want to do. I have zero interest in this being a Russ show this season. And it's a shame that he's probably going to be on the Lakers, and we're going to have to talk about him as much as we are. First of all, it's important to differentiate the difference between the effects of the Russ trade versus the effects of Russ, the basketball player. The Russ trade sent out Contagius Caldwell Pope a good starting shooting guard in this league,

Kyle Kuzma, a good starting wing in this league, and Alex Crusoe, not directly through the trade, but in the trade they brought in a lot more salary than they sent out. and when the pennies got pinched at the end of the season, Caruso ended up getting cut. So I consider that at least partially to be a side effect of the Russell Westbrook trade. Not to mention, they lost a first round draft pick in that deal. And during the summer when first round draft picks were, you know, few and far between for the Lakers and they're so concerned about losing, you know,

the 2027 pick or the 2029 pick because of how it handicaps them moving forward, gosh, it sure would be nice to have that Russ pick right about now, wouldn't it? But when we look at Russ the basketball player, I want to get into the little things that he struggles with that hurt this particular team. But the reality was, is just in terms of scoring efficiency, as a high volume guard in this league, he was one of the worst in the league. And that was one of the larger portions of the Lakers issues this year. One of their primary ball handlers was one of the worst primary ball handlers in the league. that in and of itself handicapped the Lakers on a night-in-in-night-out basis. Some of these stats are insane.

There were 178 players in the league this year that attempted at least 150 catch-and-shoot jumpers. Russ ranked 170th out of 178 at 31%. When you waited for threes, it was actually worse, 171. There were 51 players who attempted at least 350 pull-up jumpers. Russ was dead last, an effective field goal percentage on those jumpers at 30. 39.3%. Effective field goal percentage, 39.3% on pull-up jump shots. There were 111 players who attempted at least 200 shots in the restricted area. Russ ranked 100th out of 111 in shooting percentage in the restricted area at 58%.

He was terrible at finishing around the rim. He had six or more turnovers in the game 17 times. There were 65 players who posted up at least 50 times. Russ was 60th in points per possession at 0.8. There were 17 players who ran at least 200 ISOs, and Russ ranked 13th in points per possession. So just in terms of what primary ball handlers do, which is shoot the basketball, shoot it off the dribble,

drive the ball to the basket, take care of the basketball, post up isolations, isolate on mismatches. He was just one of the worst in the league. That high-volume Russ primary ball handler thing cut the Lakers off at the knees on offense. It's just the reality of what happened. in that situation. Now, the one thing I'll say in Russ's defense,

it was intended that LeBron James would be around and that Anthony Davis would be around and that Kendrick Nunn would be around and Russ could have a more limited on-ball role. So the one thing I'll say in his defense is that he shouldn't have been relied on to that capacity. But the one reason why I don't cut him

a ton of slack in that department is when those guys were available, when LeBron and Anthony Davis was on the floor, he played the same way. There was no change in approach with those two guys on the floor. He didn't suddenly embrace the role player things. He didn't suddenly lock in on the defensive end of the floor.

He did the same old rust stuff, regardless of whether he was playing by himself or he was playing with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. That's the reality of the situation. Within the role on a basketball team of primary shot creator, he's just not good enough to do that anymore, at least not for a good. team. He's bad at that, even I would say, by NBA standards. So the rush trade essentially involved

exchanging three solid role players. I'd argue excellent role players. Alex Crusoe and Catavius Caldopo are excellent role players. Kyle Kuzma turned himself into a good role player towards the end with the Lakers. They traded out three solid role players for a bad primary creator who also is bad at role player stuff. And then when we get into the role player stuff, he was a bad off ball defender. He lost shooters frequently. He would die on pin down screens.

Or he would just run into the screen and the point and ask for a switch from one of his teammates. He would miss boxouts. He took possessions off. He would have entire possessions where he would just stand with his hands kind of dangling by his side while basketball was happening around him. He was freelancing a lot on defense.

Just like instead of buying into what the scheme was, he would just randomly double or randomly attempt to jump a passing lane and get out of position. When he was on ball on defense, he actually was pretty solid in isolation. Russ has an ego, and that's a focused play. Everyone's staring at you. He takes it personally to get his stops. That's not surprising. His pride's on the line, and he has great physical tools.

