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What's up, Laker Fans?

You listening to the Laker Film Room podcast, I'm Pete, joined by Darius, and I'm irritated

today.

Normally I'd try to give a recap of generally how the game went, but we're going to talk

about the first three minutes of that game until we're done talking about the first

three minutes of that game because they were not ready for that game.

We talked to talk about all the tactics and lineups and all of that.

You texted, they're asleep to start this game.

And there's just a series of, this is a leadership thing.

You were not ready for that game to start.

The score is 11 to nothing in the first two minutes and 56 seconds.

And we could walk through every single play and maybe we should to kind of illustrate

just the level of you are not mentally in it.

But we had a pod recently called, it's not your fault, but it is your problem.

There is a, it's a team wide thing where they were not ready for that game.

And they tried to climb out of the hole throughout the rest of the game and they found themselves

with the ability to tie it with 205 left and Mr.

free throw and then Denver pulled away.

It was very much a groundhog day game in terms of the last two minutes of the game.

Lakers got a couple of good looks.

Denver executed very well down the stretch and that was that.

So Lakers fall to a Denver team missing a lot of its forwards in very irritating performance.

We're going to talk to Andre Aiden a little bit later, but I just really want to focus

on the team wide.

Like I don't want to focus on just Aiden because I've got a lot to say on kind of what happened

there.

But that sort of team wide, like you can't come out like that.

This is a team that's whooped your ass many times over the last few years.

You're in that final sprint and all of that.

We're switching out of the gates.

If the plan is to switch and stay home against have Aiden guard Murray and Austin guard

Yokech one on one on an island, that's a terrible plan.

And so I'm just irritated across the board that you can come out just completely not ready

like that against a good team on the road.

They clearly were not ready.

One of my philosophies about basketball or the NBA in general about winning and losing

games is we focus so much on what happens at the end of games and the end of a game is

very important.

But one of my favorite sayings is you can lose a game in the first quarter in the same way

you can lose a game in the fourth quarter.

We often talk about the fourth quarter stuff way more often.

But to me, the Lakers lost this game in the first three minutes and they essentially never

fully recovered from that.

They never dug themselves out of that hole.

You look at when the first round of subs happened when the starters finally broke up, right?

The starters were a minus 13 in that game after four and a half minutes and the Lakers lost

the game by seven.

The rest of the game, besides those first four and a half minutes, the Lakers actually won

the game.

They won it by six points.

There's a lot of good stuff.

They found several things that I think are kind of a path forward and things like that

on the offensive end, right?

But then a couple of stretches of which the second stretch was more excusable, more tactics,

lineups.

Hey, they got a little more figuring out to do type of thing.

But the first stretch of that game is a whole different thing.

You can lose basketball games to lesser teams in you, to better teams in you, to teams that

are equal to you, just like you can win basketball games in those same exact situations.

The rest of the game after that stretch was a pretty well played game between two teams

that the Lakers, to me, were the more talented team on paper and Denver was the more cohesive

team.

And that showed up over and over and over and over again when the Lakers sort of figured

out, okay, well, we can pressure them.

Denver's being a little bit sloppy with the ball tonight.

We can start to get out and transition and really score by turning defense into offense.

The Lakers made several different runs where they were able to chip away at Denver's stronghold

on the game.

Denver, though, was able to counter all of that aggressive defense and transition play by

the Lakers by settling down, being more careful with the ball, being more deliberate with

their offense and attacking and then also showing a certain amount of shot making from

the home team.

Murray was great, but Tim Hardaway Jr. was great and it felt like every sort of ball got

kicked out, Strother or even Brown, Christian Brown, not Bruce Brown.

They got an open three and they knocked him down.

To me, that was Denver sort of showing, well, if we lock in and execute, we sort of have

these inherent advantages with the style of defense, the Lakers are playing, which is switching

a lot to sort of force help or score when they don't help, right?

And when they forced help, kicked the ball out and I thought Yokech was really great at

spraying the ball around and finding open shooters.

