PART 1: Anthony doubles down

0:00Oh boy, he always seems to get involved. I'm telling you, too many coconuts are hitting him right on top of the skull. I think Anthony will be a great acquisition. I think he can do it all. Every who shows us. And we're live. Welcome everybody here to the Lakers Lounge podcast. I'm Anthony Erwin, senior Lakers insider as well as lead Lakers content creator for offside joined on this fine Monday afternoon by you guys as normally right. This would be a Sunday episode that we record a mailbag for and when we get to the NBA

1:02season or when we get closer to the NBA season, we will return to that schedule. But for now, and I think for another like week or so, we're probably going to be going, you know, mail bags will be recorded or streamed live Mondays. And then we will kind of carry on through the week from there. But today on the show, I said something on the show with Raj was it Thursday? It had to have been Thursday that people freaked out over. And then I tweeted about it and people freaked out even more in response to my tweeting about it. I said that I don't think the Lakers right now are deeper than last year's team or even as deep as last year's team, let alone deeper than last year's team. People got angry. People said some stuff. It went down.

2:03Calci got involved for some reason. Yeah, it was a whole thing. So today on the show, we're going to start with that conversation. We're going to pick up on that conversation a little bit here. And then maybe over the course of the week, I'll ask guests about it and see what they think or whatever. So we'll talk a little bit about that. I did get a mail bag episode from iTunes. So I'll answer that one. I asked Twitter for some questions. So I'll answer those couple of questions that we got there. But after that, that leaves a whole bunch of room for you guys to hit me with questions and comments and insults and whatever else you're going to hit me with over the course of the show. And yeah, we'll just kind of see where this one takes us. So without any further ado, we'll quick further ado. Please hit that like button. Please hit that subscribe button. Please turn on notifications both for YouTube and for this channel. Today shows brought to you as always here on YouTube by price picks. Use that promo code HMA said a $5 lineup of your own.

3:05And if you win that lineup, you get $150 worth of free price pick selections immediately, a sapsule all of that good stuff. And then, and by the way, the football has been excellent so far. So if you haven't gotten it on that action so far, or yet, use that promo code HMA to get it on the action on price picks. And then if you guys are listening to the show in podcast form, wherever it is that you get your podcast preferably unoddously, but anywhere you get them is fine by me. Please hit that subscribe button wherever it is that you get those podcasts and tell your friends about the show. Tell your friends. Best show ever. And tell your enemies that this complete dipshit is whining about the depth and you've got to see how dumb this guy is. Either way, whether it's a regular listen or a hate listen, they all count the same to me. So tell your friends and enemies about the show if you want to. And then, yeah, we dive on in starting with the concept of depth.

4:14So as things stand right now, let's, let's, let's compare just the players, right? And we will get to some of the nuances involved in all that good stuff. So last year, the Lakers trotted out a starting lineup of Marcus smart at their best might my preferred lineup was Marcus smart, Austin Reeves, Luca Doncic, LeBron James, Indiana and then coming off of the bench, you would have Ruby Hatchimura, you would have Jackson Hayes, you would have Luke Canard, who was added to the roster later in the year. You had Jake Laravia, makes nine. And then from there, if you want to include like Jared Vanderbilt, you could technically, there were some stretches where Maxi Cleba got some run. But like from there, like the rotation took a significant step back, right? You could include Brony, if you want to include Brony because of the way that he played late

5:16in the year. But regardless, like as far as players that when they were out there seemed to belong, I would say the Lakers went about 90. And one of to me, the top statements about the depth across the roster from the top on down is the fact that the Lakers were able to win a playoff series and you can try to poke holes in it all you want. And it's been a weird thing to watch Lakers fans poke holes in the only playoff series that their team is one in the last two years. But you could poke holes in it all you want. But at the end of the day, the Lakers won four games before the Houston Rockets could win four games and they advanced further in the playoffs without Luca and without Austin Reeves for most of that series. And again, there are qualifiers. There's all of that, you know, and circumstances that went into winning that series. But at the end of the day, the Lakers won a playoff series.

6:19And over the course of the year, did plenty of winning. They won 53 games in a season where Austin Reeves missed almost half of it. Luca Donchic, you know, missed almost 20 games. LeBron missed significant chunks of the season. And yet the Lakers were able to stay afloat because of their organizational depth or their roster's depth from the top on down, meaning at any given moment, the Lakers had enough top end talent and, you know, rotational talent to get by. Now let's look at this year's team. Right off the bat, the starting lineup is, I think, significantly worse than last year's team. I'm maybe not significantly, I would say worse. But this year's team, you have Quint Grimes, Marcus Mart. I would say given the way that Marcus Mart played last year, I roughly maybe Grimes is a slight upgrade because of his shooting ability.

