Aloha,

Well that was fun. There is nothing better than beating the Clippers in back to back games. Yes for me it’s even better than beating the Celtics because the Clippers had the nerve to even come to LA. And the basketball gods have rewarded them with heartbreak year after year😂

We didn’t have Rui at all and only had Austin for 9 minutes in the first game as well as Goodwin last night. We proved we are a very deep team and can win even when LeBron has an off night like he did last night. If it wasn’t for turnovers that led to 24 Clipper points this could have been a blowout.

While I doubt Rob will get Executive of the year award, he should. Yes the Mavs approached the Laker in the Luka trade but Rob’s negotiating led to the Lakers under paying. Giving up Max was tough but keeping a first as well as the swaps was brilliant.

I have been hard on Rob through the years but you have to give him his flowers for how this team was built. It started with signing Austin as an undrafted rookie and then as he improved, resisting the pressure to trade him for a name player. He is now our 3rd star.

Next was insisting that Vando came back in the Westbrook dump. Not a lot was made of it at the time but Rob saw a 6’ 9” whirlwind defender and rebounder. There were a lot of questions after Rob extended him but I don’t think anyone is complaining now. His 10mil contract maybe a bargain now.

Rob followed that up by trading Kendrick Nunn, remember him ? and a few 2nds for Rui. A 6’ 8” big body 3 level scorer. While Rui was inconsistent, he began to find consistency down the stretch last year when Ham finally inserted him into the starting lineup. This year he has been a big part of the team’s success. And again Rob resisted calls to trade him.

This was followed by trading DLO for Finney-Smith and some seconds. While DlO is quality offensive player, he was struggling this year and with Austin emerging he wasn’t what we needed but we needed what DFS brings.

Once Vando came back we suddenly had four 6’ 8”- 6’ 9” guys for our “small ball” line up. That always cracks me up. Rui and Lebron can both guard the wing and have big bodies to bang with bigs while Vando and DFS are both lock down wing and guard defenders.

There are other moves as well. After missing most of last year Gabe took some time to find his Miami game again but he finally has.

It took Jackson a year and a half to be the player Rob saw when he signed him. But he has.

Dalton fell to us but he seems to finally coming back to the player he was early in the season.

Add in Tre and Goodwin, two way players that deserve to be on standard contracts and suddenly you have a contender.

What is most exciting to me is there is a lot of room for improvement. Luka is slowly becoming himself again he still is getting his conditioning and rhythm back. And Vando, DFS, Luka, Tre and Goodwin are all still learning to play together in JJ’s system.

While I love that we are sitting in the 2nd seed, it’s just as important that we are 7 games or more up in the loss column on the contenders for the 6th seed. With are newfound defense and reasonably good health we are going to be a problem come playoff time.

Aloha,

Just a few thoughts. All eyes are on the 2nd seed with the Lakers a mere one game back in the loss column. But I’m also keeping my eye on the teams behind us. The Clippers are in 6th now 5 games back of us in the loss column. The 7th, 8th and 9th seeds are all 6 games back in the loss column. Barring major injuries we have an excellent chance of at least the 5th seed and avoiding the play in game altogether.

I have been watching basketball more years than I like to admit. I can honestly say that I have never seen a team with 3 playmakers on one team like we have in Luka, Lebron and the still underrated Austin.

Now the next thing ever NBA teams long for are long, athletic forwards. We have 4 of them in Lebron, Rui, Doe and Vando. And they all can play multiple positions.

Add those groups together and you have something special. Earlier in the year our 2nd unit struggled on both sides of the ball. While our defense on Joker was the talk of the league, I thought our rotations should have gotten more notice. I no longer worry about our 2nd unit. We had at least 2 of our big 3 playmakers on the court 40 of the 48 minutes. And the one 4 minute stretch where we only had Lebron out there we doubled the lead to 18 in the 4th.

I thought JJ’s mixing of our top scores and defenders was brilliant. We generally had 3 starters on the court. Rotating Doe, Gabe and Vando in we always have a strong unit on the court.