But that's basketball.

The Lakers are just like, we can do this and when we press on this, we can make these

things happen.

And Denver was like, well, we've got these answers to that and that's to back and forth.

Yep, that's what made it a very excellent game down the stretch of two teams that I

was just like, okay, like they sort of understand how they're both going to try to attack

each other and made for great basketball.

The first three minutes of the game was horse shit basketball by one team and really

good execution and taking advantage of horse shit from the other team.

And they lost, they lost exactly because of their mental engagement and execution and

willingness to compete.

That's it.

And I don't need to hear anyone else talk about anything else really, we will do it.

But I've just saved because the rest of the game was interesting in a variety of ways,

but they lost because of that straight up.

And the whole was too deep for them to dig out of on a night where Denver shot making

was as good as it was and on a night where Yokech and Murray, I thought, were particularly

focused on punishing the Lakers mistakes.

And when you have two elite players like that, even Yokech with the turnovers and everything

else, they were just too good.

And I thought the Lakers did some things, but it wasn't enough after the bad start.

And still with all of that, D, I think if they have one more big available, they have

a good chance of winning that game, but then Denver can say willing and available, Pete.

Yes.

The other thing that you're talking about was available at the start.

He wasn't very willing.

Anyways, we'll get to that a little bit later.

But again, I really want to emphasize.

He was part of the poor shit basketball that you're talking about, but he was only one

of the participants.

And I do not view Deandre Aitner as one of the leaders of this team.

If he is one of the people setting the culture of this team, shame on everybody.

And the people who are who I do have expectations of, this type of stuff happens too often,

just that level of competitiveness, that level of we're ready to go going into a big

time game that, and here's the thing, okay, let's say you come out like that to what

level is there like, hello, no, come on, what are we doing on the basketball court?

You know what I mean?

The level of like, no, no, no, we got to pick it up.

This is one of the things I love about Dremond is that like that type of BS does not go

long without being discussed at the very least.

Somebody say something that this is not okay, rather than just, rather than just wallowing

in that malaise of what it is and everybody being okay with it.

Yeah, there's a level of disgust that leads to, that discussing.

Yeah, yes.

That did not happen quickly enough with the Lakers.

And there were some emblematic plays in that first three minutes.

A couple of them by Murray, there was that baseline out of bounds play,

basic two man stuff, in bounds, simple screen, two players die on a screen that Yoke

it is setting, eight and should be switching, but he's staying attached and Murray gets

off a very clean look from three.

That's not the sort of shot you give him.

The Lakers had to double team him in the last game that they played against each other

because he started out the same exact way.

And so all they would have had to have done was shown tape.

He kills us every time and he's on a hot streak right now against the whole league.

So there has to be some level of, that's Jamal Murray coming off of his screen right there.

We should probably guard him.

There's just a lack of urgency there.

And if you watch that clip, D.A. actually goes out of his way to be like, oh hold me back

screen.

He leans into the screen and get to hand up to make it sort of look like it's a close

out, but it's not.

And it's just totally clean look on just the simplest of plays.

It's a ball screen.

There was another play that three from the sideline put Denver up eight nothing Murray's

next shot attempt was another three that started with Yokech at the left elbow or at the right

elbow and Murray in the left slot.

And Christian Brown is on the right baseline right?

Yokech goes into his back down and Christian Brown back cuts Luca.

Luca's not really paying attention to Brown at all.

And sort of gets back cut and Brown circles right to the front of the rim area in the restricted

area.

Yokech hits him with a little bounce pass.

Luca has recovered by now, but it's not like he's like pressing up on him, but Christian

Brown is in a crowd and his back is to the basket.

So he's not forcing it.

He sees Jamal Murray on the wing in front of him, and he just does a simple kickout pass.

Luca's then trailing Christian Brown is not attached to him at all.

And so Brown's like, OK, well, what am I going to do next?