He is a good isolation defender. That just wasn't enough to make up for some of the other things. He was a terrible pick-and-roll defender dying on screens often. Off the ball on offense, his inability to remain a threat when he didn't have a basketball was an issue. Obviously, we talked about him as a catch-and-shoot shooter and how bad he was this year, 170th out of 178 players who attempted at least 150 catch-and-shoot jump shots. But also, he was just willing to stand still when he didn't have the basketball. He wasn't active off the ball as a cutter or a screener,

cutting when his defender wasn't looking to get open underneath the basket. Or, hey, instead of just standing at the top of the key, maybe you run down and set a pin down screen on Malik Monk's man, and maybe Malik Monk can get free, literally anything other than just standing still. And then in late game situations was where it was the most frustrating. He would routinely make catastrophic mistakes when the game was on the line. He would lose a shooter, like him losing Patty Mills on the biggest possession in the Christmas Day game when Patty Mills relocated to the weak side corner and Russ was just standing, doing nothing

watching the ball as. his man got open and made the dagger. Freelancing. You may or not remember a game where Reggie Jackson made a game-winning layup against the Lakers, where he drove to the left and then spun back to the middle and made a layup off the glass. On that play, Russ was in help. Instead of positioning himself between Reggie and the rim, he lunged to try to get

his steal, completely missed, and then when he spun back, there was no help. And Reggie Jackson was by himself underneath the basket. That's a defensive mistake that cost his team. team a basketball game. I can't remember the specific game. I was trying to think of it this morning, but there was another one where it was close towards the end. They were playing a good team, and he barreled down the lane on a late transition play and tried to dunk the basketball and missed it off the front of the rim. Just like he could never see the bigger picture of the basketball game and how important specific possessions were or specific moments were. He just was

Russ kind of like unleashed, and in those moments, he often did more damage than good. He missed key boxout. take bad shots on key possessions, turn the basketball over. He was the most frustrating player I have ever covered. And that is why he was talked about as much as he was, and that's why we're going to have that rule. Again, the rule is this season from, this is the last time I'm getting in depth into the Russ thing for the rest of the season.

If we have to talk about Russ in any capacity, we're slapping a clock on it, it's going to be quick and we're moving on because it's not something that I'm interested in doing. Okay, so first it was the injuries. second, it was the Rush trade. Third, it was Russ the basketball player. Fourth, it was Frank Vogel.

So first of all, all you Lakers fans remember this, but there was specific lineup data, not to mention just visually watching the games, especially in big wins, like when they beat the Utah Jazz a handful of times. The Lakers had a clear identity with the type of players that they had on that roster. They're big guys, the two bigs that they signed,

Dwight Howard and D'Andre Jordan. DeAndre Jordan was awful. Dwight Howard had handfuls of good games mixed in, but it was the first year where he couldn't really be relied on night in and night out as a dependable backup center. So because of their weaknesses at the center position, it was clear that their best chance to win basketball games was to go really small with LeBron James at center

and then have Dwight Howard play a small role coming off the bench and spelling LeBron in his center minutes, and then to basically go all in on their youth, play guys like Stanley Johnson, Austin Reeves, you know, Wenian Gabriel, after they brought him on board, Malik Monk in particular. And you saw that in the lineup data. The lineups that succeeded the most were lineups that included Malik Monk,

lineups that included Austin Reeves. That was where the team had to go with the personnel shortcomings they had as a result of the injuries. You know, and again, like, I wanted to mention this earlier when we were talking about the Lakers as a contender this year. But especially when it comes to LeBron James and Anthony Davis, their injuries are specifically impactful because of the types of players they are. You guys remember me talking about the responsibilities that have to be fulfilled

on a basketball court, right? Like, let's just say that there's 100 responsibilities that these five players have to fill. And when you've got truly great players like LeBron James and Anthony Davis, they can take huge chunks of those responsibilities away. So let's say Anthony Davis takes 30% of the responsibilities and LeBron James takes 30% of the responsibilities. Well, then the other guys on the floor can split the rest of it and it's easier for them to fill because they're smaller roles.

But let's just say we take one guy out. We take Anthony Davis out. Now there's a huge chunk, 70% of the responsibilities that have to be fulfilled by these lower level players. So the Lakers roster weaknesses, their bad role players, became way more apparent with the injuries than they would have been under other circumstances. When you have, like, let's say for instance, we're looking at the Toronto Raptors. They don't have anybody as good as LeBron. They don't have anybody as good as Anthony Davis.

