December 2, 2021 • 44 mins
In this episode, Jason answers questions from the audience. Comparing the Suns to the Lakers, Frank's job security, AD as the focal point, and much more. Thanks for listening!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome to the State of the Lakers on DASH Radio.
Thank you guys so much for coming to hang out
on a Thursday. Um weird stretch of Lakers basketball. Obviously,
with the way the schedule worked out, they played on Tuesday,
and then before their game on Tuesday. Next week they
only play once and that's on Friday. And obviously Rog
and I have been in a groove of recording basically
(00:38):
every single every other day for the last couple of months,
and so obviously this break is kind of strange. So
we're gonna be getting away from some of the Twitter spaces.
I'm gonna be doing a mail bag pod today. A
bunch of you asked some really good questions and I
appreciate that. And then probably on either Saturday or Sunday,
Rog and I will get together again to do something
along those lines, whether it's mail bag, whether it's some
(01:00):
midseason awards stuff, whether it's some you know, trade ideas
for the Lakers or something along those lines. Not really
sure what we'll do. We'll figure something out to do
over the weekend, and then obviously we will have our
normal postgame show tomorrow night after the Lakers Clippers game,
and again on Tuesday. Um, but we're gonna We're gonna
dive straight into the mail back. We're only gonna go
(01:22):
for about thirty minutes today, so it'll be nice and
short and easy. The first question I got was from
Nicholas Quick. Uh did you hear cowherds take yesterday that
the Sons are the team for now in the next
five years? The Lakers are old and poorly constructed, chopped deliver.
What's your response? Um, you know, first of all, Laker
fans have to come to terms with the fact that
(01:45):
this team has opened themselves up to slander and that's
just part of the deal. Um, they've played themselves into
this situation. There are other teams that have done the
same thing that Laker fans have taken advantage of in
sent years. A lot of you probably had a lot
to say about the Warriors over the last couple of
years and in their uh predicament that they were in.
(02:08):
But if you talk to somebody in the Warriors fan base,
I'm sure they would tell you, like, we believe that
when Clay gets back, and when we get some veterans
around step instead of some of these young players, we
believe it's going to get better. They have their optimism.
They see the light at the end of the tunnel,
just like we do. We see, you know, hey, Lebron
is gonna come back. The guys are starting to play harder.
(02:30):
Trevor Rees is coming back, which fills like a direct
need and the roster. This effort is the first time
we really are seeing consistent buy in this entire season.
We see the light at the end of the tunnel.
So we believe in what this team can be. But
people outside, people outside of our fan base, have every
right to look at us and kick us while we're down,
(02:50):
so to speak, in terms of Laker fans in the
Laker team in general, and we just kind of have
to live with that and understand that that's just how
this works. Um. As far as Cowherd particular take, he's
not wrong in the sense that if you're looking at
the picture right now, it appears that Phoenix is in
a much better position. You know. They He talks a
(03:11):
lot about how they do have They are built for
now and for the future. They do have a lot
of really exciting young pieces. Michail Bridges reminds me a
lot of Tashaun Prince, like a better offensive version of
Tashaun Prince, just in the sense that he's this incredibly
long wing that causes problems for basically every perimeter player
in the league. DeAndre Ayton projects to be an all
(03:34):
star level center in this league. We know what Devin
Booker and Chris Paul are capable of, and it's easy
to kind of draw a line between this is Chris
Paul's potential decline and this is DeAndre Ayton and Michael
bridges potential ascent. So it's easy to see like this
team is gonna be relevant for a really long time,
and they are. I would argue that because he said that,
(03:56):
you know, in his take, he said that the Lakers
had zero of their ten top ten players that are
in their prime. I would disagree with that. Anthony Davis
is very much in his prime. Th h t is
not in his prime now, but he will be sometime
in the next five years. The Lakers do have a
lot more flexibility and a lot more potential for the
future than people think. Um. The other thing too is
payroll flexibility. The Lakers don't have any long contracts tying
(04:20):
them up, so they have a lot of flexibility moving forward. Yes,
next season, You've got Russ on the books. That makes
some things complicated for the next season, but after that,
other than Lebron and a d it's pretty much wide
open outside of th h T. So this team is
built in a way that they can retool year after year.
That said, yes, they're very much invested in this two
(04:41):
year window, so it's easy to get discouraged with how
it looks here because they don't have a ton of
flexibility strictly within these next two years. That's fair. What
I would say is all the things that I've been
saying in recent pods about them trending in the right direction,
the effort is better. Help is on the way. In
terms of the role players, Kendrick Nunn, it would be
(05:03):
better than most of the guards that the Lakers are
playing right now. Trevor Reasa is a forward that just
doesn't exist on the roster in terms of a role player,
those things will absolutely help. The Lakers do have a
little bit of trade flexibility, which we'll talk about later.
But the point is is there there Things aren't as
dire as they appear. But from the outside looking in,
(05:24):
wouldn't you rather be the Suns right at this exact
moment in time with the way things look. That's that's
that's not exactly the most outlandish take. Now where where
I would personally choose the Lakers over the Suns has
to do with the idea of a ceiling, And this
is a concept that is kind of convoluted because it's
hard to It's hard to justify using a ceiling as
(05:47):
the as the silver lining or as the light at
the end of the tunnel when so much of this
is regular season basketball and playoff basketball. Before you get
to that point, the Suns look fantastic all year. Last
year they look fantastic. In the first round, they look fantastic,
and second round they look fantastic. In the third round,
they look fantastic for two games in the NBA Finals,
and then guess what happened? Milwaukee, because of their elite
(06:08):
high end talent and Janice, We're able to hit a
ceiling as a team that Phoenix could not touch and
they lost four straight times. And during that time there
were some really good punches from Phoenix Game four, really
good punch. Devin Booker got really hot a couple of
times in that stretch and showed some shot making that
could have gotten them over the top, but it just
(06:29):
wasn't enough. The ceiling for Milwaukee is higher than the
ceiling for Phoenix considerably, and it costs them a championship.
And so the way I would look at it, you know,
I was talking about the Laker championship odds the other day,
I remember, and one of the things I pointed out
was like, you know, yeah, it's easy to say, why
would the Lakers have Some sports books have them at
fourth and some sports books have them closer to six
(06:51):
or seventh, depending on where you look. But like, the
reason why it's still a reasonably decent bet to bet
on the Lakers is because Lebron and a d can
reach a ceiling that these other teams can't reach. Most
of these teams can't reach. Brooklyn can reach that ceiling potentially,
you know, Milwaukee can reach that ceiling potentially. Golden State
(07:11):
if Steph gets going, can can reach that ceiling. But
a lot of these teams, like Phoenix and like Utah,
they just don't have that super super high end talent
that can match those peak peak guys in those biggest
moments That significantly limits their ceiling. So where I would
disagree with Colin is. I would say, if you're the Lakers,
you have the two best players in that series, like
(07:35):
absolutely no question. So even if the Suns have the
best system ever, and even if the Suns have really
good habits that they've established all season long, and even
if Chris Paul and Devin Booker played to their best,
ability if Lebron and A D played to their best,
you might lose. As a matter of fact, we saw
that last year. We saw a limited version of Lebron
(07:55):
coming off of an ankle injury. We saw Anthony Davis
a few games removed um achilles tend to tend to
tend to noses or tending to pathi or whatever the
heck they called it, and Anthony Davis still couldn't make
a jump shot. Um The entire Laker corps of role
players went ice cold from three. They had absolutely no
space to operate. And guess what happened. Lebron and A
(08:17):
D physically overwhelmed Phoenix, and they won back to back games,
and they were up two games to one, and they
were clowning the Suns in the first half of Game four,
throwing lobs off the backboard and stuff, until Anthony Davis
pulled his growing and then at that point, because the
team has all of their talent tied up in those
two players, the wheels came off, and that was to
(08:37):
be expected. But at the end of the day, if
I'm looking at this situation as long as I have,
even even with them declining apparently with Anthony Davis trending
down into the bottom half of that top ten and
Lebron as well, it's still is of higher ceiling potential
than what you get with the Phoenix or with the
Utah or teams teams in that tier or like Miami
(08:58):
is another good example of that. Um So, from that standpoint,
if you're a Laker fan like it always could be
a heck of a lot worse. But again, like I
said at the beginning, let's not let's not discount the
feelings of those outside of our fan base, because they're
well warranted. This Laker team has played an incredibly weak
schedule to start the season in their twelve and eleven So,
(09:19):
I mean, are is anybody really wrong in in the
in the stuff that they're saying that was that that
would be my little caveat there alright? How many days
this is from Dre Dave how many days before DeAndre
Jordan gets removed from this roster. Strategy of hiding DeAndre
(09:40):
Jordan behind first unit players was understood DJ is unplayable
with the second unit players because they lacked the skills
to hide DJ. So the DeAndre Jordan thing I talked
a lot about this in the last part is one
of the more interesting phenomena that I've seen in recent
history in the NBA. Because you know, like I, I've
been slandered relentlessly for this specific take because of the
(10:04):
fact that I said that I actually liked the DJ
signing over the summer. Now, I've tried to explain that
as best as possible, Like I saw him as an
end of the bench center, a guy who would only
play when Dwight Navy rested, not as a guy who
would be the starter for this group. I saw him
as a guy who would be able to maintain scheme consistency.
