PART 2: MAILBAG - Stop... laughing?

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 this. And before I dive into the questions and stuff like that, I also, I'll also say this as I always say, I hope I'm wrong. I hope over the course of the season, maybe some of these guys at the tail end of this rotation do pop. And the Lakers have more options at the back end of the rotation than they had last year.

1:01I hope that the notion of fit and cohesion is something that helps the Lakers more than I am considering right now in that that idea of cohesion is enough to make up for the step back in terms of raw talent from last year to this year. Hopefully that's how this plays out. If it is, I will happily sit here and and and senior guys's praises who have been calling me an idiot to this point. All I ask is that if it doesn't play out that way, you guys get to come on back here and we get to have that conversation again. And we actually do hold the people to account who build this built this roster at a time where we're probably going to see some organizational people because of the change in ownership and all that stuff. And and and maybe just maybe the people who built this roster, if it doesn't play out the way that it's more optimistic defenders might feel it's going to play out if he doesn't go that way. Then it's it's probably finally time for a complete blank slate and another attempt at building around the good.

2:15All right, let's go ahead and dive on into the iTunes questions here of which we have one. So uncle Jackins that's a interesting name content a plus incessant chuckling F minus I've been listening for several years and I will probably keep listening because of the analysis guests. Lakers passion and great care taken are excellent, but I dearly hope that the unsufferable chuckling of baits it is truly painful and I've turned off multiple episodes because it was simply too annoying. To keep on it belittles the content honestly, I it's honest, I guess true to who he is, but man is it tough to listen to, especially on headphones. Story time. So some of you might know this it was a long time ago now, but I was the original host of locked on Lakers Harrison and I were the original hosts of locked on Lakers and at the time David, I think had a couple other people in mind before us to be completely frank.

3:35And and then when Harrison and I started hosting the show together, he came with the objection this very similar objection of like, hey, you guys, you guys laugh too much. It's it's just too much. And I said, I'm sorry, man, it's kind of difficult to turn that off because we just enjoy laughing when we talk about sports. I think sports talk should be fun. And he was like, well, all right, let's see how the numbers look and let's see if the complaints continue and then maybe kind of go from there and I was like, deal, we can go with that. So the show continues and he Harrison and I continue hosting the show that way as we always did and it just kept growing. It was it was pretty significant growth. I know it was growth from zero, but it was significant growth. It was on a level that like it was growing faster than I think almost all of the other shows in the network.

4:40We were always at or among the leaders in terms of downloads and stuff like that. And and eventually David was like, whatever it is that you guys do. It seems to be working. I was wrong. And I was like, respect, cool. And and basically what I learned from that here moving forward was that like from now on, whenever I do this, now I'm not going to I'm not going to go overboard. There are certainly times where it's possible that I do go overboard with with laughter and stuff like that. But for the most part when when I talk about sports and when I listen to shows about sports when I listen to content or watch content about sports or pop culture or anything for that matter, I am always going to be drawn to fun. I am always going to be drawn to finding what I find funny about various various situations and you know just host the show with that in mind. So if you do turn the show off from time to time of apologies. If you do stick around and as the show continues to grow.

5:54And I continue to be proven correct in my assumption that people enjoy laughter and fun with their sports. Then, then you know, might not be for everybody, but as I have kind of learned over the years, I'm just going to be me. And if I try to wander too far away from from who I am, you guys are going to notice it and the show will be worse overall as a result. But I appreciate the honest feedback. I appreciate the five star of you. Oh my god, really. We're doing this, huh? Now Streamyard isn't working. Nope, I'm not laughing. I'm not, you know, go. Oh god bless you Streamyard. Anyway, let's go into the Twitter questions that we have. And the first one that I got was from at Lake or goat 17 to questions has this been the wildest offseason you can remember.