So, yeah, their role players do look significantly better because they're fulfilling all the responsibilities on the the floor, right? But in the case of the Lakers, they depend so much on LeBron James and Anthony Davis taking significant chunks of those responsibilities away, especially with what they can do as two-way players. But when Anthony Davis was pulled out, a bright light was shined on their lack of role players. And that's when those things became an issue. But regardless, and this team wasn't good enough, but if their best case, if the intention was to just float the ship until you could get into a play-in game and maybe Anthony Davis comes back and maybe LeBron comes back and you can make a run. If that was the goal, their best way to do it was to lean into smaller lineups that

favored their youth. And they did not do so in spite of great data that was available because of Frank Vogel's stubbornness. Frank Vogel has always been the type of guy that tries to bend the roster to his basketball identity rather than bending his basketball identity to fit his roster. That was the biggest mistake he made in that particular season and that's why they didn't perform as well as they could have even though he was dealt a bad hand of cards.

That season was a disaster. It was going to end poorly anyway. But there was a better version of that story where they were a seven or eight seed or maybe a playing team had they played to their strengths and they just did not do so. Offensive organization was a huge weakness for Frank Vogel. He ran very few sets.

The sets that he would run were rudimentary and predictable. Like every team in the league knew they wanted to run that horn set where they'd have Avery Bradley come off of the dribble handoff and then the second screen, right? Like that was one of the few sets that they ran frequently. They would run a handful of specific actions like they'd run like screen and pop actions with like Malik Monk and stuff like that. but the truth of the matter was is their offensive organization is way below what the rest of the league, especially the better teams around the league were doing. So Frank Vogel, and I'll go to my grave

saying that Frank Vogel was a fantastic coach for the 2020 Lakers. That roster fit his specific skill set perfectly. He had them all bought in. They had one of the best defenses I've ever seen, and they dominated on the way to the title. Frank Vogel deserves a lot of credit for that. But his stubbornness in this particular season when the team changed around him was one of the factors that led to their demise. So we have the injuries, we have the rush trade, we have Russ, we have Vogel. Fifth, I had LeBron, his lack of commitment to defense early in the year that trickled down the roster and caused problems. Anthony Davis, his rapid decline, his, I don't know, maybe it's like a work ethic, maybe it's just injuries. I don't know what it is.

He used to be a top five player. Now he's barely a top 20 player. That's what happened to Anthony Davis. And then just in general, in terms of a philosophy, Rob Polinka and clutch sports, who obviously is influential in their decision making, those two parties massively undervaluing the importance of role players. And I think there was some pride there. I think they looked at it as LeBron James and Anthony Davis won the 2020 NBA championship,

which they did. Don't get me wrong, they were the most important part. but they attributed too much of the credit to those guys, and not enough to a great group of role players that did their jobs to the best of their ability and at a very high level, and as a result, they were able to win on the biggest stage and take home the trophy.

The best example of that specific decision process was them choosing Talen Horton Tucker over Alex Crusoe. Now, I believe this is another one of Clutch's big blunders. The two big blunders from Clutch was pushing for the Russell Westbrook trade and then this particular one. And essentially, Taylin, who I like, we've talked about him. He's got a lot of potential. He's not ready yet, but he's got a lot of potential.

But Alex Crusoe clearly was a better and more impactful player within this timeline than Taylin was. He should have been prioritized. Or hell, Jeannie Bus had the money to pay him both. She chose not to. But them favoring, when they decided they had to cut one of them, when they decided to cut Caruso, instead of Taylin Orton Tucker, that was the best example of them not prioritizing their role players enough and not valuing

what they did for them enough. So again, how do you miss the playoffs entirely in a league that allows 20 of the 30 teams in and you have LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the roster? The only way is if everything goes wrong. And that's what happened. So guess what? You can't just blame Vogel. You can't just blame Russ.

You can't just blame LeBron. You can't just blame injuries. It's all of those things. But every single one of those problems still exist, and every one of them have to be addressed in order for the team to succeed. They have to stay healthy in a way they did not last year. They have to fix the Russ problem, either by Russ improving as a role player or getting him off the team.

They had to fix the coaching situation. They did. Aplause to Jeannie and Rob. They picked the right guy. I thought Darvinham was the perfect choice. They need LeBron rededicated on the defensive end of the floor, and they need Anthony Davis to regain his status as a top 10 player in this league. They have to fix all of those things that went wrong for them last year

in order for them to truly contend again. Now, for the record, injuries, who the hell knows what's going to happen, I think they will fix the rust problem. I expect him to trade him, hopefully sooner than later. I expect LeBron to have a great season this year. I think Darwin Ham will do a much better job with this group than Frank Vogel did, and I think Anthony Davis will have a bounce back season. Bam, right there.