(10:27):
You could run drop coverage with Dwight and a D
and essentially when one of them is out, rather than
having to change your scheme the way you had to
sometimes with the Montrez Harrald, you could just do the
same thing with DeAndre Jordan's have that scheme consistency to
carry you for one or two nights in the regular
season and then subbing back out. I never saw him
(10:49):
as that type of player. Now, obviously, in my little
diet tribe over the summer, I said that I saw
him as a athletic primarily defensive center in terms of
the archetype. And just for the record, guys, I've done
over a hundred episodes of this stuff. You don't think
occasionally I slip up with my words and use a
little bit of hyperbole and exaggerate a little bit and
maybe put my foot in my mouth. Sometimes that's happened
(11:11):
more than once. I promise you, if you go back
and listen to all that junk that I said over
the course of last year, you're gonna find stupid stuff
that I said. That's the nature of the of what
this is. That's the nature of podcasting. So if you
want to rub that in my face, be my guest.
I can take it. But essentially, what's been interesting about
this is I also anticipated that Brooklyn, in their poor
(11:35):
defensive identity and their tendency to switch rather than run
a drop coverage, would lead to DeAndre Jordan's looking better
with the Lakers. Why Because they're a drop coverage team
and for the last two seasons they've had an amazing
defensive identity and Frank, even with limited defensive players, people
(11:55):
forget Avery Bradley was trending way down defensively before he
signed with the Laker. Kyle Kuzma was viewed as a
bad defensive player before Frank got his hands on him.
K CP was viewed as an okay defensive player. A
lot of these guys were were has massively outperformed what
their defensive expectations were under Frick coming into this season.
(12:17):
So I allowed that to make me optimistic about plugging
DeAndre in with this group as opposed to that Brooklyn group,
running a scheme that actually makes sense with what he does,
and having a group of guys that would, you know,
commit to that with him, and that he would look
better than he did in Brooklyn. That's what I was
(12:37):
expecting and where I was obviously way wrong is this
team just completely punted their defensive identity from day one
of training camp and from the top down, including Lebron
and a b have mostly mailed that end of the
floor in So, of course DeAndre is gonna look terrible.
That's just the reality of the situation. So I mean,
(12:59):
that's that's just my two cents on that take from
the summer. And again, yeah, I was wrong about some
stuff with that. I failed to anticipate Frank and the
way he would use him in the rotation. I failed
to anticipate the way the team would fall apart defensively
outside of DeAndre. Guys, when they were in drop coverage
with Anthony Davis. This season, it has looks terrible outside
of specific stretches of games. That's that's just the reality
(13:22):
of this team. So it's not fair to put all
of that on DeAndre. That said, I get just as
annoyed as you guys when he's on the floor because
I don't think he should be unless a break class
in case of emergency, here's an injury, here's the rest day,
we need to use him. That was what I always
saw with DeAndre. Now, as far as cutting him, goes
(13:42):
back to the question. You know, DeAndre has to inevitably
over the course of the next few weeks if Frank
does what we hope you will do, which is bench
Jim Hays, who embraced the bench roll. You know, we
saw that little video of the altercation. I think it
was on Pickup Hoops Twitter page where they seem to
get into it Frank and DJ on the sideline if DJ,
(14:06):
if Frank opts to take DJ out of the rotation,
and that's DJ's behavior, that's the way he chooses to act. Yeah,
you gotta cut him. You can't have a a realistic
championship goal and have a really, really unhappy player in
the locker room that's constantly messing with your team chemistry.
You can't have that. But my guess is what will
(14:26):
happen is because you do need d Guys. We need
DJ as an end of the bench center. We need
him in case a D goes down for a couple
of weeks, because if a D goes down for a
couple of weeks, there's no guarantee that Dwight can handle
all of it. At the end of the day, DJ
is needed. He's just miscast in his role. Okay, I
(14:48):
know everyone says, let's play j Huff, but guys, there's
a reason why he wasn't on a roster coming into
this season. If J Huff was playing every single minute
that DJ was playing, you guys would be slandering him too,
because he's probably a fringe NBA player, and so if
you play a fringe NBA player against good NBA teams,
he's not gonna look great all the time. That's just
the reality of how this stuff works. So, yes, if
(15:10):
DJ becomes a problem for the chemistry, you have to
cut him and try to work around that sign someone else.
But hopefully you move him to the bench. He embraces that.
A lot of the guys in that locker room are
friends with him from Team USA and from other basketball
related engagements. You want him on the team, You just
need him to be in his proper role. Alright. Moving on,
(15:33):
who's a realistic target for the deadline slash buyout? So
the reality is of the Lakers are not very flexible
right now. Um, they basically have one trade piece and
that's Taylor Horton Tucker, and they have one other player
that they can use a salary filler, and that's Kendrick Nunn.
Those two players get you to right around sixteen million, okay,
(15:55):
So realistically you're looking at players within within a couple
million of twenty million dollars is like your cap for
what you can trade for buyouts? Are tough. You never
really know what to expect in the buyout market. It's
a lot easier to get a feel for that sort
of thing as we get closer to that time in
the season, and quite frankly, guys like there are guys
(16:18):
out there that have the time to comb through every
single roster and make phone calls to exact and try
to get a feel for who might be a buyout candidate.
That's not what I have time for. With everything that
I have on my play as a coach and as
a real estate agent and doing this, I have time
to really really focus on Laker basketball games in a
(16:39):
handful of other big games around the league. But there
are better places for you to go for, you know,
checklists of different buyout guys that that might be available
that that come that time of year. As far as
the trade candidates go, the one that I have my
biggest eye on is Jeremy Grant. And I've talked about
this in previous podcasts, But the thing with Jeremy Grant is,
you know, I've seen him in the playoffs and what
(17:03):
he's capable of. Yeah, did Lebron have his way with
him in a lot of ways. Of course, Bill Lebron
has his way with the vast majority perimeter defenders in
the league. He did a pretty damn good job on
Kawhi Leonard in the bubble. He is a good shooter,
not a great shooter, but a good shooter and a
guy who can put the ball on the floor. He's
capable of that advanced closeout attacking that I always talked
(17:24):
about that, Okay, they rotate to the rim and they
chase you off the three point line off of a
skip pass. What can you do to create offense in
that situation. We're getting a lot of this from the
Leak Monk this year, that in between stuff that, Okay,
they chased him off the line, he ripped through the baseline,
ripped through the middle, and he makes a tough floater,
(17:44):
or he makes a pull up ten footer, or he
makes a layup, but it's a contested layup where he
contorts his body around the guy and finishes on the
other side of the rim. That's advanced close out attacking.
We're not gonna get any of that from Trevor Ariza.
What we're gonna get from Trevor Easa is really really
solid individual defense and really really solid team defense at
the wing position with some size versatility. That's true. But
(18:07):
Jeremy Graham as an athlete and what he's capable of
on the defensive end is another level or another tier
above that. And then offensively, he's a guy that in
the playoffs can have games re scores twenty points. And
so I like him as a as the ideal target
because he's at a healthier salary. We're not looking at
trying to go after a Harrison Barnes that's up around
twenty five million or whatever. We're looking at a guy
(18:28):
who's right at twenty million. We can flip Kendrick Nunn
and th h T for him and bring him in.
And it's this obvious, clear ceiling raising move with our
core five man line up. Our core five man lineup,
which is another question that we're gonna get to in
a minute, which will address, you know, in a in
a world where we don't have Jeremy Grant, but our
(18:50):
core five man line up is gonna send around Lebron,
a d and Russ some kind of forward in some
kind of guard. And so that forward right now is
probably gonn be Trevor a Resa. But if you upgrade
that to Jeremy Grant. That's a huge upgrade. Not to mention,
Jeremy Grant can defend up and down a position, so
you can even go wild and play Jeremy Grant and
(19:12):
Trevor a Resa in that lineup and have a ton
of length of versatility. There's a lot of potential for
ceiling raising lineups if you add Jeremy Grant to the mix.
And I also just think it's a very realistic trade, uh,
in terms of both sides being interested. Detroit through a
bunch of money at Jeremy Grant. They threw it because
(19:32):
they were in a situation where they didn't really have
any sort of obvious pending contending season in the future,
right because they're just basically a perennial lottery team. They've
got killing in Hayes that they just picked up in
the lottery, they just got Kid Cunningham. They're they're they're
not really in a position where throwing twenty million dollars
a year or two player cap straps them. So it
(19:54):
was like an easy little money investment for them. It's
money they had to spend, doesn't hurt the team, doesn't
hurt their future, flexibility, gives a guy that they can
run the offense through while these young guys are developing.
It was an easy move for them. But that said,
Detroit is not invested in Jeremy Grant in their future.
He's not part of their long term vision for what
they're doing with the team. So Jeremy Grant is there
(20:17):
to be had, and he only has one more year
on that deal. So th HT that is an obvious
fit as a guy that a team could use to
project forward with their their development window, with their rebuilding window.
Not to mention, Kay Cunningham projects to be a guy
who can eventually guard twos and threes, and th h T,
(20:38):
as we've seen, can guard threes and fours because of
how strong he is. And again, when you're when you're
talking about position, it's all about who you can guard,
not what you do offensively. Th h T projects within
the next five years to be able to be a
guy who can defend one through four and a guy
who can hold his own and post mismatches, and a
(20:58):
guy who can offensively be a slasher in the same
way that a small forward or any sort of stretch
forward would be. So he's a guy that is an
obvious fit alongside Killy and Hayes and Kake Kan cunning him,
and he's a very clear investment in the future. So
if you're the if you're the Pistons and like you
get a chance to flip Jeremy Grant for a player
(21:21):
like th HT who has the potential to be an
All Star within the next five years with all of
his physical tools and everything that he brings to the table,
what's a no brainer. And if you're the Lakers, you
believe in th HT, you know what he can do
for you now and in the future. But the reality
is is he's not a fantastic fit right now with
this championship window. He's not a You're not there's a
(21:43):
diminishing return there. What the Lakers are getting from th
h T right now on a championship contending team does
not match up with what his value is elsewhere in
the league. So from that standpoint, it's the perfect time
to trade him. You of an opportunity to cash in
a piece that other people think is more value valuable
(22:05):
than it is to you in this moment. But it's
it's just to me, it's it's kind of like a
perfect case of a trade that makes sense for both sides.