7:06Weוא were the natural creator of the podcast by the W.A. timer い jazz video certainly a commendee אני was right here, and Dyskin was the high tension priority to thoseicer eb Gerilim drums equipment. not exactly thrilled. That was also at a time when the liquors were going from the Great Western Forum to a staple center and there was some concern there. But more than anything, I honestly think fewer people cared about the uniforms then because there was so much excitement about the fact that they had just gotten shacked. It looked like the organization had real direction for the first time in a long time. By the time those uniforms came around, Kobe was Kobe. I think everybody was just kind of like, I don't care what they're wearing, just go out there and win, please. That's how it turned out. If the Lakers had

8:13won multiple championships in these abominations, I think people would feel differently about them. One of the funniest things was that the Lakers and the literal players thought that those really weird black uniforms that like, you know, you had the purple, that kind of black fades purple or purple fades the black, whatever it was. The literal players thought those were cursed and eventually like refused to play in them any longer. And I think that's kind of how everybody's going to feel about this stuff. Like I think fewer people would be complaining about the uniforms if there was more winning done in said uniforms. And you know, that not enough winning has taken place in uniforms that people already didn't like very much. I think that's why a lot of people kind of feel the way that they do about them.

9:15Now as far as this season being the wildest that I can remember in terms of Lakers and overall NBA stories. Yeah, I think so because you have an owner right who was now suspended for a whole year. The Lakers sold again. You had, you know, the Lakers told LeBron James to go away and, you know, it basically an entire starting five that won a series last year is not, they are no longer on the team anymore. And so like I think, you know, in terms of organizational flux from the Lakers perspective, as well as just like overall craziness in the NBA, you know, you had Janus get traded from from from Milwaukee to Miami. You had Lemella ball go from Charlotte

10:16to Minnesota. You had Minnesota completely revamped their team wide identity. Yeah, you had the Jalen Brown thing as well. Like it just the entire NBA lost their freaking minds this year. And it led to I think, yeah, the most chaotic offseason of my lifetime. There might be older people who feel differently, you know, and there might be older Laker fans specifically who feel a little differently. But as far as like from an NBA combined with Lakers perspective, I don't think it's very close. This was an absolutely loony tunes off season. I don't want to answer this question. Let's see if you guys have any questions in the chat. I'm not going to answer that one. I know I'm sorry. Like people are commenting about the iTunes comment from earlier. Please don't have

11:28fun. What an insane comment. You know, mission 24. Stop laughing. Like I just I don't know. That's a crazy thing. And David Locke having that like feedback from me and Harrison early on in our careers. And then immediately being proven incorrect. To me, I would have to hear. I'm trying to think of like sports content that doesn't have laughter in it. And I'm coming up blank, you know, like I think the vast majority of people just really want to have fun in talking about sports. And like, yeah, I might I might come off as I'm not particularly fun because I'm negative about I'm more pessimistic about the Lakers. But I try to make up for that with having literal fun on the show. So yeah, I don't know. All right. So D rust 11, the legend,

12:38saw the comments on the last vid. People got to calm down. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Raj got his basketball talk segment. It was a time with celebration for him. Yeah, I honestly stopped paying attention to the comments because I hear this thing that that happens really frequently in Lakers coverage or Lakers analysis or just like sports analysis or honestly, just collective analysis of anything really. But oftentimes people mistake analysis that they agree with or that they like hearing because they agree with it. People oftentimes consider the analysis that they agree with correct objectively. And that's not how this works. Like,

13:40I'm willing to hear somebody out who says you don't know, we don't know how this is going to play out. We should let it play out. I mostly agree. The only issue there is that I have a job to do. And if my analysis, if every episode was me hopping on here being like, is this Lakers team going to be better than last year's Laker team? I don't know. We'll find out. Please hit that like and subscribe button, everybody. Like that nobody would do that. Like that's not how sports analysis works. Like I'll be the first to tell you if somebody asks me a question about like, Hey, who are the Lakers going to trade for over the course of the season? I'll say, I don't know. I don't know what they're looking to use as trade chips. I don't know if they're going to look to keep their powder dry, depending on how this season goes. I can't tell you how that is going to go right now. And I will say that as part of my like reporting and stuff like

14:43that because that is objectively the reality is like, I don't know that quite yet. But as far as analysis of a Lakers team that I am not as high on, I will always use a disclaimer of like, yeah, we don't know. We got to see how this plays out. I hope I'm proven incorrect in not feeling as good about this team as other people might. But I can't hop on here every show and be like, all right, everybody, let's talk about the guard rotation. Is it going to be as good this year as it was last year? I don't know. All right, we will talk to you guys tomorrow. Like that's not that's not going to be a very good show. So, but what I will say though is like, you know, just based off of the comments that we've gotten as more and more analysts or podcasters or, you know, friends of mine, talk themselves more and more into this team. And as I kind of find myself slipping the other way, more and more people are going to be like, oh, well, Pete's right. Pete has to be

