Lakers Win When Ayton Embraces Role Player Status

We've Got a lot to get into here on the show, and I wanna start with the, the Lakers, and I know people listening might say, oh God, you're just trying to manufacture a narrative about the Lakers to get them in there.

There's nothing manufactured about this conversation about the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Los Angeles Lakers just came through a two-game stretch baseball series in Houston and won both those games, beating the Rockets, the team that was right behind them in the Western Conference standings, beating them convincingly.

Last night I was at the Brooklyn Nets Oklahoma City Thunder game on, uh, Wednesday.

We can talk more about that in a minute.

But, uh, after I got out of that game, I sat down, watched the 4th quarter of the Lakers against the Rockets, and You know, LeBron was outstanding in that game, 13 of 14 from the field, 30 points, incredible performance.

6 dunks.

Incredible.

Luka Dacic was ridiculous, made just dagger after dagger against the Rockets.

And look, this has been the theme of the last few weeks and especially since LeBron James got back in the lineup about a week ago when this team plays.

With this type of style.

And what I mean by that is Luca at the forefront of what they do offensively.

Austin Reeves, effectively the number 2 option, LeBron being a superb 3rd option.

A guy that's capable of doing what he did against the Rockets on Wednesday night, which is putting up 30 points on 13 to 14 shooting.

They're dangerous.

They are dangerous.

And you throw in a couple of other things like DeAndre Ayden.

What he's doing, you know, finally, 3 quarters plus of the way through the season, embracing his role as rim protector slash rim runner, uh, you know, dirt, do, do the junkyard dog type of stuff in these games.

He's doing it.

He's doing it.

And when he plays like that, the Lakers are tough.

The Rockets, you know, they're the next best team in the Western Conference and the Lakers clean them out on the road two games in a row.

Um, I, I guess the question is, are, are the Lakers, Should we start considering the Lakers as a serious threat to win this whole damn conference, and I guess by extension if they win the conference, you're a big threat to win the whole damn thing.

So whoever comes out of the West is gonna win, uh, I think gonna win the championship.

Yeah, I mean, look, again, I go back to our preseason, you know, show.

I picked the Lakers to finish 3rd in the West.

Where are they gonna finish, Chris?

Third in the West, looks like.

Um, so, you know, this isn't a surprise to me.

Like, I feel like this is, you look at the talent on this team, and, you know, I was a little surprised it took DeAndre Ayton this long to get here, but I wasn't shocked that he might get here.

I, I know him pretty well.

I followed him and reported on him through his entire career.

And it seemed like he was ready for this kind of, not role change, but to have the focus of what he did out there, the more defensive, more rebounding, you know, pick screens, all that stuff.

And it turns out when he got here in LA he wasn't.

He was still trying to prove himself as, you know, I can be a force.

I'm a Shaq type player, a Dwight type player.

He's not, obviously.

And, you know, he said something hilarious after this last game.

He said, I looked at myself in the mirror and had a conversation with myself.

And, you know, I said, this team, they don't need you to do all that.

This ain't it.

And, you know, you just go and, and be a defensive player and help them, you know, where they need help.

And this is from a guy who a month ago was saying, I'm not going to be Clint Capela, right?

Screaming that in the locker room.

So, I think that's a huge change for the Lakers if DeAndre can stick with it, because it just allows them to do more things and it makes their defense obviously significantly better.

Um, you know, you talk about LeBron as a third option.

Well, let me just, let me just drill down on Ayton for a second there because I, I didn't, I didn't have the same confidence that he would get to this point because the issue that he had in Phoenix was that he was not getting enough touches towards the end.

The issues that he had in Portland, and I don't think he had that many issues because he was kind of a focal point of what they were doing when they were really bad, but I thought coming into this season that The area of concern was going to be DeAndre Ayden slipping into a role that would result in him shooting 10 or fewer times per game like that with, with a Laker team that's built like this.

That's a possibility or probability with the, the lineups that they play, and it sure seemed like it was for the first half plus of the season.

He didn't seem satisfied with the role that he had.

He made that comment about Clint Capela.

Um, it's really only over the last couple of weeks, and I'm not sure what it was, whether it was a self-reflective moment while staring in the mirror, in the mirror cinematically like that he.

You know, it was like, oh, you know, I, I, I, I gotta, I gotta come to grips with this.

I gotta figure it out .

Or if, you know, somebody got to him, whether it's JJ Redick, somebody in his own camp and said, listen, man, to make this work, you got to embrace the role that they need you to play .

And that is Clint Capella-esque.

That is being a guy that does the hard work defensively, offensive rebounds, you know, gets his points in, You know, a variety of different ways, and when he's, and he's been able to do that, um, I, I, I mean it, it took him a long time, but he's been able to do that.

So I, I was.

I'm glad that for for DeAndre Ayden and the Lakers that he got to this point.

I just, I was not expecting them to get there.