We'll see, as is always the case, Like you just
don't know what's going on in the Laker front office.
Like it's like we're about to talk about Frank Vogel
in a minute. I don't know. I don't know what
the internally, what the team is thinking about Frank. I
don't know if Lebron and a d or trashing him
(22:26):
in a group chat. I don't know if Rob and
Genie are having conversations about firing him, or if they're
all on board and we're all in our own heads
about this stuff. We don't we don't know. We're all
guessing at this point. And that's the same. The same
thing goes with th h T. We don't know if
they're completely invested in th HT would never in a
million years consider trading him. They think he's the future,
(22:46):
or if it was like, hey, we're gonna sign him
to a three year, thirty million dollar deal, and the
idea is if he fits with this group, great, If not,
we're trading him. We don't know. And there's obviously the
clutch element in there as well, But Jeremy Grant is
my favorite trade target going into the deadline. What do
you think it will take for Anthony Davis to take
over and play like the number one option for the
(23:07):
Lakers on a consistent basis if you won't do it
now with Lebron's availability issues this season, and I don't
know if you'll ever get there. He's twenty eight. Lebron
is about to be thirty seven. That question is from Rob.
So I've talked a lot about this on previous pods,
But Anthony Davis will never be what you want him
to be if you're trying to get him to be
like Lebron can be for a team. He's just not
(23:29):
that archetype of player. This is one of the big
reasons why, you know, I was thinking about maybe doing
a top ten podcast today and I opted for the
mail bag instead. But when I was thinking about that,
I went back and listened to my top ten lists
that I did about about two years ago. Just about
two years ago, eighteen months ago. I can't even remember.
It was right after the bubble, so yeah, wow, that's
(23:50):
only like thirteen fourteen months ago. It's not that long ago.
But anyway, in that pod, I talked a lot about
how that do you guys remember after Janice in the
Bucks got eliminated by Miami and the bubble, there was
a lot of talk about trying to convert Janice into
a center, this idea that he was miscast as a
perimeter initiator, and we all kind of reached out a
(24:12):
conclusion because of watching him perpetually dribble the ball up
and be completely neutered in half court by defenses that
packed the paint. Now, in that podcast, in that top
ten podcast that I did forever Go, I pushed back
against that and I said the Bucks were smart to
invest in Janice as a perimeter initiator because your potential
(24:34):
value as a superstar in this league is infinitely higher
as a guy who can bring the ball up the
floor and initiate from the perimeter than it is is
a guy who needs to be set up. And I
was proven right about that, and the Bucks were rewarded
on that investment when Janice became unstoppable in last year's
playoff run and it held up the Larry O'Brian Trophy Janice.
(24:58):
That investment in that area of Janice's game was the
difference between him being what many consider to be the
best player in the world right now and a guy
who's in that same tier with a d you know,
like incredibly good in many nights, looks like the best
player on the floor, but just not the same as
those top guys when they really have it going. And
(25:20):
that's the situation with Anthony Davis. His inability to persistently
initiate offense from the perimeter perimeter with a live dribble
significantly hinders his ceiling, and so because of that, you're
never going to get him to be Lebron, so to speak,
the guy who can be the engine of a team
night in and night out and carry you for long
(25:40):
stretches when Lebron is out with injury. It's just not
something he's capable of now. In fairness to Anthony Davis,
I'm not sure that he ever could have been that
because an underrated part of Janice's game is his foot speed,
both laterally, straight line, first step, all of that stuff,
long steps, those like really heavy hamstring steps that used
(26:01):
to see Dwyane Wade do all the time. He does
all the time that we gather the ball att and
somehow get all the way to the rim, and like
two steps that those are all areas of Janice's athleticism
that are significantly higher than Anthony Davis's athleticism, So it's
not really realistic to compare the two of them. Anthony
Davis has a great handle, so I'm not necessarily convinced
(26:23):
that it's not something that they've tried and it's just
not worked for him because of his lack of foot speed. So,
but that's that's the thing. If Laker fans, you're setting
yourself up for disappointment if you want Anthony Davis to
eventually become that guy, because I just don't think he's
physically capable of that, uh in any time, and he's
(26:43):
already twenty eight. Like the like the question asked, you know,
when you're building around him moving forward, if you're looking
at this from a five year window, kind of getting
back to that first question we had, you know, you're
constantly retooling around him. Right, So Lebron rejects as he
ages to be a slower player, for sure, but that
(27:04):
doesn't mean he can't be a perimeter initiator. He absolutely
can come up the floor and run offense. We've seen
in tons of times in NBA history really really big
slow forward to be able to run offense We've seen
that with Kedo Turkoglue with the Orlando Magic. You know,
like that the Spurs used to do this a lot
with bores d O. You can use big, slow players
as playmakers. Playmakers, guys that can put the ball on
(27:26):
the floor and get guys into positions. So I'm not
worried about Lebron being able to do that. Projecting forward,
when you're building around that, though, you just target Anthony
Davis's weaknesses. That's why they went after us. Part of
the reason why they were so good in Sacramento the
other night is your ability to have this high end
perimeter initiator next to Anthony Davis playing at his best,
(27:49):
and so that that's kind of the way that I projected.
You know, if you get to the point where Russ
is done and you don't want Russ anymore, and he
goes and signs somewhere else, maybe you'll get lucky you
signed him at a discount to stay with the lake Yrs.
But you have an opportunity to look at the landscape
of the league and primarily focused on perimeter initiators, guys
that can get Anthony Davis. Is Anthony Davis into his
(28:10):
spots at that point you can potentially extend this window
in moving forward. That's one of the reasons why it
maybe if he for the Laker front office to let
go of th h T as I'm sure they're hoping
that by the time th h T turns twenty four
and Lebron is forty, that th h T can kind
of slide into that spot. You know. That's that's where
(28:32):
you get your best opportunity with when you're cap strapped
to have that type of player is when it's in house,
when it's from the draft, because you just have more
flexibility to go over the cap to bring those kinds
of guys in. But Anthony Davis is always going to
need that kind of player. He's never gonna be able
to be honest, And the sooner that we all understand that,
the more realistic we can be projecting forward with Anthony
(28:54):
Davis on this team. All right, Next question, moving on
to Frank Vogel. If Vogel was to get sacked, who
would you want to replace him? Including external coaches? Thanks,
This is from M so I have come around to
(29:20):
not wanting to fire Frank for the time being. Now
this is like a horse race. This thing is constantly
sliding back and forth, and we're always adjusting and responding
to new information. During the ugliest parts of this season,
you know, namely after the Sacramento loss and triple overtime,
we you know, there were a ton of problems with
the Lakers. They had a lot of issues. Frank was
(29:43):
just one of those issues. The reason why I advocated
firing for Frank at that point was I saw him
as the only real fixable issue, right, Like, the Lakers
don't have the roster flexibility to make significant changes to UH,
to line up versatility. You know. The only thing they
can do there is hope Trevor Reason gets back, you know,
(30:05):
and hope Kendrick Nunn gets back. They can't even trade
th h t intil the middle of December, so there's
just not a lot of flexibility on that front. Talking
about like, oh, we need more defensive guards, Okay, that's great,
but what you can't You can't get any more defensive
guards unless they're currently outside of the league, which means
they're probably not that good. Okay. And then the same
goes for you know, trying to get UH, you know,
(30:29):
Frank to not play DeAndre Jordan or something like that
that all all of those problems could only be fixed.
The only fixable, like actual actionable item that the Lakers
could go to was firing Frank, and the reason why
I supported that at that point in time had to
do with buy in. I saw Lebron and a D
not caring about this season nearly as much as they
(30:51):
did in the previous two seasons. It was blatant to
anybody who was paying attention. Yes there was scheme stuff,
Yes there were lineup stuff, Yes there was injury stuf off,
but Lebron and a D also weren't bought in, and
as I've seen with Lebron in the past, a coaching
change has the potential to invigorate him in that regard.
(31:12):
It's whether it's because they need a new voice or
just the chaos of it all breeds urgency, I'm not sure,
But for whatever reason, it appeared that those two guys
weren't bought in, and so I thought firing Frank, even
though he's not the only reason why this season went
off the rails, would be a good opportunity to try
to light a fire under Lebron and a D well
(31:34):
in the last two games. Obviously, Lebron missing the last
one with COVID, the stars have been fantastic. In that
game against the Pistons at home, Lebron and a D
were unbelievable on both ends of the floor physically, uh
actually attempting to use their physical tools. Two bully teams
on both sides of the floor. And then Anthony Davis
(31:54):
looked like he was the best player in the world
candidate the other night in Sacramento. So if that's turning around,
if the guys are buying back in, then I would
want to stick with Frank because I think in the
long run, what he can get out of this team
defensively is more important for the ceiling of this team. Now,
(32:16):
with we've talked a lot about how that has to
be within an offensive context, right, Like, he needs to
bring the most defensively out of our best offensive players
in hopes of kind of building that identity that you
know that we saw in the second half against Sacramento.
That's what we need to build towards. But Frank is
the best guy for that specific job. Now, let's say uh,
(32:39):
the like Lebron and a D are back in the
lineup in the next couple of weeks and they both
are playing fantastic on both ends of the floor, but
Frank just continues to be completely offensively and apt and
it starts costing his games, whether that's through DJ or
just you know, a bunch of really really poor concepts,
and even though Lebron and d are trying, it's just
(32:59):
not king. If that's the case. I like Mike D'Antoni.
I think he's an obvious fit in terms of the
identity of this team as a running up and down
the floor type of team, as a team that will
lean heavily into their offensive talent. Most importantly, as we've
seen with him in Houston, he is the ideal five
(33:20):
out coach. So you know, five outs all about spacing.