15:47right. Of course, Pete's right. And it's like, he's not. We don't know yet. Maybe he will be proven correct. And, but like just because what Pete is saying sounds better to you than me saying, I don't like this roster very much or I don't think this roster is good enough to, uh, you know, make the last few years of just kind of kicking the can down the road worth it. Like you might not like me saying that as much as Pete hopping on here and saying, you know, that this team is this good or whatever, um, that doesn't like, Pete isn't correct. I am not correct. We will find out who is going to be correct over the course of the season. And at that time, he and I will talk about the things that we got right or wrong in our analysis in the run up to the season. But what I think a lot of people were kind of screwing up in their comments and chats

16:49and stuff like that to us here in this channel is like, yeah, Raj might be saying that more things that you agree with, but that doesn't make him correct. And, um, I figured I was just going to write that like I found myself writing that on a few comments in a row and I was just like, you know what, I'm going to leave it alone. I'm going to let people argue themselves until they're blue in the face. And then I'm going to address it in a future video. And then we'll see how it turns out by the time we get to the by the time we get to the offseason or by the way, by the time we get to what this roster is actually going to look like next year, which there are still tweaks that have to be made in order to be legally compliant with the NBA's rules. All right. Uh, here we go. My, uh, our Vikings. All right. So so Jalal Shabaz, uh, 1231, our Vikings are two and oh, who would have thought I was texting a Vikings fan friend of mine today.

17:56And if you had told me before the season that Kyler Murray would get hurt on like his fifth play as a Viking, miss the next two games and that the Vikings would be two and oh, uh, going into week three, you know, beating the green Bay Packers and beating the bears in Chicago. Uh, I want to call you crazy. And again, I love to be wrong. I'm thrilled that I was, you know, if you would have told me, you know, when I watched Kyler Murray like convulsing there on the field because that green Bay Packer through that dirty hit, which by the way, he was not punished for any further, which is crazy. But anyway, um, if you would have told me right there and then, yeah, a couple weeks from now, you know, Kyler will be getting ready to come back and he will be coming back to a Viking scene that is two and oh in the top division. I'd have been like, oh, don't. What? Sure. Why not? And that's basically where I am. And he's like, sure. Why not?

18:56I think the Vikings defense is like really, really good. And I think Dallas Turner is going to like be a real vote getter for like defensive player of the year. I think he's that good. He's, he's incredible. Let's see, BDA pink players that should be improved one year later equals basically everyone on the roster bar, dive all in loony. So players, all right. So internal growth is Luke was pretty damn good last year. Um, I don't know how much better he can be, especially then like the last month of the season. Um, and then let's see, uh, Austin probably should have a bounce back season just in terms of availability. So I would agree there BDA, um, grimes.

20:00Like, all right. So I'm not counting grimes or any of the new additions here. I'm guessing because I don't think anybody paid close enough attention to any of those players to be like, oh, yeah, that guy's definitely getting better than that lot. You know, this year. I don't know that I would necessarily go there with any of those guys like that. Um, Jake might have a bounce back season, you know, his shot, I really failed him last season, but I've also seen way too many Lakers just forget how to shoot and that problem organizationally has never really been addressed to such an extent that I can just confidently say, oh, yeah, Jake was, he's going to learn how to shoot again. I don't know. Hopefully. Um, but the Lakers don't really do anything to help players figure out how to shoot or relearn how to shoot. So I don't know that he is like that I can definitely confidently say he's going to improve. Bronnie probably will improve. Um, I think Dalton is a lost cause and I'm not even sure he's going to be on the roster next year.