That's a significant improvement over what they were last year. But if they don't solve the rust problem and they don't stay healthy, none of this matters. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all. embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th.

You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment,

and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs?

Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got? to do a little kill. Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s.

To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so you all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have age. on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The start of the NFL season is here and the best place to practice your touchdown dance is on Fanduel, America's number one sports book. Fanduil is kicking off week one with a no sweat bet for everybody. It doesn't matter if you're a new customer or already have an account. You'll get free bets back if you don't win.

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All right, so now that I've gotten off my soapbox about last season, we can look forward to this season. So in the draft, they picked up Max Christie, who's a lanky defensive wing. I watched him a little bit in Summer League. interesting player, but I don't think he's NBA ready yet. Cole Swider, really good shooter. Once again, I don't think he's necessarily ready to contribute this year, but with their lack of shooting, they might actually need him. But my gut says that neither of them will play much this year.

They traded Taylor and Horton Tucker and Stanley Johnson for Patrick Beverly. We did a full breakdown of that, I believe, last week or the week before, so you guys can check that out deeper down in our feed. They signed Lonnie Walker with the mid-level exception, was the big move I didn't like from this summer, once again, prioritizing a clutch client over the needs of the team. He's a small guard that is an inconsistent shooter and doesn't defend. Not a great player that I'm super excited about. They signed Damien Jones, Troy Brown Jr., Thomas Bryant, and Juan Tuscano Anderson, all two veteran minimums. And then theoretically,

Kendrick Nunn should finally play in the second year of his contract. So looking forward at rush trades. So before I go any further on this, I just want to wanted to say, I am not a reporter. I do not have the types of sources that the people who have earned that right have. I have no intention in being a fake reporter or anything like that. So take everything I say with a grain of salt. But I do have friends who work in the league and I do hear things and I will talk about them as potential scenarios, but do not take them as reporting. That is not what this is. Okay. I just wanted to say that up front. So what I've heard on that note, I've heard that the Lakers are considering holding out trading

Russ because they seem to believe that the net situation could go south and that Kyrie Irving could be available at the deadline. I'm frustrated by that if it's true because I don't understand putting your cards in that basket when there are more feasible and realistic options at hand right now that aren't that much worse than a potential Kyrie Irving type of deal. But it would explain some of their reasoning over the course of the summer. So that's one of the things I've heard. With Utah, the most realistic deal that's on the table is Bogdanovich, Boyan Bogdanovich, Rudy Gay and Mike Conley for Russell Westbrook in one first. Now, what I've heard is that,

Utah is like totally down to do that deal and the Lakers are not. Again, take that with a grain of salt. I'm not a reporter. This is just the things that I'm hearing. If that's the case, I think that's insane. We're going to talk about it a little bit further down the line, but Bogdanovich and Rudy Gay in particular are solid role players that fit a specific need on this team.

Wings that can competently play offense. The Lakers have a lot of young wings that are athletes that are going to be inconsistent and downright frustrating at times on offense. Rudy Gay and Boyan Bogdanovich are a little bit more reliable and at least would offer you a different punch on that side of the floor. I like Mike Conley fine. I don't think he fits a specific need on this roster, especially with the Patrick Beverly deal.

And it's a team that's already pretty small in the back court. But hey, you could do something with him and maybe you could flip Kendrick non or something like that if you get Conley and he's a nice fit. So it looks like the Lakers are trying to weigh the prospect of keeping Russ to get something better during the season versus taking this Utah deal that's here right now or something else. But it looks like they're leaning towards keeping rust, which I think is insane, but it is what it is. The other thing is LeBron's mini camp. He does a mini camp before each season. Presumably that's going to happen any day now. And I just have a hard time believing that LeBron would host that camp and take