The one of the biggest things that's been frustrating about
this Laker team is you'll see Lebron or a D
post up on the wing or on the block, and
when they do, rather than going to a five out
spacing concept, especially with Anthony Davis because he doesn't feel
(33:40):
comfortable having a person behind him because he doesn't like
having to watch his backside, they'll have to cram all
four other players on half of the floor, and so
what inevitably ends up happening is you'll have a even
when they go small, you'll have a guard sitting in
the dunker spot, which actively undercuts the point of going
small to begin with. And so what's great about Mike
(34:03):
D'Antoni is he's really really well versed in five out
offensive concepts. He will be the best guy to give
Lebron a D and Russ isolation sets where all four
guys are properly spaced on the floor in positions where
they can shoot so that there's not a body in
the paint, or if there is a body in the paint,
there's an easy swing pass available to make the team pay.
(34:26):
He nailed this down in Houston, especially after the Capella trade.
The Lakers, if they lean into playing small and having
a lot of Anthony Davis and Lebron at center, can
play basically a five out scheme like Houston did, and
so Mike D'Antoni would be the perfect guy for that
type of job. Then you just hope that at the
highest Mike D'Antoni is probably gonna lean heavily into switching,
which would be great on defense, and even if it's
(34:49):
not the best defensive scheme, that you've ever seen, like
we've seen in the past with Frank Lebron in a DS,
physical ability raises the ceiling of that defense nificantly compared
to what Mike could have done in Houston. So again,
don't want to fire Frank right now because I was
only interested in firing him to try to light a
fire under Lebron in a D and right now they
(35:12):
seem to be trending in that right direction. So I
would keep Frank, but things go off the rails again.
If the group does decide the front office and Jeannie
decide to fire Frank, I would look in the direction
of Mike D'Antoni. Right. Okay, this is the last question.
(35:35):
This is from Chenny Britt. How should a guy like
th h T approaches outside shooting struggles. It seems like
he's put in a lot of work into his jumper,
in his form and his free throw percentage are both good.
What's the next step for translating that into a better
on court percentage? So not to get into the weeds
of shooting coaching here, Um, but shooting is is such
(35:57):
a fickle thing because it's a it's a low percentage task,
even on your best, even when you're at your best right,
Like if we look at you know, there are a
handful of guys in NBA history that I've had seasons
where they get over and you know, they knocked down
fifty three o the threes or something along those lines.
But for the most part, like even if you're a
(36:19):
really really good shooter, you miss more than you make.
So it's a really really hard thing to figure out mentally,
especially for a young player, when you don't really know
how to contextualize your misses and understand that that's just
kind of part of the game. I think THHD projects
to be a really good shooter because he's a really
good shooter at the free throw line. The reason why
(36:39):
is the free throw line is the static situation of shooting.
The free throw line is the best indicator of your touch.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Lebron is a
very inconsistent shooter from the perimeter because he's inconsistent at
the free throw line. I don't think it's a coincidence
that outside of a couple of really bad shooting games
this year, Lebron is shot pretty well from three and
(37:00):
also is having a good season from the free throw line.
Because his touch this particular season is better. He's doing
well in that regard. Um. You know, we I've talked
in the past about Lebron's form. I'm not gonna get
into it right now, but th HD has a really
really good, solid base, and he's got good touch, and
he's got big hands. Big hands are important for shooting.
I know it sounds crazy. You think of a lot
(37:20):
of the centers in NBA history who have shot poorly
because there because a lot of people think it's because
of their big hands, But there are so many players
in NBA history with big hands that have shot great,
So I think it's kind of a cop out excuse.
When you have big hands on the basketball, it actually
helps you to avoid left right misses. It's actually a
form thing that I teach kids, and then I had
a coach teach me when I was in junior college.
(37:43):
Spreading your fingers further out around the ball help you
stay in line with your shooting stroke. It makes it
a focus on distance rather than left to right. So
th h T projects to be a really good shooter,
as in the sense that he's got huge hands, he's
got a really strong base. It'll help, it'll be easier
for him to stay on balance. In the long run,
(38:03):
I do believe we'll see him be a really good shooter.
He's struggling now. Why is that? I think it has
a lot to do with shot selection and inconsistent role.
He started again against uh the Kings on the road
the other night. Since he came back into the lineup,
it's just been a complete cluster f of differing circumstances.
It's been I'm starting this game, Lebron's out, I'm shooting
(38:24):
a ton of shots. Okay, Now Anthony Davis is out. Okay,
Now I'm coming off the bench. Okay, now Lebron's out again. Okay,
now I'm I'm coming off the bench with Lebron out. Okay,
Now Lebron is um out, and I'm moved back into
the starting lineup. Like it's just been, it's just been
a roller coaster of of differing circumstances for him. And then, honestly,
(38:46):
one of the worst things that happened to him was
he played so well in the first few games, tricked
him into thinking he was ahead of where he was
in his own development. You know, if you come into
the league and and you come off of an off
season when you worked really hard and your average over
twenty points a game for a three game stretch and
you look like a potential future All Star. Gets in
your head a little bit you start to think I'm
(39:06):
here in my development when in reality, um somewhere further
down here, you know what I mean. And so he
had to kind of have a wake up call in
that in that respect, you know, we we saw Davion
Mitchell just apply a little bit of ball pressure and
completely throw him out of his rhythm offensively and really
struggle as a playmaker and make a lot of bad
decisions one after the other. That's kind of a youthful thing.
(39:28):
That's that's that's part of that. And we talked a
lot about how we want him not to be an
on ball creator, but a guy who would work on
the second side. Always work against a already compromised defense
lebron or rust come down and run in action. If
that action gets shut down, you swing it to th
HD guy closes out at him. As opposed to dealing
with ball pressure, He's working with an advantage. The defense
(39:49):
is pre shifted over to the lebron a D side.
He has more opportunity to succeed in that second side.
I'd like to see more of that the as a
posed to what they did with Sacramento putting him on
the ball the whole time. That's that as far as
the shooting goes. Once he had embraces and understands he's
not the guy from the first three games, but he's
(40:09):
actually closer to what he was in the beginning of
last year when Lebron and n A. D were healthy,
which is a guy who plays off the ball, who
sells his soul on the defensive end of the ball
to be an all defense level guard and then attacks
closeouts and then up in a little bit from there
to have him run some action on the backside, like
we just discussed, that's where he's gonna be at his
(40:33):
best with this group in this championship window. Inside of
that context, he needs to just be more disciplined with
the shot selection. We talk a lot like when you
take bad shots and you miss him, you can trick
yourself in your head to thinking I just don't have
it tonight. Do you really not have it tonight or
(40:53):
are you showing bad process? Because where I say I
don't have it tonight, is when I'm getting wide open
looks all day long and they're just not going in.
That's that's different. But with th HT, what I'm seeing
a lot of is taking the same shots from when
he was averaging twenty points a game, them not going
in and a kind of snowballing on him and him
(41:14):
doing the classic young player thing, which is that I'm
having a bad game and so now it's manifesting everywhere
on the floor, turnovers, bad defense, x y Z. So
this Kyle Kuzma used to have this problem a lot
when he was with the Lakers. But that's what I'd
like to see is just really really tightening up a
shot selection, taking wide open threes on kickouts. But I
want him to be aggressive as a catch and shoot shooter.
(41:35):
That's so important because it tricks the defense into thinking
you're a shooter even when you're not. That was the
Kyle Kuzma thing. Again, always a low percentage three point shooter,
but he accomplished real spacing for the Lakers because he
was a gunner. You had to run out on him
because if you didn't, he would shoot. And he had
enough hot nights over the course of his career that
he had a reputation as a guy that she had
(41:56):
to close out on. That's what th h T needs
to be aggressive as a catch and shoot shooter. Be
aggressive attacking closeouts. From there, through high shot quality, he
will break out of his slump when kids, when high
school kids come up to me and say, hey, I'm
in a shooting slump. What do I do? I always say,
don't think about your release. Focus on little details in
your shot. The two details that I always focus on
(42:17):
our legs, like my base, how balanced to my am
I going straight up and down? And are my hands big?
If I have big hands on the ball, I won't
have those left right misses. So for me, when I'm shooting,
as I'm as I'm going into my shot, I deliberately
think legs and hands, legs and hands, legs and hands,
and I do that deliberately to get out of my
head about my release and just focus on these little
(42:38):
details that are controllable. Then if I missed the shot,
I run down the floor and I go did I
have my hands spread out? Did I have a good base? Yes? Okay,
that was good process. The miss is the miss who
cares move on. If I'm running down the floor, and
I go I didn't really feel like I was on balance,
or I didn't I didn't pay attention to my hands
(42:59):
and I missed left or right. Eight. Now, I'm not
saying I'm mad at myself for missing I'm mad at
myself for bad process. I'm mad at myself for bad form.
Or maybe I just took a bad shot in terms
of you know how much separation I had from the defense.
And then I can get me out at myself and
go like, hey z, good one, make a couple of
(43:19):
good back to the tough ones that I approached that.
And so with th HD, by attacking his own neurosis
as a in terms of his shot selection, by getting
on the right track taking easy shots, he will inevitably
bust through his slump because that's just how this works. Alright, guys,
(43:40):
So tomorrow night we will be doing a postgame show
after Lakers Clippers. This will be on my podcast feed
here in about fifteen minutes while Aaron Dash Radio tomorrow
morning at seven am Pacific Standard time. As always, I
sincerely appreciate you guys support of the pod. We continue
to basically set a new record every single day that
we released an episode I've been so amazed by you
(44:01):
guys for rocking with us, and I can't ever express
to you guys how much I appreciate it. Um. I
hope you guys enjoyed the pot and I will see
you guys tomorrow. Night. H
Welcome to the State of the Lakers on DASH Radio.