I'm going to go set a ball screen for Murray.

He sets a ball screen for Murray to come middle and Lucas still well underneath the level

of the screen when the team should be switching.

So he should be up.

He should be more attached to Brown.

When Murray sees that he's got a lane, he actually reverse pivots and spins out of that

and Brown clips Murray's defender Austin again and Murray steps right into another wide open

three while Luca is well below the level of the screen again.

Yes, that's two screens that got set and you're not attached yet at all.

I know that we can talk about Luca in this way where it's like, oh, well, the effort

and the decents and I'm not here to pile on Luca in that way.

There was overall malaise that was happening with the team, Pete.

Let's let's discuss that play from it through a different lens.

Luca's guarding Christian Brown, who just the Lakers don't have the personnel to guard

Denver.

Denver's the number one scoring team in the league, both by points per game and offensive

rating.

And just we could go through the specifics of it, but there are no really good options

that the Lakers have to be like out there.

I actually thought they turned them over beautifully.

I thought that was one of the best things they could do to them last defensively, but

think about that play.

Luca is guarding Christian Brown, the guy that they're sagging off of, that they're cheating

off of.

And so mentally, it's like, oh, it's, I don't need to track him.

I don't need to stay attached to him because that's Christian Brown.

I'm not guarding Jamal Murray, but part of Denver's execution, but execution comes from

culture is what they did on that play is they converted the separation that Luca was

giving Christian Brown, recognized it, and turned it into separation that Luca was giving

Jamal Murray.

And now it's a problem, and the Lakers do not do that on offense, nearly fast enough

or intentionally enough on the other end of the floor.

These are the things to me culturally that they got to get better at.

We got to take a break.

Let's come back, keep it going.

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Your point on this is exactly right.

It's like one of the things that Golden State does with Dreymond a lot.

They used to do it with Kevin Looney as well.

It's one of the reasons why the shouting gown of non-shooters in five-out spacing

offense, you better have a better argument than just that, right?

Like, oh, well, we've got a space to floor, so we've got to put shooters out there.

If you're committed, and you do the right things, and you have a culture of playing fast

and making quick, quick decisions and doing all of this stuff, you can do more than

survive with non-shooters on the court, or with players who are not respected as shooters,

you can thrive that way in order to get your best players going.

And shooters, movement shooters, need screeners.

That's an essential component in order to get it done, and so that's all part of a style

of basketball, where we see this in Canard in terms of how he plays, and Kleba could

be kind of a screener in that as well, so that's one of the great things about basketballs.

There's multiple ways to win, and so those guys do contribute to spacing, but they do

it in a different sort of way.

Let's pivot away from a second, or maybe forever, damn it, from those first three minutes

alike.

I'm so upset.

I've always been a second.

One of the other stories of this game to me, Pete, were who could and could not play

against Denver, who looked ready to play, and not ready to play?

Before we get to Aiton, something that stood out to me was the ineffectiveness of LaRavia

in a lot of his minutes.

We haven't talked about Jake a ton.

He's been the only guy that's played in every game, and so I don't want to harp on him

too much.

There's a consistency to his motor, and to his effort, and to everything that I'm willing

to let things go in terms of sometimes like shot making, or things like that.

Just because he's always playing hard, he's always trying to do his job.

He's not a mistake prone player in terms of like turnovers or things like that.

He's mostly steady, and where he's not is like with the shot making.

Yeah.

That comes and goes.

So, whatever.

Jake though seemed a little bit out of place in that he didn't have really anyone to defend

on one side of the court, and then on the other side of the court, with his jumper not

falling, he started to turn shots down a little bit, which is really a no-no on a team

where the Lakers are not a wheel sort of team or a blender team naturally, right?

You can't turn shots down when your shot creators are either creating a shot for themselves

or for you.

Yes.

Once you turn down that shot, that's not what else created for you.

You better be able to do something with it.

Yeah.

At the very least, it's got to flow into the next thing, which again, is not something

Lakers do, but they need to get better at it.