Well, it, it definitely changes the kind of defense that they can play, and, and you've seen that in this stretch they've had a top 10 defense, which is something we never thought we would have said with the way most of them.

Middle of the season when, um, they're obviously playing a lot of zone.

I don't know how much that's gonna hold up during the playoffs.

It's one thing to come into a city, team's not used to seeing that much zone.

They don't have a lot of time to prepare for you.

It's another thing during a playoff series where they have all the world, time in the world to prepare for you.

Um, and you can get burned that way.

So it'll be interesting, but I give JJ Reddick credit for figuring out, you know, how to win this part of the season.

You just got to win the now.

And I think that he's shown he can win parts of, of playoff seasons and other things, you know, for sure, um, with the way he's been coaching.

So that That makes a difference, you know, the fact that LeBron, as you said, is your #3 option.

I mean, they were doubling Austin Reeves for a chunk of time in that game against Houston.

And you're leaving LeBron James open.

I mean, it's just, it's hilarious, um, or at least only 1 guy to guard him and You know, I, I think the offensive firepower they have when they have these kinds of roles really works, obviously.

And, you know, I, I say it all the time.

Lukadoncic knows how to play defense when he wants to.

He's just not particularly interested in January.

And that costs them games sometimes, right?

The little turnstile act he does.

It, it shows up in the win-loss column, but you know, Where it typically does not show up is it does not show up in the playoffs.

So, I guess my question, you know, or my answer to your question about do we have to think of them as contenders is, you know, we know that Oklahoma City and San Antonio are not just the class of the West, but the class of the, of the league, I would say.

Um, Boston, we can talk about it a little bit more later.

But How big is the gap between the Lakers and those two teams?

And whenever the Lakers meet one of those teams in the playoffs, who would you rather, if you're the Lakers, for it to be, Chris?

Because You know, common wisdom is, 0, #1 seed, you know, especially Oklahoma City, defending champion, don't want to meet them until the Western Conference Finals.

I don't know, man.

Do you want the seeding that puts you across from Oklahoma City in the, in the Spurs in the 2nd round in Wemby or Oklahoma City?

Which one?

I think, I think you'd rather have the Spurs in the 2nd round.

Not that the Spurs are a worse team than Oklahoma City, but they're less experienced, and I would take my chances with Stefan Cassel in his 1st playoff series, Victor Wimbayama in his first playoff series.

Well it would be, it would be the 2nd.

It would be the 2nd playoff series by then.

Uh, well, I mean, I mean, first playoff experience, really.

I would, I'm saying like their first go around.

I would take my chances against them, than a battle-tested Oklahoma City team.

Um, it's it's not by much, but I would probably take my chances there.

Uh, you look at these numbers in the month of March, uh, just use that.

This is like a 1237 game stretch, I think already in March.

Uh, they are 5th in the NBA in offensive rating.

They're 8th in the NBA in defensive rating.

Those are numbers that can get you to the finals.

And, and I'm just marveling at what I'm seeing.

Out of LeBron James, he's averaging 13 shots per game in March.

Like that is the low point for him on the season.

This has been a high usage rate, high volume type of offensive player for his entire career, and this month the lowest ever.

I, I, I saw a stat that said that this is the longest stretch.

He's taken less than 15 shots in his entire career.

He's, yeah, he's not taken more than 15 shots in any game this month, and you go back to late February when he took 16 in, in a game.

Uh, he's also shooting well above 50% in every one of these games and 62.6% on the month.

Like this is just a great role for him.

And it feels like the Lakers, like, Something just has dawned on them as a team over the last couple of weeks.

Something that took 5 months to get to where Luca is playing better defense and not complaining quite as much.

LeBron is sliding into this 3rd role and thriving in it.

DeAndre Ayton is playing at a high level.

Marcus Smart, Rui Hashimura, these guys are contributing to what the Lakers want to do.

Like, this is not the same team that we saw in the first few months of the season.

They are Remarkedly different team.

That's why we're talking about them.

This is not a gratuitous conversation about the Los Angeles Lakers.

It's a real conversation where you're looking at a team.

I, well, no, look, people, it's not just us.

People complain about podcasts all the time talking about the Lakers to get people to talk about them or TV shows for that matter.

You did TV every day, you know, like people get after you.

You talk too much about the Lakers.

Yeah, I was gonna say we shockingly did, you know, broke down the game and, and Laker segments today.

Over at Fox Sports, and we had Dan Weike, uh, the athletics, Lakers beat writer on, and he was saying, you know, LeBron posted a photo of his, like, torn up knee from the other night when he dove on the floor.

But he said that when they were just, you know, sitting around at shootaround, LeBron started showing him all kinds of really gnarly, like cuts and bruises and things like that that he had on his body.

Um, so he is 100% throwing himself into it.

He also said LeBron looks really tired some of the time.