Thank you guys so much for coming to hang out
on a Thursday. Um weird stretch of Lakers basketball. Obviously,
with the way the schedule worked out, they played on Tuesday,
and then before their game on Tuesday. Next week they
only play once and that's on Friday. And obviously Rog
and I have been in a groove of recording basically
(00:38):
every single every other day for the last couple of months,
and so obviously this break is kind of strange. So
we're gonna be getting away from some of the Twitter spaces.
I'm gonna be doing a mail bag pod today. A
bunch of you asked some really good questions and I
appreciate that. And then probably on either Saturday or Sunday,
Rog and I will get together again to do something
along those lines, whether it's mail bag, whether it's some
(01:00):
midseason awards stuff, whether it's some you know, trade ideas
for the Lakers or something along those lines. Not really
sure what we'll do. We'll figure something out to do
over the weekend, and then obviously we will have our
normal postgame show tomorrow night after the Lakers Clippers game,
and again on Tuesday. Um, but we're gonna We're gonna
dive straight into the mail back. We're only gonna go
(01:22):
for about thirty minutes today, so it'll be nice and
short and easy. The first question I got was from
Nicholas Quick. Uh did you hear cowherds take yesterday that
the Sons are the team for now in the next
five years? The Lakers are old and poorly constructed, chopped deliver.
What's your response? Um, you know, first of all, Laker
fans have to come to terms with the fact that
(01:45):
this team has opened themselves up to slander and that's
just part of the deal. Um, they've played themselves into
this situation. There are other teams that have done the
same thing that Laker fans have taken advantage of in
sent years. A lot of you probably had a lot
to say about the Warriors over the last couple of
years and in their uh predicament that they were in.
(02:08):
But if you talk to somebody in the Warriors fan base,
I'm sure they would tell you, like, we believe that
when Clay gets back, and when we get some veterans
around step instead of some of these young players, we
believe it's going to get better. They have their optimism.
They see the light at the end of the tunnel,
just like we do. We see, you know, hey, Lebron
is gonna come back. The guys are starting to play harder.
(02:30):
Trevor Rees is coming back, which fills like a direct
need and the roster. This effort is the first time
we really are seeing consistent buy in this entire season.
We see the light at the end of the tunnel.
So we believe in what this team can be. But
people outside, people outside of our fan base, have every
right to look at us and kick us while we're down,
(02:50):
so to speak, in terms of Laker fans in the
Laker team in general, and we just kind of have
to live with that and understand that that's just how
this works. Um. As far as Cowherd particular take, he's
not wrong in the sense that if you're looking at
the picture right now, it appears that Phoenix is in
a much better position. You know. They He talks a
(03:11):
lot about how they do have They are built for
now and for the future. They do have a lot
of really exciting young pieces. Michail Bridges reminds me a
lot of Tashaun Prince, like a better offensive version of
Tashaun Prince, just in the sense that he's this incredibly
long wing that causes problems for basically every perimeter player
in the league. DeAndre Ayton projects to be an all
(03:34):
star level center in this league. We know what Devin
Booker and Chris Paul are capable of, and it's easy
to kind of draw a line between this is Chris
Paul's potential decline and this is DeAndre Ayton and Michael
bridges potential ascent. So it's easy to see like this
team is gonna be relevant for a really long time,
and they are. I would argue that because he said that,
(03:56):
you know, in his take, he said that the Lakers
had zero of their ten top ten players that are
in their prime. I would disagree with that. Anthony Davis
is very much in his prime. Th h t is
not in his prime now, but he will be sometime
in the next five years. The Lakers do have a
lot more flexibility and a lot more potential for the
future than people think. Um. The other thing too is
payroll flexibility. The Lakers don't have any long contracts tying
(04:20):
them up, so they have a lot of flexibility moving forward. Yes,
next season, You've got Russ on the books. That makes
some things complicated for the next season, but after that,
other than Lebron and a d it's pretty much wide
open outside of th h T. So this team is
built in a way that they can retool year after year.
That said, yes, they're very much invested in this two
(04:41):
year window, so it's easy to get discouraged with how
it looks here because they don't have a ton of
flexibility strictly within these next two years. That's fair. What
I would say is all the things that I've been
saying in recent pods about them trending in the right direction,
the effort is better. Help is on the way. In
terms of the role players, Kendrick Nunn, it would be
(05:03):
better than most of the guards that the Lakers are
playing right now. Trevor Reasa is a forward that just
doesn't exist on the roster in terms of a role player,
those things will absolutely help. The Lakers do have a
little bit of trade flexibility, which we'll talk about later.
But the point is is there there Things aren't as
dire as they appear. But from the outside looking in,
(05:24):
wouldn't you rather be the Suns right at this exact
moment in time with the way things look. That's that's
that's not exactly the most outlandish take. Now where where
I would personally choose the Lakers over the Suns has
to do with the idea of a ceiling, And this
is a concept that is kind of convoluted because it's
hard to It's hard to justify using a ceiling as
(05:47):
the as the silver lining or as the light at
the end of the tunnel when so much of this
is regular season basketball and playoff basketball. Before you get
to that point, the Suns look fantastic all year. Last
year they look fantastic. In the first round, they look fantastic,
and second round they look fantastic. In the third round,
they look fantastic for two games in the NBA Finals,
and then guess what happened? Milwaukee, because of their elite
(06:08):
high end talent and Janice, We're able to hit a
ceiling as a team that Phoenix could not touch and
they lost four straight times. And during that time there
were some really good punches from Phoenix Game four, really
good punch. Devin Booker got really hot a couple of
times in that stretch and showed some shot making that
could have gotten them over the top, but it just
(06:29):
wasn't enough. The ceiling for Milwaukee is higher than the
ceiling for Phoenix considerably, and it costs them a championship.
And so the way I would look at it, you know,
I was talking about the Laker championship odds the other day,
I remember, and one of the things I pointed out
was like, you know, yeah, it's easy to say, why
would the Lakers have Some sports books have them at
fourth and some sports books have them closer to six
(06:51):
or seventh, depending on where you look. But like, the
reason why it's still a reasonably decent bet to bet
on the Lakers is because Lebron and a d can
reach a ceiling that these other teams can't reach. Most
of these teams can't reach. Brooklyn can reach that ceiling potentially,
you know, Milwaukee can reach that ceiling potentially. Golden State
(07:11):
if Steph gets going, can can reach that ceiling. But
a lot of these teams, like Phoenix and like Utah,
they just don't have that super super high end talent
that can match those peak peak guys in those biggest
moments That significantly limits their ceiling. So where I would
disagree with Colin is. I would say, if you're the Lakers,
you have the two best players in that series, like
(07:35):
absolutely no question. So even if the Suns have the
best system ever, and even if the Suns have really
good habits that they've established all season long, and even
if Chris Paul and Devin Booker played to their best,
ability if Lebron and A D played to their best,
you might lose. As a matter of fact, we saw
that last year. We saw a limited version of Lebron
(07:55):
coming off of an ankle injury. We saw Anthony Davis
a few games removed um achilles tend to tend to
tend to noses or tending to pathi or whatever the
heck they called it, and Anthony Davis still couldn't make
a jump shot. Um The entire Laker corps of role
players went ice cold from three. They had absolutely no
space to operate. And guess what happened. Lebron and A
(08:17):
D physically overwhelmed Phoenix, and they won back to back games,
and they were up two games to one, and they
were clowning the Suns in the first half of Game four,
throwing lobs off the backboard and stuff, until Anthony Davis
pulled his growing and then at that point, because the
team has all of their talent tied up in those
two players, the wheels came off, and that was to
(08:37):
be expected. But at the end of the day, if
I'm looking at this situation as long as I have,
even even with them declining apparently with Anthony Davis trending
down into the bottom half of that top ten and
Lebron as well, it's still is of higher ceiling potential
than what you get with the Phoenix or with the
Utah or teams teams in that tier or like Miami
(08:58):
is another good example of that. Um So, from that standpoint,
if you're a Laker fan like it always could be
a heck of a lot worse. But again, like I
said at the beginning, let's not let's not discount the
feelings of those outside of our fan base, because they're
well warranted. This Laker team has played an incredibly weak
schedule to start the season in their twelve and eleven So,
(09:19):
I mean, are is anybody really wrong in in the
in the stuff that they're saying that was that that
would be my little caveat there alright? How many days
this is from Dre Dave how many days before DeAndre
Jordan gets removed from this roster. Strategy of hiding DeAndre
(09:40):
Jordan behind first unit players was understood DJ is unplayable
with the second unit players because they lacked the skills
to hide DJ. So the DeAndre Jordan thing I talked
a lot about this in the last part is one
of the more interesting phenomena that I've seen in recent
history in the NBA. Because you know, like I, I've
been slandered relentlessly for this specific take because of the
(10:04):
fact that I said that I actually liked the DJ
signing over the summer. Now, I've tried to explain that
as best as possible, Like I saw him as an
end of the bench center, a guy who would only
play when Dwight Navy rested, not as a guy who
would be the starter for this group. I saw him
as a guy who would be able to maintain scheme consistency.
(10:27):
You could run drop coverage with Dwight and a D
and essentially when one of them is out, rather than
having to change your scheme the way you had to
sometimes with the Montrez Harrald, you could just do the
same thing with DeAndre Jordan's have that scheme consistency to
carry you for one or two nights in the regular
season and then subbing back out. I never saw him
(10:49):
as that type of player. Now, obviously, in my little
diet tribe over the summer, I said that I saw
him as a athletic primarily defensive center in terms of
the archetype. And just for the record, guys, I've done
over a hundred episodes of this stuff. You don't think
occasionally I slip up with my words and use a
little bit of hyperbole and exaggerate a little bit and
maybe put my foot in my mouth. Sometimes that's happened
(11:11):
more than once. I promise you, if you go back
and listen to all that junk that I said over
the course of last year, you're gonna find stupid stuff
that I said. That's the nature of the of what
this is. That's the nature of podcasting. So if you
want to rub that in my face, be my guest.