This is the argument I've been making about them improving mid-play, is that Dremond turns

down a ton of shots, but it will flow into another action that, yes, we have to separate

a certain amount of, they've got one guy who's ever existed that does this thing, right?

But this is part of a style of play that we do see in Denver and converting Christian

Brown, getting separation into guy like Murray, getting a shot, right?

It's not just Dremond.

The Warriors beat the Rockets last night, Pete, without Steph Curry.

I watched a bunch of that game before the Lakers game started.

On line, I made a joke when the Lakers game started.

I thought they were still watching the Warriors game because they weren't playing at all.

Like I said, it's still in the locker room watching.

Anyways, you don't need Steph Curry to say, I'm going to move quickly.

I'm going to flow into this.

They're telling Anthony Melton, go out there and shoot the ball and play with impunity,

basically.

They're telling the same to pods and they're like, okay, well, Dremond, play your game.

Take this shot when you're open when you want it, but if it's not, if you don't want it,

then turn it into something else quickly and those same sort of actions, he's not getting

the same four on threes on the backside when he's setting a ball screen for Pajemski.

But he's certainly sprinting into DHOs for pods or Melton to come off of or organizing

things to run split cuts with Gisantos and all of this.

It's just like, this is what they do.

Pete, and so to your point, no, man, it's not about who's on the court with you.

It's about how do we play all of the time?

And the Lakers are proving that they are not developing in that mid-play stuff that you've

been harping on not just this year for like three, four, five seasons, honestly.

Yeah.

And part of its personnel, for sure, and seeing a guy like Canard come into this environment

and be like, oh, this is fun.

I can get to run around and be like, yes, this is super helpful.

Although, even he, like, there was some matchups in a game like that where it's, he's not strong

enough to compete.

I thought he did an okay job when Murray targeted him a couple of times that he's so good

on the offensive end that like just a certain baseline, you know, the bench scored 45, 43

points, something like that last night that really kept them in it.

I thought Rui had a really good game.

Jackson, of course, filled a huge hole at least offensively.

It was interesting watching a player like Jackson in the altitude as well play 28 minutes

of his style of play.

It was one of the first time, first time to have watched him and been like, your transition

defense sucks tonight.

Yeah.

He looked tired.

He looked tired, honestly.

Yeah.

Like Yoke, it's leaning on him and then all of the running back and forth, like, look,

I don't blame him.

I don't blame him.

Normally play.

Yeah.

It's just interesting to see a guy that normally goes 18 to 20, have to go 28 in the differences

that can make in their game.

But there were also elements that I was excited about.

There has been these flashes of these small ball groups that don't have Vando in them.

It's not to pick on Vando.

It's just that you can't create a, we've got five guys that can really score the ball,

at least to a certain level with Vando on the floor, I believe.

And so they went to that Vando group to start the second quarter and lost those minutes,

right?

They had cut into the lead a little bit by the end of the first quarter.

And then it's 40 to 25, Lakers have to call a timeout after Denver sticks at three.

And those are tough, because I think those were non-Yokic minutes.

And so you want to win those, ideally, and the Lakers weren't able to.

But what they pivoted to later, and you've noticed this trendy, it's something that we've

talked about, they can go to this in little spurts.

I'm very curious if they can go to it more, but both against Oklahoma City and Denver,

these sort of small ball groups that can really, really score the ball.

And yeah, they're going to give up points on the other end, but in aggregate, they're

actually winning their minutes.

What have you found and what you've looked up in that?

Because that stood out to me in this game as well.

Yeah, there's this group, Pete of the Luca LeBron Austin, and they're flanked by Smart

and Rui.

So last night, that group played just four minutes, but they outscored Denver 13 to nine in

those four, well, in those four minutes, 13 points and four minutes is nothing to sneeze

at. That's a, I think, 160 offensive rating, 162.5 during that stretch. And it's interesting

for the season, that group has only played 16 total minutes, and they've only appeared

in five games together, but they're outscored and opponents by a point a minute, basically.