7:21Marcus was a significantly better defender. We'll see how that plays out over the course of the year. Austin is Austin, Luca is Luca. So hope this year's that you'll get a better or more frequently around Austin Reeves. And if that is the case, then that is a better, you know, that is a real shot in the arm. You have Jake Laravius sliding into the spot that LeBron James held last year. And I'm sorry. And even if it's Zyre Williams and even if it's Mamu, none of those three guys are going to be able to fill the shoes that LeBron James is taking with him. And then rounding things out, a significant upgrade from DeAndre Aiton, a huge upgrade from DeAndre Aiton to Walker Kessler. And now hopefully Kessler is able to stay healthy. But if he is, and if he plays, you know, even a league average amount of games, then is a huge shot in the arm for the Lakers that, you know, if you want to say it wipes out

8:27to step back from LeBron to Jake Laravius, I'd hear you out. Coming off the bench, you have Zyre Williams, you have Matisse Thible, you have Mamu, who will be the six man of the year, or a candidate for six men of the year, maybe hopefully this year. And then rounding things out, you have Colin Sexton. And that's like a nine man rotation, which again, you know, the next player down would be like, Jared Vanderbilt. And if you want to say that he would be part of the 10 man rotation last year, might be part of the 10 man rotation this year. In terms of number of players, I would say, obviously, the same number, right, nine to nine. Now, that would, in terms of just raw number of rotational players, it being nine to nine

9:28does poke a significant hole in my argument that like, okay, this year's team is not as deep as last year's team. But it also pokes a significant hole in the argument from your guys' perspective, which is, this team is a whole lot deeper than last year's team. I just, I don't see it. Now, where I would say that, where I would argue on, you know, in terms of last year's team, that on any given play, whenever LeBron, Luca, and Austin were healthy together, in any given play, in terms of like top end roster talent, the Lakers were at or near the level, if not higher than the level of basically any team that they played. And by that, I mean, every line about there had at least one or two even of Luca, LeBron, and Austin. And in terms of creativity on the ball, that helped really kind of keep them afloat

10:33last year. Now, this year, in order to keep it as close to apples to apples as we can, you swap out LeBron and you insert Walker Kessler. And in terms, and that becomes like the top end talent that, you know, one or two of those guys are going to be on the court at any given time. And yes, I do think Walker Kessler is maybe a little underrated from the standpoint of connective tissue offensively. He is a good, advantage compounder, but he isn't really an advantage gainer in the ways that LeBron was last year and will likely be again this year. And, you know, having LeBron in those moments when Austin missed significant time or Luca wasn't available for the final, you know, monthish of the season, including the playoffs. Having LeBron kept the Lakers afloat to the extent that he could and, you know, and

11:37not having him, you know, and basically swapping out LeBron for Jake Lureviate, you are going to feel that now. It's been this really weird thing that I've noticed with Lakers fans where for a variety of reasons, whether it's the Kobe rivalry, whether it's because LeBron chose a different team and free agency, whatever it is, because of the annoyance with clutch, for whatever reason that you want to land on, Lakers fans have been very excited to move on from LeBron James. And I'm just pointing out that, you know, when you're just factoring in or when you're putting together computing a team's depth, going from LeBron's, you know, having LeBron in that rotational spot to whether it's Jake Lurevia, who last year kept getting worse over the course of the year, whether it's Zyre Williams, which I think Lakers fans are

12:37getting their hopes unreasonably high for, whether it's Mattis DiBole or Mamou, like not having LeBron and inserting some combination of those players into his spot in the rotation is going to make the Lakers worse during those minutes. It just is. And I look, I'm excited to watch Zyre Williams. He's a great, by low candidate. He is a great potential project here, moving forward, who the Lakers could maybe turn into a real rotation player, you know, this year and hopefully in the years to come. But he's not, he's not on the veteran minimum for a reason. Same goes for Mertis DiBole, by the way, right? Like people have just convinced themselves, oh, he's going to be better next year for the Lakers than Marcus Mart was. And it's like, maybe possibly, but he wasn't exactly, he hasn't exactly been the image of health in the NBA for the last few years either.