I can take it. But essentially, what's been interesting about
this is I also anticipated that Brooklyn, in their poor
(11:35):
defensive identity and their tendency to switch rather than run
a drop coverage, would lead to DeAndre Jordan's looking better
with the Lakers. Why Because they're a drop coverage team
and for the last two seasons they've had an amazing
defensive identity and Frank, even with limited defensive players, people
(11:55):
forget Avery Bradley was trending way down defensively before he
signed with the Laker. Kyle Kuzma was viewed as a
bad defensive player before Frank got his hands on him.
K CP was viewed as an okay defensive player. A
lot of these guys were were has massively outperformed what
their defensive expectations were under Frick coming into this season.
(12:17):
So I allowed that to make me optimistic about plugging
DeAndre in with this group as opposed to that Brooklyn group,
running a scheme that actually makes sense with what he does,
and having a group of guys that would, you know,
commit to that with him, and that he would look
better than he did in Brooklyn. That's what I was
(12:37):
expecting and where I was obviously way wrong is this
team just completely punted their defensive identity from day one
of training camp and from the top down, including Lebron
and a b have mostly mailed that end of the
floor in So, of course DeAndre is gonna look terrible.
That's just the reality of the situation. So I mean,
(12:59):
that's that's just my two cents on that take from
the summer. And again, yeah, I was wrong about some
stuff with that. I failed to anticipate Frank and the
way he would use him in the rotation. I failed
to anticipate the way the team would fall apart defensively
outside of DeAndre. Guys, when they were in drop coverage
with Anthony Davis. This season, it has looks terrible outside
of specific stretches of games. That's that's just the reality
(13:22):
of this team. So it's not fair to put all
of that on DeAndre. That said, I get just as
annoyed as you guys when he's on the floor because
I don't think he should be unless a break class
in case of emergency, here's an injury, here's the rest day,
we need to use him. That was what I always
saw with DeAndre. Now, as far as cutting him, goes
(13:42):
back to the question. You know, DeAndre has to inevitably
over the course of the next few weeks if Frank
does what we hope you will do, which is bench
Jim Hays, who embraced the bench roll. You know, we
saw that little video of the altercation. I think it
was on Pickup Hoops Twitter page where they seem to
get into it Frank and DJ on the sideline if DJ,
(14:06):
if Frank opts to take DJ out of the rotation,
and that's DJ's behavior, that's the way he chooses to act. Yeah,
you gotta cut him. You can't have a a realistic
championship goal and have a really, really unhappy player in
the locker room that's constantly messing with your team chemistry.
You can't have that. But my guess is what will
(14:26):
happen is because you do need d Guys. We need
DJ as an end of the bench center. We need
him in case a D goes down for a couple
of weeks, because if a D goes down for a
couple of weeks, there's no guarantee that Dwight can handle
all of it. At the end of the day, DJ
is needed. He's just miscast in his role. Okay, I
(14:48):
know everyone says, let's play j Huff, but guys, there's
a reason why he wasn't on a roster coming into
this season. If J Huff was playing every single minute
that DJ was playing, you guys would be slandering him too,
because he's probably a fringe NBA player, and so if
you play a fringe NBA player against good NBA teams,
he's not gonna look great all the time. That's just
the reality of how this stuff works. So, yes, if
(15:10):
DJ becomes a problem for the chemistry, you have to
cut him and try to work around that sign someone else.
But hopefully you move him to the bench. He embraces that.
A lot of the guys in that locker room are
friends with him from Team USA and from other basketball
related engagements. You want him on the team, You just
need him to be in his proper role. Alright. Moving on,
(15:33):
who's a realistic target for the deadline slash buyout? So
the reality is of the Lakers are not very flexible
right now. Um, they basically have one trade piece and
that's Taylor Horton Tucker, and they have one other player
that they can use a salary filler, and that's Kendrick Nunn.
Those two players get you to right around sixteen million, okay,
(15:55):
So realistically you're looking at players within within a couple
million of twenty million dollars is like your cap for
what you can trade for buyouts? Are tough. You never
really know what to expect in the buyout market. It's
a lot easier to get a feel for that sort
of thing as we get closer to that time in
the season, and quite frankly, guys like there are guys
(16:18):
out there that have the time to comb through every
single roster and make phone calls to exact and try
to get a feel for who might be a buyout candidate.
That's not what I have time for. With everything that
I have on my play as a coach and as
a real estate agent and doing this, I have time
to really really focus on Laker basketball games in a
(16:39):
handful of other big games around the league. But there
are better places for you to go for, you know,
checklists of different buyout guys that that might be available
that that come that time of year. As far as
the trade candidates go, the one that I have my
biggest eye on is Jeremy Grant. And I've talked about
this in previous podcasts, But the thing with Jeremy Grant is,
you know, I've seen him in the playoffs and what
(17:03):
he's capable of. Yeah, did Lebron have his way with
him in a lot of ways. Of course, Bill Lebron
has his way with the vast majority perimeter defenders in
the league. He did a pretty damn good job on
Kawhi Leonard in the bubble. He is a good shooter,
not a great shooter, but a good shooter and a
guy who can put the ball on the floor. He's
capable of that advanced closeout attacking that I always talked
(17:24):
about that, Okay, they rotate to the rim and they
chase you off the three point line off of a
skip pass. What can you do to create offense in
that situation. We're getting a lot of this from the
Leak Monk this year, that in between stuff that, Okay,
they chased him off the line, he ripped through the baseline,
ripped through the middle, and he makes a tough floater,
(17:44):
or he makes a pull up ten footer, or he
makes a layup, but it's a contested layup where he
contorts his body around the guy and finishes on the
other side of the rim. That's advanced close out attacking.
We're not gonna get any of that from Trevor Ariza.
What we're gonna get from Trevor Easa is really really
solid individual defense and really really solid team defense at
the wing position with some size versatility. That's true. But
(18:07):
Jeremy Graham as an athlete and what he's capable of
on the defensive end is another level or another tier
above that. And then offensively, he's a guy that in
the playoffs can have games re scores twenty points. And
so I like him as a as the ideal target
because he's at a healthier salary. We're not looking at
trying to go after a Harrison Barnes that's up around
twenty five million or whatever. We're looking at a guy
(18:28):
who's right at twenty million. We can flip Kendrick Nunn
and th h T for him and bring him in.
And it's this obvious, clear ceiling raising move with our
core five man line up. Our core five man lineup,
which is another question that we're gonna get to in
a minute, which will address, you know, in a in
a world where we don't have Jeremy Grant, but our
(18:50):
core five man line up is gonna send around Lebron,
a d and Russ some kind of forward in some
kind of guard. And so that forward right now is
probably gonn be Trevor a Resa. But if you upgrade
that to Jeremy Grant. That's a huge upgrade. Not to mention,
Jeremy Grant can defend up and down a position, so
you can even go wild and play Jeremy Grant and
(19:12):
Trevor a Resa in that lineup and have a ton
of length of versatility. There's a lot of potential for
ceiling raising lineups if you add Jeremy Grant to the mix.
And I also just think it's a very realistic trade, uh,
in terms of both sides being interested. Detroit through a
bunch of money at Jeremy Grant. They threw it because
(19:32):
they were in a situation where they didn't really have
any sort of obvious pending contending season in the future,
right because they're just basically a perennial lottery team. They've
got killing in Hayes that they just picked up in
the lottery, they just got Kid Cunningham. They're they're they're
not really in a position where throwing twenty million dollars
a year or two player cap straps them. So it
(19:54):
was like an easy little money investment for them. It's
money they had to spend, doesn't hurt the team, doesn't
hurt their future, flexibility, gives a guy that they can
run the offense through while these young guys are developing.
It was an easy move for them. But that said,
Detroit is not invested in Jeremy Grant in their future.
He's not part of their long term vision for what
they're doing with the team. So Jeremy Grant is there
(20:17):
to be had, and he only has one more year
on that deal. So th HT that is an obvious
fit as a guy that a team could use to
project forward with their their development window, with their rebuilding window.
Not to mention, Kay Cunningham projects to be a guy
who can eventually guard twos and threes, and th h T,
(20:38):
as we've seen, can guard threes and fours because of
how strong he is. And again, when you're when you're
talking about position, it's all about who you can guard,
not what you do offensively. Th h T projects within
the next five years to be able to be a
guy who can defend one through four and a guy
who can hold his own and post mismatches, and a
(20:58):
guy who can offensively be a slasher in the same
way that a small forward or any sort of stretch
forward would be. So he's a guy that is an
obvious fit alongside Killy and Hayes and Kake Kan cunning him,
and he's a very clear investment in the future. So
if you're the if you're the Pistons and like you
get a chance to flip Jeremy Grant for a player
(21:21):
like th HT who has the potential to be an
All Star within the next five years with all of
his physical tools and everything that he brings to the table,
what's a no brainer. And if you're the Lakers, you
believe in th HT, you know what he can do
for you now and in the future. But the reality
is is he's not a fantastic fit right now with
this championship window. He's not a You're not there's a
(21:43):
diminishing return there. What the Lakers are getting from th
h T right now on a championship contending team does
not match up with what his value is elsewhere in
the league. So from that standpoint, it's the perfect time
to trade him. You of an opportunity to cash in
a piece that other people think is more value valuable
(22:05):
than it is to you in this moment. But it's
it's just to me, it's it's kind of like a
perfect case of a trade that makes sense for both sides.