Russ to it, and then they would trade Russ afterwards, but between that and training camp. It just seems pretty confusing. So here's how we're going to proceed on this show. I'm going to proceed as though Russ is a Laker this year. And if they do flip him, we will address it at that point. But for now, we're just going to move forward as though Russ is on the team. So the depth chart, at the guard position, they have Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverly, Lonnie Walker, Kendrick Nann, and Austin Reeves. On the wing, they're pretty thin. LeBron James, Troy Brown Jr., Juan Tuscano Anderson, and Max Christie. And then their bigs, they're Anthony Davis,

one in Gabriel, Thomas Bryant, and Damian Jones. So on offense, I talked about this earlier when we were talking about Frank Vogel, but because they don't have

a ton of offensive organization, they were just a brute force offense. They ran the third most isolations and the fourth most post-ups in the league last year. They were 13th in isolation efficiency in ninth in post-up efficiency, so they weren't as impactful doing that,

but that was the type of offense they ran. They were finding the guy that had the best matchup, whether it was LeBron or Russ, and they were just attacking in isolation or post-up time after time after time after time. That's textbook brute force offense. And for the record, it is a little bit more reliable in the postseason as long as you can do it well. But that particular Laker team did not do it well. They did not run very much pick and roll. They were a bottom 10 pick-and-roll team in the league.

The main reason why is, and we've talked about this, LeBron James and Anthony Davis both dictate that you put a big forward on them. And so if you've got two big forwards in a screening action, what's the smartest thing to do? Switch it. So every time LeBron James and Anthony Davis ran pick and roll, they would just switch it. That's why LeBron James and Anthony Davis pick and roll that we all dreamed about when they made that trade, never really materialized. Russell Westbrook is not a bad basketball player. He played bad in the role that he had this year, but he's not a bad basketball player.

and if you play small guards on him, he can get them to the rim. But he can't shoot. So teams started putting forwards on Russ, big forwards, and having them play way off, knowing that he could take all the jumpers he wants, he's going to shoot him as inefficiently as anybody in the league, and if they drive in, he can't bully them because they're bigger than Russ.

And so once again, if I've got Russ being guarded by a forward and Anthony Davis being guarded by a forward, or LeBron being guarded by a forward, even pick and rolls with Russ as the ball handle, would struggle because of teams' willingness to switch. And then even when they ran pick and roll with the bigs like DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard, teams were going so far underneath the pick and roll with Russ, and the drop was so deep that they weren't getting good stuff out of that either.

Russ could walk into a pull-up 15-foot or any time he wanted. He just wasn't going to make them. The one kind of on-ball screen action they ran that had some success was a pick-and-pop with Monk. LeBron James built some good chemistry with Malik over the course of the season doing this. essentially if Malik is being guarded by a small quick guard, they're not going to want to switch. And so as long as Malik sets a pretty solid screen and forces Malik's man to hedge or to show or to switch onto LeBron, Malik could pop and at least have an advantage to attack from going downhill. They don't have a shooter like that on the roster anymore.

So that's going to be an interesting looking forward this year. And essentially, the downside to brute force offense is it wears. on you and you need to spread the love evenly. You need to have lots of matchups that you can attack with lots of players so you don't become predictable and so you don't wear down. But when Anthony Davis went down and when LeBron was banged up as much as he was during the season, they tried to run a brute force offense without the manpower to do so. And that was a huge part of why it didn't work.

So what do I think they should do this season? So last year they ran the 25th most off-screen actions in the league. These are actions like I was talking about with Chicago and with New Orleans where you have your perimeter star, whoever it is. Start in the weak side corner and kind of work his man down to the short corner and then come off of a screen and basically curl around. If he's open, he could shoot, but curl around so that he's attacking in isolation but with an advantage. Either the defender trailing him on his backside or him going under the screen and you're meeting him with a head of steam. The Lakers didn't do that nearly enough this year. Now they don't have movement shooters,

so you're not going to have guys flying off a screen shooting, but I'd like to see them do a little bit more of that to try to get LeBron and Russ attacking downhill with an advantage. Milwaukee did do this quite a bit, so I'm hoping that Darvinham brings some of that over from Milwaukee. I don't think it's crazy to think that you could do that with Anthony Davis as well. Imagine like a horn set where you have Anthony Davis on the left elbow and, you know, LeBron or one of the bigs, Thomas Bryant, someone like that,

on the right elbow, cross-screen, have Anthony Davis come over the top of that screen, catch and just go so that he's attacking with a little bit more of an advantage, especially since Anthony Davis doesn't have the quickest feat in the world. Kendrick Nunn coming back should be an interesting pick-and-roll threat for them because he'll have a small defender on them, so teams won't switch. The thing is, is it's better in theory than it is in result. He was only 38% on off-the-jribble shooting in 2021 when he was with the Miami Heat, only 27% on pull-up threes.