13:40And people are like, well, he's only 29. It's like, okay. But in terms of like games that he's missed over the over, you know, the last chapter or so of his career, he has been as available as an older player in the NBA. So I consider him kind of an older player in the NBA until proven otherwise. Otherwise he wouldn't be available at the veteran minimum contract that he's currently on. So, you know, he got that. And you know, sexton is an interesting, interesting player. I am very excited to see sexton be able to step in and get downhill without the need of a screener on the ball. That is something that I am, you know, I think will really help the Lakers offensively, but defensively, you know, he's not huge. And you know, like I am a little concerned about the collective size coming off of the bench.

14:48And we hadn't even talked about the fact that the backup center this year in terms of just one center to another is Kovaleuni who is washed, not might be is washed. Watch him play. I'm sorry. There were stretches where the pelicans were leaning on Deandre Jordan instead of Kovaleuni last year. And, you know, that doesn't speak very well to the physical state of Lune's game. Now, I do think he is going to be a very helpful locker room presence. There are probably going to be one or two or three games per month that Lune steps up and is like, hey, look at that. You know, I do think he serves an important purpose and his ability to rebound defensively and maybe generate a couple extra possessions offensively on the boards. But for the most part, there is a huge hole in the rotation for backup center minutes.

15:48And you can say that it's going to be Mamu and all that stuff, but he is way too small for me to just write him in pen as the backup center that the Lakers need. That is something that the Lakers internally are very aware that they need to address. And maybe they do before training camp or before next season or whatever, but as it stands right now, that is a huge, you know, box that went unchecked this summer. And you could even say it was checked and then the Lakers traded Deandre eaten away, but they erased the check mark that they had on there and now they no longer have a backup center. And they still, like in terms of starting caliber players, they only have four of those. They only have, you know, in terms of the possession positions that they're going to play, they don't have a fifth starter right now.

16:50And that, I think, it's hard to like call a team very deep when they don't go five deep and they're starting group. So yeah, I look, it's been this weird. This happens every off season. This happens every, you know, especially in my analysis where I will look at moves that a team made and, you know, nobody likes to hear that their new toy is broken or isn't as good as they think it's going to be before we even play with it. And I think that's kind of where we currently sit in the gap between how I feel about this team right now and how, what the consensus might be about the Lakers right now. And it certainly doesn't help that my case that, you know, Pete is very high on this roster. You have other really smart people out there like Darious and Istalk and Raj, who are all very high on this roster. And, you know, that I think influences how people are going to feel about it.

17:53At the same time, I've listened to Trevor talk about this team and I've listened to Yovon talk about this team and I know how I feel about this team. And I think at best we can say that everybody is kind of split on it. And we know that the Lakers signed a bunch of, they attempted to address a lot of the depth. But in addressing the depth and leaving holes in either the depth or in the starting group that affects the overall depth of the roster. So we'll see how this turns out. But I wish I was more optimistic. I'm allergic. I'll be, let's see, I'm going to play, I'm going to listen to Avery. Alright. So Avery is going to explain lightning. So why they're lightning because they're bowling.

18:54Who's bowling? The Angels. Okay, the Angels are bowling. And if they have a lightning, that means they have a strike. A strike. Yeah, and that means they have all of the points. Okay, I like it. I like the theory. Who told you that? Um, mommy. Mommy. Good job, mommy. Alright, say goodbye everybody. Bye everyone. Alright, I feel better. Um, shout out to Avery. Maybe that's what I'll do. I'll just, I'll just compile a whole bunch of clips of Avery being adorable. So when I am negative about the team, I can just play that and then put you in a better move. Um, now I did get a couple of comments from people who I follow or respect on, on Twitter. And I think those are worth addressing before we move on and, and answer your guys is questions specifically. Um, so I wrote, let's see, so here we go.

19:54So, um, I'm going to, I'm just going to go in the order that I see him here. So Vene, uh, who Rosas a podcast with, um, had an interesting comment that I think frames this in, in a, in a, um, more productive way. He says, I think they have better complimentary depth to the two main guys this year, Austin and Luca. But it would like a defensive way to feel great about it. Um, so, complimentary depth and then, and then is talk, uh, Franco who, who, um, also is really bright about this stuff. Um, now I'm not going to address the, the LeBron part of this because I think he is, um, a little too low on the Braun, um, and, and, and it for, for like to, I just disagree on that front. But what he did is he kind of made a similar point to Vene in that like, um, by, by basically abiding a roster wide identity, the Lakers will be more, uh, you're, I guess they'll be

21:03deeper as a unit than, uh, they were last year because the pieces fit better together or because the identity is more consistent. Um, and he went and, and, you know, in his case, he went with, with the identity of, you know, uh, higher motor players, more athletic players, younger players and stuff like that, um, which I think is worth diving into a little bit more as well. But I do want to kind of build on this point of complimentary depth and, um, that because the pieces, uh, or because this puzzle was built with two guys in mind that, um, the, the depth adds to this team will be more productive than some of the, the, the, you know, deeper rotation players in the Lakers had last year or, or the rotational depth in the Lakers had this last year.