And this is just one version of the lineup, D. There's a couple versions of this that

have accumulated minutes, and it's not just this one 16 minute sample, but they go to this

a few times, and it's like, there's a version with Cnard or a couple of versions of Cnard,

you know, that they really every time. And so there's a certain amount of, when we can't

crack a defense, even a high end defense, we've got this one look that actually has been

able to the couple of times where we've actually struggled in other areas.

This is essentially the unit that JJ trusted last year, but instead of Doreen Finney-Smith

as Marcus Smart. We talked about this at the very beginning when the Laker signed Smart

after DFS walked, because they essentially used the cap space from DFS leaving to open

up their mid-level exception, which they actually used on Aiton and LaRavia, but they then

also were able to use the biennual exception on Smart because they had more cap space.

We talked about Smart being a DFS replacement of sorts, that he was like guard DFS, whereas

DFS was like a forward slash center, right? But the way that the Lakers used DFS was way

more as a perimeter defender than they were using him as the guy who defends Biggs.

Yeah, and well, because we switched so much too, right? That was such a part of it that

his ability to be sort of a perimeter defender, but also sort of a, he's one of the very good,

at least prior to the ankle stuff, very good. I sort of do descend that and this other thing

on the defense event, one of the better guys at that in the league.

I bring up last year's group for a reason because that group that I cited, again,

like I said, they're outscoring opponents by basically a point a minute, the sample is super small,

but they're defensive ratings like 91. They're finding ways to defend, and it's a very interesting

group in that they can switch a lot. They're all a certain level of athlete. The worst defender

out there is Rui, but at least he's 6'8", and he's of that build too that does a little bit of

a lot of different things. He had a really nice deflection and gets us out on the run, right? And

they really hunted turnovers. That unit and style of play, they can't protect the rim, right?

That they've got to get their wins where they can. And I think that strips and deflections,

things like that did a great job at that. Well, this is several years of the Lakers having Rui

now, right? And he's been asked to do a variety of things. Be a lowman, be a perimeter guy.

This is not the first game that he's had to do this against Denver, but he gets asked to defend

Yokech at times. That ability to say, okay, well, we understand that this isn't what you're best at,

but go push Yokech around and lean on him as best you can. We understand this isn't what you're

best at, but switch onto Jamal Murray out on the perimeter and try to contain him, put that stick

hand up. Just be someone who is in his vicinity and trying to stay attached. These small ball groups

are making their hay, though, because it's like they're essentially playing five out basketball.

And the shooting, even if it's like Marcus Smart is one of the players, there's enough spacing

out there that all of these guys are capable and willing shooters. And I think that that's what

smarts at least doing is he's not turning down shots. And he hit a couple last night and he missed

a couple that were critical injuries that he missed at the end, but he's in the game. He has to

take those shots. And it's just interesting to sort of see the evolution of this team having a

decent small ball looked that they can go to. Let's go to break here, though, Pete. And when we

come back, I want to talk about why the small ball group is even needed at all.

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We've come to the Deandre Aiton portion of the podcast. The Lakers in theory should have 48 minutes

of center to play basketball, right? Aiton is historically a player that plays anywhere

in between 28 and 32 minutes. And as a backup big, Jackson's more than comfortable playing anywhere

between 16 and 25 minutes. Between those two, you have enough center. But Aiton played four and

a half minutes last night. This isn't the first time that he's left a game early with his knee

or a misty game entirely with soreness and his knee. His knee is wrapped or he wears a sleeve on

one of his legs. And so clearly it's been a challenge for him. But beyond the availability

questions, there has not been the same go to him that was there earlier in the season. And I'm

wondering what you're seeing with Aiton in contrast what you're seeing in Jackson. And where this leaves

the Lakers right now. Last night was the night that Aiton lost me. And that starts from the place

that, you know, I wasn't expecting him to be around next year unless he opts in, right? Which

actually, I think has a decent chance of happening. But from a, I never had my heart in a place

where that's our long trim center right there, you know, early in the air. It's like, oh, maybe

we'll see, but it's, I understand it's November and December. And that's part of basketball is being

able to get through the 82. And it's such a high volume sport. Truth always gets revealed in terms

of what you're about. And the reason why last night lost me is that I don't believe it. I just

don't believe the neat thing. Then if I'm wrong about that, I'm sorry. And it changes my perspective.