I have to give LeBron his props on the defensive side. I had been hard of him earlier in the year but he has looked like the defender he was back when he came to the Lakers. Mix in the huge strides that Rui and Austin have taken defensively, thats why we have been the top defense in the league for over a month. By the Austin is 5th in the league in taking charges. And Luka always led the Mavs in steals. I believe our back court isn’t the liability some people think it is. What is making the defense special is the connection between the players. And I only see it getting better as the group plays more games together.

I am still somewhat concerned by our center rotation. Jaxson has really improved, still it could be our Achilles heel. I really don’t see a helpful 5 being bought before March 1st. I think we may end up promoting either Koloko or Tre to the varsity. That could give us 6 hard fouls. Currently I like Tre more than Koloko. But they have until the last day of the season to decide.

I also believe we should promote Goodwin as well. He has been so much better than Shake and Cam have been. He is definitely a keeper for next year.

I really like this group. I think we bring them all back next year. Hopefully we can keep Jax. He has earned at least a back up center role. Even if they can keep Jax we will need another center. However it doesn’t have to be a star. Someone who can play some defense, rebound and catch a lob. An interesting name out there could be Clint Capella and he could possibly be had for the MLE. We will have up to 5 open roster spots and as we saw this year with the new CBA, a lot of talent fell into the Vet minimum level. This team will be a preferred landing spot for those vets that fall.

I haven’t been this excited by a Laker team since the last Championship. I don’t know if we can win it all this year but we are so much closer than we have been for a long time. This 6 game home stand is very important because we have a tough March ahead. I don’t in that stretch that we beat, if we continue to play like we have been playing.

Go Lakers

Aloha,

Great Laker day. We picked up a game on both the Clippers and the Mav’s who lost. We also picked up a game on the Grizzlies who also lost. We are now only one out in the loss column from the 2nd seed. If OKC beat the TWolves we will gain another game on them. So far, so good.

Aloha,

We have had some impressive wins this year but that one was I believe our best game. Luka, was amazing. He was better than I thought he could be this soon after the trade and coming back from injury. And if there was any question if Luka, LeBron and Austin being able to start together, I think we saw the answer. A resounding HELL YES.

I think one can now, say with certainty that our defense is for real. It starts with some innovative games plan that the players execute beautifully. And they just played harder than the Nuggets all night. The coaches designated which Nuggets would have to beat us and effectively defended the others

While Luka got the game ball, if there was defensive game ball I would give it to Rui. Now don’t get me wrong, the entire team defended at a high level. But JJ singled out Rui, calling him a Warrior and I completely agree. Rui is extremely strong and he was in Jokers shirt all night. He is really hard to move. It’s kind of strange to me that some people still don’t realize how much he has improved defensively. I see it and the coaches point it out all the time but for some reason he doesn’t get the credit he’s earned.

Luka and Austin are two others that don’t get enough credit on the defensive end. Doe pointed out that Luka led the Mav’s in steals the years he played with him. He had 4 tonight. And Austin has elevated his defense as well. He’s been an integral part of that number 1 defense the last month.

Offensively I think we could be perhaps a top offensive team as well. Luka had 30, while Lebron, Austin and Rui all had 20+ Doe, Vando and Gabe didn’t contribute much offense but they will and their defense made a huge difference. Vando had the Joker visibly irritated.

I am liking JJ’s rotations. There seems to always be scorers and defenders on the court at the same time.

The Rockets lost so we are back at the 4th seed. And we are only 2 games back in the loss column from the 2nd seed. We have several tough games coming up but they are at home. If we continue to play this hard and execute we will win a lot of games.

Aloha,

Lakers are signing Alex Len. Not thrilled but at least he rebounds and has a 7’ big body and can bang and Rebound. They cut Wood, which tells me he wasn’t expected to play any time soon.

Aloha,

What a weird day yesterday. The Pacer had the best record in the NBA since the 1st of the year and we beat them without Luka and Lebron for probably under the circumstances, the best win of the year.

