Lakers’ Injuries Came at the Worst Possible Time

It took us 30 minutes to get to the Lakers, but let's get to the Lakers.

Um, this time last week we were having a fiery debate over Luka Doncic for MVP.

I think Lakers fans and Luca fans would love to be having that conversation right now because right now.

The Lakers are headed towards an uncertain short-term future.

Lukaancic is out for the rest of the regular season with a hamstring injury.

He is headed over to Europe for some kind of Kobe-like treatment to see if he can get his body right for the start of the playoffs.

Austin Reeves, he has, uh, a back injury or whatever the area is, oblique injury, which the, I mean, that was hilarious.

The JJ came out the next day and said, oh, we had to get him a second scan because the Dallas.

He said the Dallas doctors .

They're in Dallas with the Dallas technicians.

I get it, but did he mean like doctors who happen to live in Dallas, or did he mean the Mavericks medical staff?

That's a good question.

I don't know.

It was unclear to me that they scanned the wrong part of Austin's body.

This is like when the surgeon has to write this arm on the like what they're gonna do surgery on just to make sure it's not the wrong one.

Exactly.

Uh, sounds like Reeves is out for a while.

Sounds like Luca is out for a while, uh.

We saw the Lakers on Sunday playing against Dallas, and that was a re-emergence of LeBron James' first option.

led the league, led the team in shots, uh, down the stretch.

It was him trying to claw back into it, but they still couldn't find a way to beat the Dallas Mavericks who have no interest in winning games right now.

I mean, I know it's only one game, but that to me punctuated and exemplified what the rest of this Laker season is going to be.

I, I just don't see.

A scenario without Luca and without, uh, Austin Reeves, that even if they wind up with like Houston, which has been kind of flawed for most of the season, has had injuries of their own, even if they wind up with a team like the Rockets in the first round, I don't see how they can do it.

Like that Mavericks game where they couldn't get stops and couldn't come up with any kind of offense outside of LeBron down the stretch, to me, You know, you kind of put a bullet in the Lakers.

That's probably it.

And, and that's, look, I, I don't know a team that could lose their two leading scorers and not be a strong defensive team in the first place.

And again, please, I understand they've been in the X of defense, top X of defense here and there, a lot of zone, but they play it, we talked about it weeks at a time.

They play a lot of zone, does not hold up as well in the playoffs.

I actually asked JJ about that at one of the two Lakers games I went to last week, and he It was like, no, we mix it up.

We do a lot of bunch of different things, which is absolutely true.

And also in the playoffs, defense was always going to be a challenge for them because the Lakers' defensive strategy this season has been played as absolutely hard as you can for every minute of the game.

And if you do that and you play smart and hard, you can make up for the fact that you don't have as many strong one on one individual defenders.

And by the way, that strategy works because there are a bunch of people in the NBA.

Who don't play defense very hard or very smart during the regular season, but it is harder in the playoffs.

So you lose your two leading scorers, you're not as strong defensively as some of the teams that have great one on one defenders.

You're just not gonna get anywhere, and that's not the Lakers' fault.

That's just bad timing.

One thing that struck me about all of this was how much the fate of something and someone can change with just like a quick, it's one night, and that's all it takes.

LeBron James, which is.

A huge story.

Is LeBron James, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, going to retire at the end of the season?

Is he gonna go play somewhere else?

Is he going to be forced to do either one of these things, because in some way that we never could have comprehended just a few years ago, a team might say to LeBron, no, actually we don't want you.

That story has changed, I think now 3 times over the past 6 weeks, and I'm very curious to see how the end of this now that these 2 guys are out is going to influence all of those decisions, because for the month the Lakers are riding high on LeBron really works as a 3rd option.

He is willing to be a 3rd option.

Look at him diving on the floor.

Look at the.

Instagram story post of him like showing the bruises on his body.

This could work.

We don't have to get rid of him.

He is welcome back.

What if he's, what if he's willing to take $10 million in salary X, Y, Z.

Now you're gonna have a scenario where that's not how the season is gonna end.

The season is not gonna end with him as the third option or the scrapes on the floor.

The season will end with him being, as you say, the guy who is not going to be able to lead the Lakers to probably not a 1st round playoff win, right?

That doesn't look likely.

And so right now if the season ends today, they'd be lined up with Minnesota, although I think they're gonna drop.

They're tied with the Nuggets, and they have the tiebreaker right now.

You have to think they're gonna over Denver over these final 4 games, I would imagine.

And Denver overtakes them and they wind up with the Rockets, probably, I guess in the first round.

So look, maybe everybody says that one month was our bellwether, that's 6 weeks, however long it was, was our bellwether, and regardless of how the season ends, we are gonna say, LeBron, you're welcome back in that role.

We're going to pay him $10.

LeBron is gonna say, I'll take $10.

Maybe it'll all be the same, but I do wonder if the last week or so of the regular season, if they do get embarrassed in the playoffs, even with the caveat of, oh, we didn't have Luca and Austin.

How that will affect LeBron and his future there and the way Lakers fans think of him, the way the front office thinks of him, and the way LeBron thinks of being there.

I'm just, it's a story.

It is.