But when McManaman tweeted out the news, he asked, you know, which knee it was. And they're like,

ah, we don't, we don't know. That's unusual in those circumstances. Just for my reasons,

I don't believe it. I think that he got frustrated. I think we started out getting our butts kicked.

I think Reddick went to an early sub to a player who's been very good for the Lakers lately.

And Jackson that we talked in yesterday's pub that I thought was a really good matchup against

them in terms of the spacing that he can provide vertically, right? If we're talking about that

small ball group, Jackson actually fits into that in a way in that he's a small ball center and

that he's not a physical presence necessarily. But he provides a level of speed and reliability

at rolling to the basket and a lob threat capability. Also, the ability to pass to the correct

person if he gets the ball, but it's not open that I think Reddick saw his team struggling early on.

GA gets subbed out. He's frustrated as an accumulative thing over the last couple of months. And

you know, we've gotten some insight in terms of what his mindset is on, I don't want to be

Clint Capella. I don't want to be. There's one play that he set three screens on the play,

rolled to the basket, was actually decently open on a seal and just didn't get the ball. And

that's part of being Clint Capella. Whatever that means to you, right, is that is part of the job

on a heavy ball screen team with perimeter creators. And it can be a thankless one where you're kind

of an offensive lineman creating space for other people. And GA was the number one pick in the draft.

And on some of these, like, he's open against a mismatch and he wants to show, hey, I can actually

help you here where if he is being incorporated, then I think he's super important, for example,

against the switches. But there's a long-term cultural thing and the reason he lost me last night

that that can't be that can't be around. That can't be a part of what you do. Like to me,

he became the third string center last night. Now, I don't know if Maxi's body can hang for more

than playing a couple games before his body turns to dust. And then now we all of a sudden find

ourselves in small ball territory. But again, I just start from the place where I just don't buy

the explanation. I thought he was frustrated and you just can't quit. That's a thing to me that,

like, I don't think you can have that going forward. There's a scene in Castaway right where

Tom Hanks has finally escaped the island. And his little volleyball Wilson falls off his little

makeshift raft. And it's drifting away and drifting away. And he's like calling for him. And he

realizes he's like lost him, right? And that drifting, that's what Aitens been doing. I feel like

for the last six weeks or so, he's just been drifting away, drifting away, drifting away. And

for your sort of like, calling out for him to come back because the version of him that played

earlier in the year was a pretty impactful player. And I was on this pod talking about how I get

what his previous reputation is, but look what he's doing now. He's super helpful. And I want to

embrace that. But to your point, when the season is discussed as a marathon, which still makes

Lakers fans cringe a little bit when that word is used, I get it. But the reason why that matters

in all of these different ways is because the truth will reveal itself over time. And there's a

consistency when you run a marathon and why you train for a marathon the way that you do, where

no, you're running for him. Can't break down. No, you can't actually start to do X, Y and Z because

you won't be able to finish. You just won't, right? And there's a mental strength and toughness

that shows up in the form of consistency of action as much as anything else. That's why the marathon

analogy drove me crazy is that it a merit to be able to run a marathon is an incredible feat

that is a reflection of your ability to do something over and over again for a long time. It's like

this remarkable achievement of consistency that using it in an analogy to be like,

oh, well, we've got a long time to complete this. Like that's the complete opposite. It's like,

you know, the consistency of doing it is how you get to the end of the marathon. Super well said.