21:01Yeah, I could see some internal growth, uh, but too many players are new on the Lakers for me to just be like, well, I barely watched that guy last year and he's definitely going to be better next year because reasons I'm not really comfortable taking that next step beyond that. Oh my God, really. Good Lord Streamy Art. Be better. Um, all right. So this was a, this Sky Falcon 5, Bronn is top end talent though, isn't depth more spots eight through 15. So this is a semantics debate at this point that Raj and I were having in the slack in the in the Lakers lounge slack. And this is basically the point that he made is that like most people consider depth as, you know, non stars. Um, and that the Lakers non stars

22:05this year collectively should be better than their non stars last year. I disagree. Like to me, depth is a stand in for margin for error, right? So for me, I look at depth as number of good basketball players on your basketball team or, you know, in football or, you know, baseball, the number of good baseball players on your baseball team, the number of good football players on your football team. That's how I kind of considered depth. And the fact that the Lakers, again, like ask yourself how the Lakers would fare this year if Austin misses as much time as he did last season. They'd probably be able to stay above water probably because Luca is Luca, but not to the same extent that they did last year. I mean, that LeBron guy helped quite a bit with that. Ask yourself how a a a series or a month or however long would go next year if Luca

23:12and Austin missed any time together. Ask yourself how the Lakers are going to do next year. If Walker Kestler misses any time, which by the way, based on his career to this point, there's a solid chance. He's probably going to miss a little bit of time. And the Lakers' answer to that is like, all right, here's Kavan Looney. I just don't see it. So, like I think the Lakers have significantly less margin for error this year than they had last year. And to me, that is a statement about the Lakers depth organizationally. I get it. Like if you guys are looking at it solely from the standpoint of depth is stars over there, everybody else on the roster over here. I mean, yeah, like the Lakers turned LeBron contractually into a couple of other depth pieces. They didn't address his spot in the starting lineup, which again affects their margin for error. But overall, like, I can see where you're coming from. If that's if that's how

24:20you're defining a roster's depth, I just I define it differently. And if we're and if we can't like agree on the semantics to be used, then I can understand why there are just like two ends of this spectrum on this conversation that just are never going to agree. All right. Let's see. We will answer one more. All right. I think we're good. Yeah, I don't get it. Richard case, you would think a shooting coach would have already been hired. I really don't get it the way that the Lakers handle this aspect of things. It just doesn't make any sense to me that like

25:21they have seen so many players be able to shoot somewhere else, get to the Lakers and forget how to shoot. And even it even from like the just from a PR perspective, the Lakers have enough money. They generate enough revenue to hire a shooting coach just for the sake of being like, look, we try to address this. I'm sorry. Like, you know, whatever is going on there. And they would argue like, well, because everybody has their own shooting coaches. We don't want to we want to empower these players and these players camps to optimize their development and all this. And it's like none of the smartest organizations do it like that. None of them. And all of the organizations that are better known for getting more out of their young players or actually developing their youth, they do very closely monitor and very closely influence players development and growth. The moment

26:28they get into the building and till the moment that they leave the building. And the Lakers don't. And I think, you know, you look at their track record over the years of getting the absolute most from their young players. You have examples of success with Austin Reeves. But I think you have a lot more examples of failure with the Jalen Hoot-Chapinos of the world and the Dalton Connects of the world. You know, I would like to see the Lakers change their approach to this, you know, just like night and day. And that was a hope with Mark Walter, but he wasn't really allowed to mess with the basketball side of things. And then he's gone. So now we'll see how Bob I hear in Josh Kushner feel about that. All right, that is going to do it here for this episode of

27:28the Lakers Lounge podcast. Thank you everybody for tuning in. Thank you everybody for your questions and your comments and your chats. We might disagree and that is perfectly fine to disagree. And hopefully if we do disagree, whoever of us in this case, myself, you know, if one of us has to be wrong and it is me being on the more negative side of things and the Lakers do prove those of you who are more optimistic correct, then we all have that much more fun watching them next season. But you know, if I do wind up being right, let's like, here's what I will for this one commenter from iTunes, I won't laugh directly at you. I'll laugh with you. We will all be laughing together about that. Have a great rest of your day. Everybody, make somebody else's. Please hit that like button.

28:30Please hit that subscribe button. If you guys are watching on Twitter, go to youtube.com slash at LakersLounge to find the show there and subscribe so you don't miss the other four days of show that we four shows a week that we do over there. And until tomorrow when Harrison and I will be on here talking about whatever we feel like talking about, have a great rest of your day. Make somebody else's when we talk to you. Bye everyone.