Austin scored 45 points, reminding everyone that, yes Luka is coming but he is also pretty good at basketball. Rui chipped in with 24. His 4th 20+ game in the last 5. It’s not lost on me that when Rui is given the touches he has good scoring games. And his defense on Siakam was very good as well.

And defense again was huge. The entire team was locked in. It’s amazing to me Vando looks after missing so much time. Myself and probably everyone thought it would take time to ramp up but it’s like he was never injured.

Yes everything was looking bright, and I allowed myself to believe we had at least a punchers chance at a championship until the gut punch came.

After the game I’m scrolling through Bleacher Report for reactions and there it was. The Mark Williams trade was rescinded. I’m not going to speculate on what went wrong with our medical staff’s evaluation but the entire trajectory of our season change. While we should be able to find a good center this summer, we are kind of screwed for this year.

While Jackson has ramped up his game recently, it’s clearly not enough. Looking at the centers that have been bought out or are available made me nauseous. When Mo Bamba is the best center out there so far, one worries.

First Rob probably should tell Cam not to unpack because he is gone. We have 2 options. We can sign a guy like Bamba. Or we can cut a 2nd guy, probably Morris and sign both of our 2 way centers. We are far enough under the cap to add two prorated rookie minimum contracts. We could have a center by committee set up. Koloko is the shot blocking lob threat and Tre, the big body banger.

It would certainly help to know the status of Wood. I see him on the bench every game but still no word.

Still I think we are a very good team and will definitely be fun to watch. If we continue to play the connected defense we have been playing, that will make up for some of our center woes. I’m still expecting a playoff run, but my hopes have definitely been tempered. Go Lakers.

Aloha,

So how many times in one off season can Rob shock us. DFS was going to the Griz until he was a Laker. Luka came out of the blue and we get a 23 year old up and coming
7’ 1” center from the Hornets. This is shocking because he wasn’t a name that was out there at all. He was considered one of the building blocks for the Hornets future.

It was expensive. Dalton and Cam. Along with the 2031 first and a first swap. I believe it’s the 2030 pick.

Williams is averaging 16 ppg, 10 boards 1.5 blocks and 2.5 assists in 26 minutes.

I will miss Dalton but we need a AD replacement more. Now we have a core of guys 26 or younger with LeBron and Finney-Smith as the exceptions.

Wow, is all I got.

Aloha,

The last couple days have been crazy and who knows who is available anymore. The Warriors have reached out to the Lakers about LeBron again. Now I doubt if LeBron wants to leave but perhaps he could have felt disrespected by the Lakers for not letting him know about the AD trade. After all he has been the de facto GM everywhere he’s been. So what if he did want to end is career with the Warriors. Perhaps a trade would look something like this.

The Lakers send Lebron and Bronny to the Warriors for Wiggins, Dennis, Kuminga and 2025 first, 2029 first round picks and a 2nd.

The Lakers send Kuminga, Gabe and our 2031 pick to the Raptors for Poiltl. They get another young building block.

We send send Poiltl the Warriors 2029 first to the Pacers for Turner. That’s a valuable pick by the way. And they receive the quality starting center they require in a Turner trade.

Then we send the Nets Wood or Hayes and 2 seconds to the nets for Sharpe.

We still have a first. Wiggins is an upgrade at defense over Lebron a 2 way back up PG, a quality center to replace at least some of what we lost with the AD trade. and a quality backup center. I actually think we would be a better team. Like I said, I doubt LeBron asks out but if he did this actually isn’t far fetched like a lot of trades you see.

Aloha,

After watching the Lakers beat the Knicks for our best win of the year, I get a notice on my phone that we traded AD for Luka. Wow, speechless. Who will play center?For those that say Rob isn’t doing enough, well this stunning. Max was also part of the trade and hate that. He gave Brunson all he could handle. This is bizarre.

Aloha,

Well that was ugly. Now there is context here. We were ahead when AD went down and Jackson demonstrated again that he shouldn’t be the primary back up to AD. Even Koloko is a better option.