I was someone who brought up Aiden long before he was even a Laker as a possibility. And I brought

him up specifically because of how I thought he could impact the team in the way that he did in

the first 20 games or so. I sent you a stat before he started it to record. And it's a simple and

sort of dumb stat, but I think it reflects sort of the frustration that you're talking about that

is starting to show up in his game in that in Aiden's first 20 games played. He scored in single

digits only four times. And in his last 20 games, including last night where he left early. So

make up that what you will. He's scored in single digits 10 times. And the comment that JJ made

now, what was it? Two months ago, a little bit over that 10 weeks ago where he was talking about

how a big man can't feed himself and that he thought Aiden was frustrated in that way. I thought

that was a very insightful and incisive comment about Deandre Aiden where I actually thought at

that moment, Aiden's relationship with the team changed just by JJ sort of saying the quiet part

out loud, right? Because just a few weeks before that, JJ was wearing the shirt with Aiden's face

on it where it's half Aiden half lion. And he sort of trying to pump him up. And he had talked

earlier in the year about how one of the things he realized about Aiden is that he's a positive

reinforcement player. Like what you want to do is pump him up. And that's how you're going to get

the best out of him. Now JJ hasn't turned on Aiden publicly in any way where he is like to talk

bad about him in terms of like, Oh, I need more effort from Deandre Aiden or I need Aiden to do

X or do Y. But it's shown up in his minutes. It's shown up in how often he closes games. It's shown

up in early subs and all of this other stuff where you don't have to say it to show sort of

how his stature and status within the rotation has dipped and fallen. And Jackson is to me a good back

up and like a fringe starter. I do think on this specific team, particularly with Luca, but also

with LeBron, that he can be more than that offensively on a lot of nights. Yeah. And I think even long

term, you know, one of the purposes of this year is to who fits? Who's a natural fit that I think

that it's very easy for me to see Jackson as a coast starter kind of like the lively gaffer. We've

got two bigs that are both going to play about half of the game. I do think that having a small ball

look, a centralist look is viable on a Luca team. And so maybe a few minutes of that as well. But

in terms of the long term needs of roster building, I don't think they need, I mean, there are

a couple of guys that are 35 minute of game centers that would be like, yeah, I'd love to have him,

but with Jackson in the fold, I will see, I guess in the playoffs to a degree, but I don't know,

I think there's a certain amount of, I think we need to kind of a coast starter in that role rather

than to spend all of our resources at the five spot. Yeah. And so to sort of tie a bow on the

eight in part of this discussion then is I think the Lakers have a good player in Jackson Hayes. I

do not see a future with eight and beyond this season, even if he were to opt in, I think that

the Lakers would then need to do some extracting at that point, honestly. And it's tough because in

the matter of months, he's gone from someone who looked pretty damn reliable and pretty damn

engaged and was doing a lot of the little things, but was also scoring well, shooting well,

active on the backboard and being active defensively as well. And that player is gone now. And I think

Aitens the sort of guy that continues to get chances on teams because what he showed in the first

month and a half or whatever of the season is like, okay, well, can we bottle that? Because he's

showing you that he's capable. It reminds me of what J.J. said last year about the Lakers playing

super hard in that stretch where they were like the best defense in the league. And he's like,

y'all told on yourselves, like, I've seen that you can do this now. And so my expectations have

gone up. I'm guessing he probably had similar expectations for Aitens after what he saw from Aitens.