That's not good enough. He was 0.83 points per possession on pick and roll. That's not good either. So hopefully that's just a Miami Heat situation, and he's got more talent than that, and he'll flash that this year. But the Lakers could absolutely use Kendrick Nunn being a better pick-and-roll shot creator.

I think that you'll get to see Patrick Beverly do some stuff on second sides as well, but you don't want him as a primary creator. Spacing is going to be the biggest concern with this particular team. So Kendrick Nunn is an outstanding catch-and-shoot player. He shot 42% from three. Patrick Beverly is solid. 39% last year on catch-and-shoot threes.

LeBron James is solid. 38% of catch-and-shoot threes, but LeBron can't shoot when he has the basketball as a spot-up shooter, right? So the reality is, is everyone else on the roster is a player that other teams will play way off of. They're not going to care if Troy Brown Jr. takes threes. They're not going to care if Juan Tiscano Anderson takes threes.

They're not going to care if Thomas Bryant takes threes. They're not going to care if Anthony Davis takes threes. They're not going to care of any of these guys take threes, except for maybe Kendrick Nunn and a little bit of Patrick Beverly and LeBron when he doesn't have the basketball. So spacing is going to be a severe problem on this particular team. There are a couple of things that could help. They desperately need Austin Reeves to take a leap as a jump shooter.

He actually wasn't as bad as you'd think last year. in catch and shoot situations. We'll get to that when we get to the X factor. But the other thing, too, is Thomas Bryant, in theory, should be a stretch big that should allow the Lakers to have a little bit better spacing when he's on the floor. But once again, there's a huge difference between shot result and the way teams that actually guard, the way teams actually decide to guard you. My guess is that even if Thomas Bryant shoots 40% from three, that other teams are going

to happily dare him to shoot. And so spacing is going to be a significant issue for that. this team. And this is probably the biggest reason why a rush trade is so important and why holding on to Russ would be so catastrophic. Most of the Lakers' role players, like we talked about earlier on the wing, are athletic, play hard, defensive-minded guys. All of them have severe offensive limitations right now. Austin Reeves, who's not a very good shooter at this point, although,

he was in college, so I'm hopeful that he'll figure that out. Austin Reeves attacking closeouts is good, but outside of that, a lot of those other players are not going to shoot the ball well, are not going to be good in a driving kick type of system. They're going to struggle there. They don't have competent role players on the wing. And so if you could flip Russ and bring back someone like Boyan McDonovich, who not only can attack mismatches in the post as like that big mismatch attacking four that I always talk about,

but can shoot the basketball is a high IQ player that can attack closeouts and make reads. Rudy Gay can do all of that stuff as well. Both of them have some defensive limitations, but at least you'd have some versatility and decisions that you can make where, hey, if the young players are playing out of their mind and playing well in offense, hey, we lean into that. But hey, all of them have completely lost their confidence on offense. We need to go with Rudy and Boyon tonight because they're just more confident on that side of the floor. The Lakers just don't have that punch right now. And so one of the biggest reasons

why I think they have to make that trade is to just bring in competent offensive wings just to make things easier for them on the offensive side of the floor. You know, and in general, there's so much that comes, we were talking about this earlier when I was talking about the 2020 Lakers, but having competent role players is extremely important. They are confident when they shoot the basketball. They are willing to relocate and move without the basketball. They'll cut to the basket. they'll screen for each other. Rudy Gay and Boyan McDonovich offer you matchup hunting. So if LeBron's tired on a possession and he doesn't feel like doing anything,

but Boyon's being guarded by a six five wing, he can go down to the block and post up. That's an option for you. Same thing for Rudy Gay. Basketball IQ, so avoiding taking stupid shots or not understanding time and score or making a silly mistake or turning the basketball over. Young basketball players do that.

Veteran players typically don't. And so improving those role. players to having more competent veteran presence to mix with some of the youth would go a long way towards making things easier for them on the offensive end of the floor. So let's talk about Russ for a second. If they don't trade Russ and they have to keep him, how do you fit him in? He is good at a couple of things. He's big and strong. And he can get to the room. He doesn't finish well, but he can get to the rim. He can bully smaller guards. On the defensive end of the floor, he's a great athlete still. He's not what he used to be. He's not a

nuclear athlete anymore, but he's still a great athlete. That all, you know, can come together into a usable basketball role. So for instance, if he went from being a primary creator to being a secondary creator, either off the bench or second side creation playing off of attention that is generated by other players on the team. He's not good enough for high volume creation, but he certainly is good enough to do it in small bursts and against specific matchups. Like if he happens to draw a weak defensive player, that can be an opportunity there.