We'll see, as is always the case, Like you just
don't know what's going on in the Laker front office.
Like it's like we're about to talk about Frank Vogel
in a minute. I don't know. I don't know what
the internally, what the team is thinking about Frank. I
don't know if Lebron and a d or trashing him
(22:26):
in a group chat. I don't know if Rob and
Genie are having conversations about firing him, or if they're
all on board and we're all in our own heads
about this stuff. We don't we don't know. We're all
guessing at this point. And that's the same. The same
thing goes with th h T. We don't know if
they're completely invested in th HT would never in a
million years consider trading him. They think he's the future,
(22:46):
or if it was like, hey, we're gonna sign him
to a three year, thirty million dollar deal, and the
idea is if he fits with this group, great, If not,
we're trading him. We don't know. And there's obviously the
clutch element in there as well, But Jeremy Grant is
my favorite trade target going into the deadline. What do
you think it will take for Anthony Davis to take
over and play like the number one option for the
(23:07):
Lakers on a consistent basis if you won't do it
now with Lebron's availability issues this season, and I don't
know if you'll ever get there. He's twenty eight. Lebron
is about to be thirty seven. That question is from Rob.
So I've talked a lot about this on previous pods,
But Anthony Davis will never be what you want him
to be if you're trying to get him to be
like Lebron can be for a team. He's just not
(23:29):
that archetype of player. This is one of the big
reasons why, you know, I was thinking about maybe doing
a top ten podcast today and I opted for the
mail bag instead. But when I was thinking about that,
I went back and listened to my top ten lists
that I did about about two years ago. Just about
two years ago, eighteen months ago. I can't even remember.
It was right after the bubble, so yeah, wow, that's
(23:50):
only like thirteen fourteen months ago. It's not that long ago.
But anyway, in that pod, I talked a lot about
how that do you guys remember after Janice in the
Bucks got eliminated by Miami and the bubble, there was
a lot of talk about trying to convert Janice into
a center, this idea that he was miscast as a
perimeter initiator, and we all kind of reached out a
(24:12):
conclusion because of watching him perpetually dribble the ball up
and be completely neutered in half court by defenses that
packed the paint. Now, in that podcast, in that top
ten podcast that I did forever Go, I pushed back
against that and I said the Bucks were smart to
invest in Janice as a perimeter initiator because your potential
(24:34):
value as a superstar in this league is infinitely higher
as a guy who can bring the ball up the
floor and initiate from the perimeter than it is is
a guy who needs to be set up. And I
was proven right about that, and the Bucks were rewarded
on that investment when Janice became unstoppable in last year's
playoff run and it held up the Larry O'Brian Trophy Janice.
(24:58):
That investment in that area of Janice's game was the
difference between him being what many consider to be the
best player in the world right now and a guy
who's in that same tier with a d you know,
like incredibly good in many nights, looks like the best
player on the floor, but just not the same as
those top guys when they really have it going. And
(25:20):
that's the situation with Anthony Davis. His inability to persistently
initiate offense from the perimeter perimeter with a live dribble
significantly hinders his ceiling, and so because of that, you're
never going to get him to be Lebron, so to speak,
the guy who can be the engine of a team
night in and night out and carry you for long
(25:40):
stretches when Lebron is out with injury. It's just not
something he's capable of now. In fairness to Anthony Davis,
I'm not sure that he ever could have been that
because an underrated part of Janice's game is his foot speed,
both laterally, straight line, first step, all of that stuff,
long steps, those like really heavy hamstring steps that used
(26:01):
to see Dwyane Wade do all the time. He does
all the time that we gather the ball att and
somehow get all the way to the rim, and like
two steps that those are all areas of Janice's athleticism
that are significantly higher than Anthony Davis's athleticism, So it's
not really realistic to compare the two of them. Anthony
Davis has a great handle, so I'm not necessarily convinced
(26:23):
that it's not something that they've tried and it's just
not worked for him because of his lack of foot speed. So,
but that's that's the thing. If Laker fans, you're setting
yourself up for disappointment if you want Anthony Davis to
eventually become that guy, because I just don't think he's
physically capable of that, uh in any time, and he's
(26:43):
already twenty eight. Like the like the question asked, you know,
when you're building around him moving forward, if you're looking
at this from a five year window, kind of getting
back to that first question we had, you know, you're
constantly retooling around him. Right, So Lebron rejects as he
ages to be a slower player, for sure, but that
(27:04):
doesn't mean he can't be a perimeter initiator. He absolutely
can come up the floor and run offense. We've seen
in tons of times in NBA history really really big
slow forward to be able to run offense We've seen
that with Kedo Turkoglue with the Orlando Magic. You know,
like that the Spurs used to do this a lot
with bores d O. You can use big, slow players
as playmakers. Playmakers, guys that can put the ball on
(27:26):
the floor and get guys into positions. So I'm not
worried about Lebron being able to do that. Projecting forward,
when you're building around that, though, you just target Anthony
Davis's weaknesses. That's why they went after us. Part of
the reason why they were so good in Sacramento the
other night is your ability to have this high end
perimeter initiator next to Anthony Davis playing at his best,
(27:49):
and so that that's kind of the way that I projected.
You know, if you get to the point where Russ
is done and you don't want Russ anymore, and he
goes and signs somewhere else, maybe you'll get lucky you
signed him at a discount to stay with the lake Yrs.
But you have an opportunity to look at the landscape
of the league and primarily focused on perimeter initiators, guys
that can get Anthony Davis. Is Anthony Davis into his
(28:10):
spots at that point you can potentially extend this window
in moving forward. That's one of the reasons why it
maybe if he for the Laker front office to let
go of th h T as I'm sure they're hoping
that by the time th h T turns twenty four
and Lebron is forty, that th h T can kind
of slide into that spot. You know. That's that's where
(28:32):
you get your best opportunity with when you're cap strapped
to have that type of player is when it's in house,
when it's from the draft, because you just have more
flexibility to go over the cap to bring those kinds
of guys in. But Anthony Davis is always going to
need that kind of player. He's never gonna be able
to be honest, And the sooner that we all understand that,
the more realistic we can be projecting forward with Anthony
(28:54):
Davis on this team. All right, Next question, moving on
to Frank Vogel. If Vogel was to get sacked, who
would you want to replace him? Including external coaches? Thanks,
This is from M so I have come around to
(29:20):
not wanting to fire Frank for the time being. Now
this is like a horse race. This thing is constantly
sliding back and forth, and we're always adjusting and responding
to new information. During the ugliest parts of this season,
you know, namely after the Sacramento loss and triple overtime,
we you know, there were a ton of problems with
the Lakers. They had a lot of issues. Frank was
(29:43):
just one of those issues. The reason why I advocated
firing for Frank at that point was I saw him
as the only real fixable issue, right, Like, the Lakers
don't have the roster flexibility to make significant changes to UH,
to line up versatility. You know. The only thing they
can do there is hope Trevor Reason gets back, you know,
(30:05):
and hope Kendrick Nunn gets back. They can't even trade
th h t intil the middle of December, so there's
just not a lot of flexibility on that front. Talking
about like, oh, we need more defensive guards, Okay, that's great,
but what you can't You can't get any more defensive
guards unless they're currently outside of the league, which means
they're probably not that good. Okay. And then the same
goes for you know, trying to get UH, you know,
(30:29):
Frank to not play DeAndre Jordan or something like that
that all all of those problems could only be fixed.
The only fixable, like actual actionable item that the Lakers
could go to was firing Frank, and the reason why
I supported that at that point in time had to
do with buy in. I saw Lebron and a D
not caring about this season nearly as much as they
(30:51):
did in the previous two seasons. It was blatant to
anybody who was paying attention. Yes there was scheme stuff,
Yes there were lineup stuff, Yes there was injury stuf off,
but Lebron and a D also weren't bought in, and
as I've seen with Lebron in the past, a coaching
change has the potential to invigorate him in that regard.
(31:12):
It's whether it's because they need a new voice or
just the chaos of it all breeds urgency, I'm not sure,
But for whatever reason, it appeared that those two guys
weren't bought in, and so I thought firing Frank, even
though he's not the only reason why this season went
off the rails, would be a good opportunity to try
to light a fire under Lebron and a D well
(31:34):
in the last two games. Obviously, Lebron missing the last
one with COVID, the stars have been fantastic. In that
game against the Pistons at home, Lebron and a D
were unbelievable on both ends of the floor physically, uh
actually attempting to use their physical tools. Two bully teams
on both sides of the floor. And then Anthony Davis
(31:54):
looked like he was the best player in the world
candidate the other night in Sacramento. So if that's turning around,
if the guys are buying back in, then I would
want to stick with Frank because I think in the
long run, what he can get out of this team
defensively is more important for the ceiling of this team. Now,
(32:16):
with we've talked a lot about how that has to
be within an offensive context, right, Like, he needs to
bring the most defensively out of our best offensive players
in hopes of kind of building that identity that you
know that we saw in the second half against Sacramento.
That's what we need to build towards. But Frank is
the best guy for that specific job. Now, let's say uh,
(32:39):
the like Lebron and a D are back in the
lineup in the next couple of weeks and they both
are playing fantastic on both ends of the floor, but
Frank just continues to be completely offensively and apt and
it starts costing his games, whether that's through DJ or
just you know, a bunch of really really poor concepts,
and even though Lebron and d are trying, it's just
(32:59):
not king. If that's the case. I like Mike D'Antoni.
I think he's an obvious fit in terms of the
identity of this team as a running up and down
the floor type of team, as a team that will
lean heavily into their offensive talent. Most importantly, as we've
seen with him in Houston, he is the ideal five
(33:20):
out coach. So you know, five outs all about spacing.