He goes, some of the time he turns in a game like last night, and then, you know, they're on the road with, you know, I always trust the beat writers being a former one myself, you, like, they're on the road with these guys and they see them in, in the most amount of situations.

So, again, it's gonna be interesting.

Does this hold up during the playoffs?

How many, you know, you get the extra days of rest during the playoffs, but it is kind of a grind.

What are the implications for next season?

Certainly when he wasn't buying into this, you know, third guy player role, it was hard to see how he'd fit with this team next season.

If he does this and is willing to take less money, maybe he stays a Laker next season, but can his body hold up to do this?

I mean, it's just that with, with this wrinkle of him playing this way is an entirely new, interesting set of questions from one of the greatest players of all time.

And I think, you know, if you like basketball, it's fascinating.

To see, again, one of the smartest, highest IQ players of all time, kind of figured this out.

And then I wonder, with him and JJ, you know, obviously, sometimes people joke around, oh, a former podcast partner.

But you remember that podcast.

I mean, it was them breaking down a lot of film and talking very extensively about sort of what worked where and why.

And I don't know what exactly went on in that conversation that JJ Reddick described where he and LeBron said, Down and, you know, he talked to LeBron about playing this role and, and sort of convinced him to do it.

I would not be shocked at all.

We know JJ is a heavy analytics guy.

I would not be shocked if he put a bunch of numbers in front of LeBron.

I would not be shocked if he put a bunch of film, and they sort of worked through together, what would be the best ways for him to contribute.

Um, but I think that relationship and, and the specificity of the things that they had done together on That podcast is actually coming in to be very helpful because they are used to having these conversations when it's not about, hey, LeBron , take a backseat.

So if you're already having those kinds of conversations in your relationship, and then it's like, oh, maybe this one affects you, I think it's just easier .

And I'm not sure another coach would have been able to sort of talk him through doing this.

So I admire JJ for that.

JJ Reddick has made a late run.

To get Coach of the Year consideration.

Not to win it, but to be in that top 5 after the likes of JB Bickerstaff, Joe Missoula, Mitch Johnson in that next tier of coaches because of what he's been able to do with this group in the, basically the second half of the season.

And look, he's in the Western Conference and he's got this team camped out in that #3 seed after all they've gone through.

This season is a pretty remarkable accomplishment.

If they're playing this way, going to the playoffs, they're gonna beat somebody in the 1st round.

I feel confident in that.

Whoever they get in the 1st round, I think they're gonna win.

And then if they get an inexperienced San Antonio team in the 2nd round, all bets are off.

Yes, Webayama is transcendent.

Stefan Cassel, I saw him playing.

Uh, the other night against the Clippers, he is, if he doesn't make it all defensive team, people aren't watching the games.

That guy is legit on that end of the floor.

Uh, didn't see Harper play that game, but he's had a good season, you know, they're getting healthy with, with their backline.

Like they're good, but the lack of experience matters and the Lakers with all that championship experience, playoff experience, I, I take my chances in that type of matchup.

And then, Not to keep fast forwarding here, but you got Oklahoma City.

Luk Aancic owns the Oklahoma City Thunder.

He kicks their ass all the time, all the time.

Now, the Thunder kicked the Lakers' ass in a lot of ways too.

They did it earlier in the season.

But again, this version of the Lakers with LeBron James averaging sub 15 shots per game, playing defense, grinding, rebounding, playmaking, filling the stat sheet.

He's still playing too many minutes to something you mentioned earlier.

I still would like to see him.

Like he should be like 30 or less most nights and it shouldn't be that hard to bring him down.

It shouldn't be that hard to get those last 4 or 5 minutes off his, off his body, um, towards the end of the season.

But if they can keep this type of play up, they're gonna be dangerous.

They're a dangerous team, uh, in the postseason.

All right, uh, go ahead.

Well, I was just gonna say that you, you brought up the experience and as you were running through guys, I was thinking, if you think about You know, they're starting players.

Austin Reeves is only really not just the inexperienced one in terms of not really advancing far in the playoffs.

Lucas been to a finals.

LeBron obviously been to, I think it's 104 finals.

Marcus Smart has been to and won a finals.

So, The fact that you have your main guys, not only with playoff experience, but NBA Finals experience and what it takes to get there and in a couple cases what it takes to win there, I, I do think it's the ultimate experience matters team, uh, you know, if they face the Spurs against the ultimate dozen experience really matter team, and if we do get that matchup, it's gonna be really fascinating to watch.

That's, I would say sadly Marcus Smart was traded before the Celtics could win.

He did not get that championship, but didn't he play in the finals?

Played the final.

I thought, oh, I thought you said at the end there he won the championship.

No, he was, he was.

Unceremoniously moved before for Drew Holiday, who won the holiday, which, hey, it worked out for the Celtics, but he played in the 22 finals, right?

He did, he did.

He played in the 22 finals for the Celtics.