And then just focusing his efforts on the defensive end of the floor. And not just on ball like we talked about, but he's a big, strong athlete. He can be a good help defender if he cares enough. He can be a dominant player within a defensive scheme if he commits to that end of the floor. He just has to be willing to do so. And then on the offensive end of the floor, instead of just standing around when he doesn't have the ball. Cut without the basketball.

Go screen for a teammate. Crash the offensive glass. Do something to be useful knowing that you're not responsible for those primary shot creation responsibilities anymore. If he does those things, that could replace a role player that they could hunt somewhere else in a trade. If he became that, they wouldn't need to trade him. I just don't think it's a realistic thing for him to embrace those things, and that's why

I think they have to trade him. Moving on to the defensive end of the. floor. So in Frank Vogel's defense, they were severely limited last year. They had bad defensive players. The good defensive players that they had were either hurt like Anthony Davis or just weren't playing hard, like LeBron James, who, again, as I've said, when he cares is one of the best defensive players in the league. He just doesn't care, at least not in this past season. So it's hard to say too much about what Frank did with that group, but this is a completely different roster, a completely different coach. So we have to look

forward to what Darvinham would do. So, Darvinham's defensive scheme in Milwaukee, because of Brooke Lopez and Janus together, it's essentially a too big scheme. And typically what they would do is Janus is so good off ball when he can load up and help around the rim. They would have Brooke Lopez run a traditional drop coverage as the screen defender. And then Janus is waiting underneath the basket. We talk about tagging rollers.

So in a drop coverage, you can imagine. if I've got a really good shooter coming off of that screen and the guard has to chase over the top. And as a result, Brooke has to come up and help. So there's a pocket pass that's open to the roll man. A lot of teams will tag out of the weakside corner, sending a player in over to grab the roll man or at least to stop him from rolling to the rim.

Janus is devastating in that role as that helper in the weakside corner coming in to help and pick and roll. The Lakers could run very similar stuff like that with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. or with Anthony Davis and Thomas Bryant or Anthony Davis and Damien Jones, right? So I'd like to see them kind of follow a similar type of idea. This is a team that has weak perimeter defensive players. That's just the reality of the situation right now.

But they do have strong interior defensive players, especially when they're healthy with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. This can be a basketball team that mimics the Milwaukee goal of being willing to give up three-point shots at the extent. of completely erasing things around the rim. It's better to be truly great at one thing and to try to manufacture success elsewhere than to be great at nothing

and to be bad at everything. You know what I mean? And so from a schematic standpoint, I'd like to see Darwin Ham lean into overhelp and taking away the rim. They do have some better athletes on the roster than last year with the addition of Troy Brown Jr., Juan Tuscano Anderson. And then again, Dianja Jordan and Dwight Howard were old

and they swapped him out for younger, more athletic bigs and Thomas Bryant and Damian Jones. So with that increase in athleticism, they should be able to be potentially a little bit better on the defensive end, even on the perimeter. And then Patrick Beverly, with him at the point of attack, he'll be the best point of attack defender to the Lakers have had

since they got this core together, except for maybe Alex Caruso. With him there and with his tone setting, he's a real try-hard guy, not a fake try-hard guy. He's not a yeller and a screamer that doesn't accomplish anything. He's a yeller and a screamer that also puts his money where his mouth is with the way he plays on the defensive end of the floor. I expect that to whip Anthony Davis and LeBron James into a frenzy on most nights to the point where they defend at a level that they're capable of.

If LeBron James is dialed in on the defensive end of the floor and Anthony Davis is healthy and Patrick Beverly is there leading the charge and Austin Reeves is in that fourth spot, they can be a great defense, not just a good defense, an unbelievable defense. I know because I've seen it with LeBron James and Anthony Davis when they have good role players alongside them. They are capable of being every bit, not every bit, but pretty damn near as good defensively as they were in that 2020 season as long as all of this pans out. It's a long shot, but it is possible for it to pan out. The best case scenario, without a rush trade, so if Russ stays on the roster, if everyone stays healthy, they will be a top five defense because of Anthony Davis and Patrick Beverly's leadership on a night-in-night-out basis.