I, I know you've given me a hard time, but I think this is one of the most fascinating stories we've seen in basketball in a while is how one of the greatest players of all time ends his career.

I am someone who covered Michael Jordan in both Chicago and Washington, so maybe I have an extra up close view of how this all works, but.

I, I think it's fascinating, and I think that is an extra element in all here in addition to how do the Lakers end up finishing the season.

Do they make it to the first round or second round?

Yeah, I, I think this removes what would have been much valuable, much valued data for the Lakers to go into the playoffs and see if the way they were playing was sustainable over a 7-game series.

The Lakers do mix up their defense.

Nobody that plays zone outside of like Miami plays like a majority zone, um, so there's that, but.

Can a team that is led by 3.

Lesser defenders.

Succeed in the postseason 7-game series.

Can a team that plays a healthy amount of zone succeed in a 7-game series?

I think that would have this, this postseason, even if it ended in the 2nd round disappointingly, it would have given that Lakers front office information.

And now they're deprived of that information.

They're gonna have to make kind of an educated guess this offseason on how it all works.

I, I believe Rob Polinka when he says he wants LeBron James to retire as a Laker.

I believe him when he says, Of course he wants him to retire as a Laker.

He doesn't want to be the guy who told LeBron James to go away.

He just wants him to retire on Rob's schedule, whatever that schedule turns out to be.

Yeah.

And look, I, I believe that the Lakers, and, and they've clarified this over, and that's not Rob's fault, by the way.

That is the correct thing to say, and it's the correct thing to want.

Yeah, I mean, I think they'd welcome him back.

I, I just, the, the question I would have, and, and I would have had this.

A month ago, I've had the same thing now is.

Can you win with 3 guys that don't defend at a high level?

Like, I think you can get away with 2, right?

And we've seen like Dallas, Kyrie, Luca, they were great offensive players, not great defensive players, but they played well because they were surrounded by the PJ Washington's before that, Dorian Finney Smith, Derrick Lively, Daniel Gafford, like they were well.

Constructed.

Um, that is exactly how the Lakers want to build out their team.

They believe in Luca.

They believe in Austin Reeves .

I'm sure on some level, they still believe in LeBron, but they know at 41 years old, his time with LA one way or the other is coming to an end.

I, I think not getting that trio for at least one round.

I'm sure the Lakers are disappointed, not just from a basketball perspective but an information perspective there.

So we'll see, uh, by the way, the biggest beneficiary, and it's sad because with an injury you never wanna talk about beneficiaries, but the biggest beneficiary of the Lakers sort of being injured in this way is the Oklahoma City Thunder because now you have a pretty clear scenario as you noted with the Lakers, it's hard to not see them dropping to 4th, right?

They're tied with Denver.

It's only a tiebreaker that's holding.

Um, them up there in, in the 3rd spot, and that's not gonna play out if we look at both teams' games for the rest of, of the way here.

Um, now Oklahoma City gets to sit back.

And watch.

Oh watch.

And by the way, watch what they try to do to the Lakers on Tuesday, to make this happen.

I don't think they're gonna play.

All their guys are playing 40+ minutes that absolutely 100%.

They're gonna go for a 50 point win against them because if they can knock the Lakers down to 4.

Or even 5, but whoever comes out of that 4 or 5 series, if it's the Lakers or Houston.

The Thunder will have an extreme advantage in the 1st round, an extreme advantage in the 2nd round, and only when they get to the Western Conference Finals will have to play an opponent that has shown over the course of the season with the players still intact on their roster to be of their level, who will have had to get through each other.

And the Spurs and Nuggets, as we saw in that game this weekend that you, I'm jealous of, got to attend and we're smart enough to circle on your calendar.

Um, showed that if those two teams play each other in the 2nd round, it is gonna be such a war of attrition that whoever gets to the Thunder by the conference finals, if things play out, I, I just can't see it even being as competitive.

Much less who's gonna win.

I can't even see it being as competitive as the series as we would wish it would be.

You're talking about the Nuggets and the Spurs going at it in altitude half the time for what could be a 7 game series.

Whoever gets to the conference finals, if it's the Thunder winning there, I just don't see it being as exciting as we would hope it would be.

And then.

It's why I say to you at the beginning of the year, every year when we say pick the champion, pick the conference champions, how far are they going to get?

I say, it's the bracket, it's the bracket.

We are seeing once again, it's the bracket.

And it's a shame because you have a team.

You have teams that should be getting to a conference final level who aren't because of just because of the bracket, and you have teams who maybe sometimes shouldn't be at the conference finals level because of the bracket , and that's a bummer to me.

I would say.

It sets up nicely for a kind of storybook postseason for Kevin Durant.

I mean, Kevin Durant versus LeBron James in the first round.

Kevin Durant, the first thing I thought of, I tweeted that the first thing, the first thing I said when the Lakers, you know, when these injuries happen, I said, Well, of course you've got to see the, the 3-4 flip with Denver now, and that means that for at least one week , the NBA will get the television matchup it wants, which is KD and LeBron down the stretch going toe to toe against each other once again.

Um, without any of those pesky other stars on either side to take away from the TV matchup that these networks want.