And I'm sure behind the scenes, he's coaching him and trying to get the best out of him,

but recently it's just not been there. And that's even after a few games ago where he had like

a 23 point double double or something like that. It's like even in that game, I didn't feel like he

was the player that he was earlier in the year. It really felt like the Lakers were featuring him in

ways to sort of get him numbers. They ended up losing that game too. It was actually the first game

of the season that they'd lost where he'd had over 15 points and I think 10 or 12 rebounds,

and they'd lost. And so to me, that sort of was symbolic of how those numbers weren't as impactful

as they have been at other points during the season. No, certainly. And it lowers the Lakers

ceiling. If he's not the best version of himself, the Lakers can't be as good as they could be if

they had him. And yet this is a story that's played out several times over the course of Aitens

career where they see the flash with the team that he's on, sees the flashes, but also by the

end of the experience, they're pretty ready for him to move on. And that's where I got you last night

D. And again, I'm someone who's been talking about the value of him in switches and the basketball

utility of him and all of that. But the I quit. I give up type of thing that I felt like I saw

last night. I know they get attributed to the knee. I just don't buy it. And that I just don't think

can be or I don't think you can grow long term with that. And I think it's actually better to

take short term losses, whether it's benching him. I think that's that's the move personally. Like

if Maxi can hold up. And I don't mean benching him in terms of like now he plays in all the second

units, type of stuff. Like he'd be out of my rotation going forward. Interesting. But again,

that starts from the premise of like I actually think that you gave up last night rather than

because you're frustrated rather than it being legit. But this was also part of the culture thing

of this is the abundance of caution, right? There's a whole culture around the Lakers where if you have

a little bit of something, we'd rather have you sit until the next game type of thing. But

this wasn't that to me. I don't know. I don't know. To me, it would have made way more sense

than that if he was on the verge of that than why play it all considering the culture that you're

talking about. Yep. The lower leg soreness, the knee soreness, the ankle soreness. Jackson missed

a couple of games very recently with ankle soreness. And he came back and looked fine. He wasn't on

the injury report. Yes. That's what I mean. Anyways, we could talk about this forever. I don't

want to hammer it home. But I think that your perspective to me is totally valid. But whatever

direction the team goes in, it's front and center is needing resolution. And that's not

somewhere we were before last night's game, I thought. But we are there now. So whatever happens,

something has to happen. And that's sort of where I'm at as well. So I'm not going to go that far

in that I believe something has to happen and needs to happen. But I don't know if they share

that perspective. If they go from a place where they're like, actually, we still believe we can

get the best out of D.A. And we need him. I was just saying there's a couple of days ago, right?

This to me is something that crosses a certain threshold that I believe makes it

something that needs to be addressed. But I think it just still remains to be seen if they see it

the same way. So to be continued, got a game tonight against the Pacers. Join me on

offside in the chat for there tonight. Gonna have a couple videos out for them this weekend as well.

We'll be back on Monday here. But until then, you've been this in the Laker Filmroom podcast.

We'll catch you guys next time.

He's double-king just passed out about broken up by Worthy.

Get some magic. Worthy guys on his belly. Magic Storm.

Magic, got it. Magic Fireers. Again, it will Lakers win the game. The Lakers win the game.

You're about to rob him. Three seconds left. That next one will win him.

It's about to win him.

The Corby Bryan is 48 points, 17 revolts from Worthy.

They've dropped from the ties and NBA finals, Reckon.

A lot of Laker fans don't know how to do that.

You're seeing something that's very rare indeed. A Laker to get MVP change in Boston.

Of all places. Are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

Lakers looking to push.

Ryan spinning in the lane, back for Gasson, ready pass.

And it's back to a three-point game.

Don't be Brian.

Pick that by bow.

There's the North.

Two, one.

This is it.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

What's over?

Got popped out of five.

Ryan.

Yeah.

And look at the little top tower of the country.

And it's on the injury, Corby.

I mean, one is shot.

I mean, you can't defend that.

Are you kidding me?

2.1 seconds remaining.

Denver a foul to give.

Yokech trying to disrupt Rondo.

He puts it in.

Here's Davis 4-3 in the win.

Oh, it's gone.

Anthony Davis has wanted for the Lakers.

James again.

Oh, it's another one.

LeBron James putting together a closing quarter.

Against the Nuggets.

This historic 2020 NBA championship

belongs to the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers conquer the bubble.

And banner number 17 will soon hang in the rafters.

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