Like I said, that lineup of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Patrick Beverly, Austin Reeves, either Russell Westbrook or one of the younger wings, that's four fantastic defensive players. If they get anything out of that fifth spot, they will be a great defensive team. but again, huge qualifier, they have to stay healthy. On offense, they will struggle. They have less shooting than they did last year. Yes, having Anthony Davis come back and getting back to what he was will help, but last year they were in the 20s on offense,

I expect him to finish around 15th if they keep Russ. If they keep Russ, this is a middle-of-the-pack offense at best. So if they are a middle-of-the-pack offense and they are a top-five defense that makes them a middle-of-the-packed playoff team, and they will struggle too much to score to beat a team like the clippers if they're healthy or beat a team like the Warriors. So to be clear, if they don't trade Russ,

I do not think they're a contender. I think they're a non-contender. But if they make that jazz trade, or if they make the Pacers trade, or any other trade that brings back competent offensive role players, you still have Patrick Beverly, Austin Reeves, LeBron, James, and Anthony, Davis. So you still have top-tier lineups on the defensive end of the floor, except for you're

adding incompetent offense around them in the form of Boyan Bogdanovich or Rudy Gay or Mike Conley or whoever it ends up being. Health would still be a major concern there because every player that's been mentioned to trades, whether it's Miles Turner or it's Boyan-Begovic or it's Mike Conley or it's Rudy Gay. Those guys have all had health issues. So health is still a major concern there. But if healthy post-A-Westbrook trade, they could be a top-five defense. and a top 10 offense and have a real puncher's chance to beat anyone.

Because again, if they happen to get there, it's going to be extremely hard to beat a healthy LeBron James, Anthony Davis, with a handful of good role players in a playoff series. So again, it's a puncher's chance, the 13th most likely chance, but I think the Lakers have that puncher's chance

to win the title as long as everyone stays healthy and as long as they make a Russell Westbrook trade to bring in more competent role players. Worst case scenario, don't have to go too deep into it. Injuries cause a bunch of problems. They keep Russ around and there's a bunch of drama so the locker room is toxic and then you end up punting the 20th season

of LeBron James' career. To be clear, I think that's the most likely outcome. I would not be surprised if they held under Russ thinking that they can get Kyrie. The season gets off to a really ugly start so by the time they get to the deadline, it doesn't make sense to trade Russ anyway, and then they end up just punting this whole thing. That is what I think will happen, to be clear.

But I do think there's a possibility that it could go better. The biggest X factor for this particular team is Austin Reeves. He's already right now heading into his second season, an above-average defensive player. He's an excellent positional defender. We've talked about this before, the difference between forward aggressive, trying to force turnover type of defenders, and then positional defenders that give ground with the purpose of making you shoot over the top.

Austin always did a really good job of sliding his feet, taking contact into chest, and forcing players to shoot over the top, and they would miss. He has a decent amount of size. He's 6'5 with basketball shoes on, and he gives consistent effort on every possession. The biggest thing there is he's going to have to put on some muscle,

but from what we've heard, he has put on a lot of muscle this offseason. I think he's put on almost 15 pounds of muscle. If that's the case, he could be a great defensive player next year. The other thing with Austin Reeves that he's really good at is attacking closeouts. And you Laker fans will know exactly what I'm talking about. Austin Reeves, when he would beat someone off the dribble when attacking a closeout, would always make the right read.

If there was an open shooter on the wing, he was going to hit them. If there was an open player cutting back door, he was going to hit them. If there was a big man in the dunker spot, he was going to hit them. He was very good attacking closeouts. His weakness was he wasn't good enough as a catch-and-shoots. he had only an effective field goal percentage of 53%, which is okay, but on only 2.2 attempts, he pump faked way too often if there was a contest anywhere near. He needs to get to the point where he can confidently and competently knock down three-point shots

at a higher clip, most importantly, higher volume. He needs to get that catch-and-shoot percentage or attempts up from 2.2, up to closer to 4. A little bit quicker release and a little bit more confident so he doesn't pump-fake as much. but if Austin Reeves can turn himself into a legitimate 3-and-D player and replace one of those really good role players that they were missing from that 2020 season, that would go a long way towards improving their chances. So yeah, a lot to unpack there.

We got into a ton of stuff today, and we're going to talk about the Lakers a lot this year as long as they're relevant, and we'll talk about them again if they make a rush trade. But it's just they're a super wide range of outcomes. They could miss the playoffs entirely, and they can win the title. I think they're the only team in the league that has that type of variance. All right, that's all I have for today.

As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys' support. And I'll be back tomorrow with number 12. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

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