22:04Um, and I think that's an interesting notion. I would push back in that like, all right, if you're, if you're building out a team and, uh, you're, you're, you know, the, the starting point is Luca and Austin. Um, I would want a point of attack defenders to, to help them on the perimeter, which the Lakers have Matisse Dibble, who is an excellent point of attack defender. You have Grimes who is kind of more conceptual point of attack defender. And then from there, it's like, Jared Vanderbilt, who J.J. Reddick doesn't like to play right. So I didn't really include him on eat in, in the depth of either of these rosters. I know a lot of people have really high hopes for a new hero, but I am a little concerned that J.J. Reddick might, uh, struggle to get him on the court for a lot of the same reasons than he is struck that, uh, he is struggled to get Jared Vanderbilt on the court. So I'm not really comfortable counting him right now.

23:08Cam Carr is, uh, a really intriguing young player, but, um, I, I need to see it on an NBA court before I can sit or him, you know, or write him in pen in the rotation. Maybe Bronnie takes a step forward this year, um, and picks up where he left off last year. But if I'm going to include him this year, then I would probably have included him last year, so I would consider it a wash. Um, and that, and, and that right there kind of is your point of attack defense, right? You could maybe say, Colin Sexton, but he has not been a good point of attack defender. Jean Hardy is one of the worst perimeter defenders, uh, in the NBA bar none. So I'm not considering him in addition to the rotation in this sense. Um, and you could say like high motor guys, like all right, Colin Sexton is definitely high motor. Um, Zaya Williams definitely high motor. He, uh, is not a point of attack defender though. Um, he's kind of a tweeter defender, but he is a very good team defender.

24:09I would, I would say that. Uh, Walker Kessler is high motor, but he's more of an anchor defensively. So he's not really going to help you much on the perimeter. Um, and then like, you know, somebody like mom, who I'm not going to consider him. High motor, uh, you could let you know, I just don't really see the high motor argument there. Um, now if the Lakers are basically going to, you know, say, you know what, we're going to be as good as we could possibly be defensively and we're going to be overwhelming offensively. And if the roster was built specifically just to do that, um, then okay, then I think Venege point of complimentary depth is, is worth noting here, right? Because, you know, Grimes is a more complimentary offensive player than Marcus Mart was last year. Um, Walker Kessler is a significantly more complimentary offensive player than Aiton was last year. Um, you could say, you know, uh, offensively, Colin Sexton having the skill set

25:16where he can break guys off of the dribble, um, on his own and, and start the blender that way, that might be a, a more complimentary skill set than, uh, anybody that the Lakers had coming off of the bench from the guard positions last year. Um, I would, I, I tend to think that people are overlooking, uh, what it looked like when the brawn did buy into the small things and, and just kind of fit in alongside Luca and Austin more last year. Um, but if you want to say that, you know, uh, that was definitely not going to happen again next year. I don't know why you would say that, but sure, um, and, and, and if that is where you're coming from, I could understand what you're saying or why one would believe that some of the wing, uh, role players that the Lakers have might be more complimentary, um, than LeBron. I, I think that is more people are kind of filling in talent gaps, uh, with

26:18hopes and dreams, but regardless, do you, I guess, um, but I, I, I do see where Vene and where is talker coming from when, uh, they talk about the fit of this roster. I do think this roster fits better together. Um, and, and I could, you know, I, I, I think because of its fit in terms of the actual pieces from a basketball perspective and the personalities, uh, I could see this team, uh, you know, meshing better, uh, over the course of the season than last year's team meshed. But in terms of just like raw talent and number of, you know, role players that, that, um, you know, uh, that the Lakers have this year compared to last year, I think it's a less talented group. And I don't think that there is enough rotational depth to make up for that

27:18step back in terms of raw talent. Um, maybe the chemistry is enough to make up for it. Hopefully that's how this plays out. Bye everyone.