Then Gabe was still out. Gabe is always in about every trade proposal for a center. But we saw what that would look like with Shake and Bronny as our 2nd unit ball handlers. Both were awful. You can’t trade Gabe unless we do something about another guard as well. At least Gabe’s defense has been pretty good. He would have been helpful against Maxey for sure.

Vando also would have helped against Maxey but they are not playing him
on the 2nd night of back to backs yet.

Now Rui came back but he was on a minute restriction due to the injury recovery. And DFS was in foul trouble and only played 17 minutes.

Considering it was the 3rd game in 4 days and the 2nd game of a back to back. So They looked tired. One could say that the 76ers had it worse. And they did without PG and Embid but they have been playing surprisingly well. They beat the Cavs without Embid. And the last 3 with PG out as well. They beat a completely healthy Kings team today.

Can a stat line of 31 points, 8 boards and 9 assists be considered a bad game? Yes, because LeBron accomplished that last night. We gave up 28 points on 22 turnovers and LeBron had 8 of the turnovers. That’s now 13 in the last 2 games. It seemed like every Lebron turnover led to points and so many were just stupid. And it wasn’t just turnovers. For the 2nd game in a row his defense was nonexistent. Even half his points came in the 4th when the game was over. He could use some rest but that probably won’t happen until AD is back.

So any bright spots? Well Dalton continued his hot shooting but he was picked on, on the defensive end and with so many of our best defenders out or crippled by fouls, it was hard to hide him.

This game highlighted our biggest weaknesses. We need a decent backup center. I know a lot of folks would like another starting center, but then LeBron would have to guard the 3 and we keep seeing what that looks like.

What we do need is a center that can defend, rebound and protect the rim at a reasonable level. We are not getting someone like Kessler.

And unless you love Shake and Bronnys game we could use another playmaking guard and hopefully he can score a little.

The problem is the trade market currently is stalled. Until Butler, Fox and LaVine situations are settled nothing is going to happen. All these sellers are not only holding out for teams willing to overpay for the few players on the market, they are also waiting to see if they can get a an asset or two by becoming a third or 4th team in one of these trades because they will be complicated deals.

I don’t see anything happening until the last day or two before the deadline. Hopefully there will be a deal available that can help the Lakers.

Aloha,
If you are why Rob hasn’t got anything else done the Hornets traded Richards to the Suns for 3 2nd round picks and Josh Okogie. Okogie is a good young defensive minded wing who has also raised his 3 point percentage to 38%

The Lakers had interest in Richards but in the NBA brave new world, they couldn’t compete with an offer like that.

Aloha,

It’s trade season again but not much is going on. There have been only two meaningful trades and the Laker had one of them with the trade for DFS.

No one believes we are done yet. A quality backup center is the top priority. I can single out at least 3 games we lost because we didn’t have one. Our other need is at least a decent backup PG with some offense. Our 2nd unit doesn’t have a lot of scorers.

Unfortunately things have changed. The new CBA has made it extremely difficult to get trades done. And the play in game has cut down the number of sellers.

And this is what makes it weird. The play off race is so tightly packed that that there isn’t the urgency yet to make a deal. For instance the Spurs are in the 12th seed but only 3 games out of the 6th.

And the bottom feeders are tightly packed as well. Only a couple of games separate the worst teams from the very bottom. So the sellers are not motivated at this time either. I believe they are all holding out for overpays.

I doubt the Lakers will overpay. Primarily because there isn’t a Trade that would catapult them into true championship contender status with OKC or the Cavs.

The Lakers have said they will only trade a first for a player that will play the next 4 or 5 years with the Lakers. That eliminates a substantial amount of the rumored players. Kessler fits that timeline but he may not even be on the market. And if he is, don’t expect him to be moved until the last possible minute. Danny will hold out as long as possible. Although I don’t think he will get multiple firsts because Kessler isn’t that good.

So I guess we wait. That maybe best anyway. Maybe other players become available. Or perhaps one of the sellers becomes realistic like the Nets did and let a guy go at a fair price. As much as our backup center situation is killing me It will also be good to see how we look with a healthy squad.

I will be surprised if we see anything happen for another couple of weeks but would be delighted if something did.