The one of the biggest things that's been frustrating about
this Laker team is you'll see Lebron or a D
post up on the wing or on the block, and
when they do, rather than going to a five out
spacing concept, especially with Anthony Davis because he doesn't feel
(33:40):
comfortable having a person behind him because he doesn't like
having to watch his backside, they'll have to cram all
four other players on half of the floor, and so
what inevitably ends up happening is you'll have a even
when they go small, you'll have a guard sitting in
the dunker spot, which actively undercuts the point of going
small to begin with. And so what's great about Mike
(34:03):
D'Antoni is he's really really well versed in five out
offensive concepts. He will be the best guy to give
Lebron a D and Russ isolation sets where all four
guys are properly spaced on the floor in positions where
they can shoot so that there's not a body in
the paint, or if there is a body in the paint,
there's an easy swing pass available to make the team pay.
(34:26):
He nailed this down in Houston, especially after the Capella trade.
The Lakers, if they lean into playing small and having
a lot of Anthony Davis and Lebron at center, can
play basically a five out scheme like Houston did, and
so Mike D'Antoni would be the perfect guy for that
type of job. Then you just hope that at the
highest Mike D'Antoni is probably gonna lean heavily into switching,
which would be great on defense, and even if it's
(34:49):
not the best defensive scheme, that you've ever seen, like
we've seen in the past with Frank Lebron in a DS,
physical ability raises the ceiling of that defense nificantly compared
to what Mike could have done in Houston. So again,
don't want to fire Frank right now because I was
only interested in firing him to try to light a
fire under Lebron in a D and right now they
(35:12):
seem to be trending in that right direction. So I
would keep Frank, but things go off the rails again.
If the group does decide the front office and Jeannie
decide to fire Frank, I would look in the direction
of Mike D'Antoni. Right. Okay, this is the last question.
(35:35):
This is from Chenny Britt. How should a guy like
th h T approaches outside shooting struggles. It seems like
he's put in a lot of work into his jumper,
in his form and his free throw percentage are both good.
What's the next step for translating that into a better
on court percentage? So not to get into the weeds
of shooting coaching here, Um, but shooting is is such
(35:57):
a fickle thing because it's a it's a low percentage task,
even on your best, even when you're at your best right,
Like if we look at you know, there are a
handful of guys in NBA history that I've had seasons
where they get over and you know, they knocked down
fifty three o the threes or something along those lines.
But for the most part, like even if you're a
(36:19):
really really good shooter, you miss more than you make.
So it's a really really hard thing to figure out mentally,
especially for a young player, when you don't really know
how to contextualize your misses and understand that that's just
kind of part of the game. I think THHD projects
to be a really good shooter because he's a really
good shooter at the free throw line. The reason why
(36:39):
is the free throw line is the static situation of shooting.
The free throw line is the best indicator of your touch.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Lebron is a
very inconsistent shooter from the perimeter because he's inconsistent at
the free throw line. I don't think it's a coincidence
that outside of a couple of really bad shooting games
this year, Lebron is shot pretty well from three and
(37:00):
also is having a good season from the free throw line.
Because his touch this particular season is better. He's doing
well in that regard. Um. You know, we I've talked
in the past about Lebron's form. I'm not gonna get
into it right now, but th HD has a really
really good, solid base, and he's got good touch, and
he's got big hands. Big hands are important for shooting.
I know it sounds crazy. You think of a lot
(37:20):
of the centers in NBA history who have shot poorly
because there because a lot of people think it's because
of their big hands, But there are so many players
in NBA history with big hands that have shot great,
So I think it's kind of a cop out excuse.
When you have big hands on the basketball, it actually
helps you to avoid left right misses. It's actually a
form thing that I teach kids, and then I had
a coach teach me when I was in junior college.
(37:43):
Spreading your fingers further out around the ball help you
stay in line with your shooting stroke. It makes it
a focus on distance rather than left to right. So
th h T projects to be a really good shooter,
as in the sense that he's got huge hands, he's
got a really strong base. It'll help, it'll be easier
for him to stay on balance. In the long run,
(38:03):
I do believe we'll see him be a really good shooter.
He's struggling now. Why is that? I think it has
a lot to do with shot selection and inconsistent role.
He started again against uh the Kings on the road
the other night. Since he came back into the lineup,
it's just been a complete cluster f of differing circumstances.
It's been I'm starting this game, Lebron's out, I'm shooting
(38:24):
a ton of shots. Okay, Now Anthony Davis is out. Okay,
Now I'm coming off the bench. Okay, now Lebron's out again. Okay,
now I'm I'm coming off the bench with Lebron out. Okay,
Now Lebron is um out, and I'm moved back into
the starting lineup. Like it's just been, it's just been
a roller coaster of of differing circumstances for him. And then, honestly,
(38:46):
one of the worst things that happened to him was
he played so well in the first few games, tricked
him into thinking he was ahead of where he was
in his own development. You know, if you come into
the league and and you come off of an off
season when you worked really hard and your average over
twenty points a game for a three game stretch and
you look like a potential future All Star. Gets in
your head a little bit you start to think I'm
(39:06):
here in my development when in reality, um somewhere further
down here, you know what I mean. And so he
had to kind of have a wake up call in
that in that respect, you know, we we saw Davion
Mitchell just apply a little bit of ball pressure and
completely throw him out of his rhythm offensively and really
struggle as a playmaker and make a lot of bad
decisions one after the other. That's kind of a youthful thing.
(39:28):
That's that's that's part of that. And we talked a
lot about how we want him not to be an
on ball creator, but a guy who would work on
the second side. Always work against a already compromised defense
lebron or rust come down and run in action. If
that action gets shut down, you swing it to th
HD guy closes out at him. As opposed to dealing
with ball pressure, He's working with an advantage. The defense
(39:49):
is pre shifted over to the lebron a D side.
He has more opportunity to succeed in that second side.
I'd like to see more of that the as a
posed to what they did with Sacramento putting him on
the ball the whole time. That's that as far as
the shooting goes. Once he had embraces and understands he's
not the guy from the first three games, but he's
(40:09):
actually closer to what he was in the beginning of
last year when Lebron and n A. D were healthy,
which is a guy who plays off the ball, who
sells his soul on the defensive end of the ball
to be an all defense level guard and then attacks
closeouts and then up in a little bit from there
to have him run some action on the backside, like
we just discussed, that's where he's gonna be at his
(40:33):
best with this group in this championship window. Inside of
that context, he needs to just be more disciplined with
the shot selection. We talk a lot like when you
take bad shots and you miss him, you can trick
yourself in your head to thinking I just don't have
it tonight. Do you really not have it tonight or
(40:53):
are you showing bad process? Because where I say I
don't have it tonight, is when I'm getting wide open
looks all day long and they're just not going in.
That's that's different. But with th HT, what I'm seeing
a lot of is taking the same shots from when
he was averaging twenty points a game, them not going
in and a kind of snowballing on him and him
(41:14):
doing the classic young player thing, which is that I'm
having a bad game and so now it's manifesting everywhere
on the floor, turnovers, bad defense, x y Z. So
this Kyle Kuzma used to have this problem a lot
when he was with the Lakers. But that's what I'd
like to see is just really really tightening up a
shot selection, taking wide open threes on kickouts. But I
want him to be aggressive as a catch and shoot shooter.
(41:35):
That's so important because it tricks the defense into thinking
you're a shooter even when you're not. That was the
Kyle Kuzma thing. Again, always a low percentage three point shooter,
but he accomplished real spacing for the Lakers because he
was a gunner. You had to run out on him
because if you didn't, he would shoot. And he had
enough hot nights over the course of his career that
he had a reputation as a guy that she had
(41:56):
to close out on. That's what th h T needs
to be aggressive as a catch and shoot shooter. Be
aggressive attacking closeouts. From there, through high shot quality, he
will break out of his slump when kids, when high
school kids come up to me and say, hey, I'm
in a shooting slump. What do I do? I always say,
don't think about your release. Focus on little details in
your shot. The two details that I always focus on
(42:17):
our legs, like my base, how balanced to my am
I going straight up and down? And are my hands big?
If I have big hands on the ball, I won't
have those left right misses. So for me, when I'm shooting,
as I'm as I'm going into my shot, I deliberately
think legs and hands, legs and hands, legs and hands,
and I do that deliberately to get out of my
head about my release and just focus on these little
(42:38):
details that are controllable. Then if I missed the shot,
I run down the floor and I go did I
have my hands spread out? Did I have a good base? Yes? Okay,
that was good process. The miss is the miss who
cares move on. If I'm running down the floor, and
I go I didn't really feel like I was on balance,
or I didn't I didn't pay attention to my hands
(42:59):
and I missed left or right. Eight. Now, I'm not
saying I'm mad at myself for missing I'm mad at
myself for bad process. I'm mad at myself for bad form.
Or maybe I just took a bad shot in terms
of you know how much separation I had from the defense.
And then I can get me out at myself and
go like, hey z, good one, make a couple of
(43:19):
good back to the tough ones that I approached that.
And so with th HD, by attacking his own neurosis
as a in terms of his shot selection, by getting
on the right track taking easy shots, he will inevitably
bust through his slump because that's just how this works. Alright, guys,
(43:40):
So tomorrow night we will be doing a postgame show
after Lakers Clippers. This will be on my podcast feed
here in about fifteen minutes while Aaron Dash Radio tomorrow
morning at seven am Pacific Standard time. As always, I
sincerely appreciate you guys support of the pod. We continue
to basically set a new record every single day that
we released an episode I've been so amazed by you
(44:01):
guys for rocking with us, and I can't ever express
to you guys how much I appreciate it. Um. I
hope you guys enjoyed the pot and I will see
you guys tomorrow. Night. H
Host
Jason Timpf
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