Bontemps and McMenamin
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast recording Monday at 1.30 p.m. where about 90 minutes ago we just got the news that Kevin Durant...

has suffered an MCL injury, his third MCL injury in five and a half years, all of which, all three of which look similar with players Zaza Pachulia in 2017, Jimmy Butler last night in Miami, and I can't remember who last year on the Pelicans, all rolling into Durant's knee or leg and causing knee issues. He will be reevaluated in two weeks.

Which means, does not mean, does not mean that he'll be back playing basketball in two weeks just that he'll be reevaluated in two weeks. This could be a month, could be three weeks. If things are going good for the Nets, I could see an outside chance of them saying let's just wait until after the All-Star break. Tim Bontemps, Eastern Conference guru, how are you?

Doing well, Zach. How are you, man? I'm good. The Nets are 27-13, one game back of the Celtics in the East. So they have built themselves a cushion. They have built themselves a cushion to absorb a blow like this. And Durant is about as big of a blow as you could suffer. He has arguably been the best player in the league this year.

One of the favorites for a most valuable player. The Nets are team jump shooting. They don't offensive rebound. They don't get to the rim. They don't get to the line. They shoot a ton of mid-range jumpers, and they win because they have one of the greatest – well, two of the greatest pull-up shooters of all time. The best one is Kevin Durant, the guy who's seven feet tall. He's going to be injured for some amount of time. Now, if this is 10 games –

I don't really care. 10 games is like, it's the same thing with Curry. You'll go five and five. You'll figure out a way to win. Kyrie will step up. The Nets have to rely on Kyrie Irving now, Tim. Think about that for a second. Got to be the rock of the franchise for a little bit. It'd be interesting. And Ben Simmons, who shot a free throw the other day. Joe Harris will have to step up. He's been in. Seth Curry will have to play consistently.

Maybe Cam Thomas gets refreed. Hashtag free Cam Thomas. But the Nets for the season are plus six with Durant on the floor, minus two with Durant off the floor. You isolate the numbers when Kyrie and Simmons are on the floor and Durant is off the floor. They're minus one per 100 possessions. They have nothing at the rim, no offensive rebounds, no free throws. Team jump shot, the whole conceit of it.

Doesn't quite fall apart, but falls apart somewhat. Wobbles, wiggles, sometimes tumbles without Durant. But if it's 10 games, fine. This is why you go 27-13. You know, maybe you fall to third or fourth, and then you climb back up and blah, blah, blah. And if it's 10 games, you're the straw poll guy. Durant's only missed one game this season. If it's 10 games, he could still win the MVP. Fair or not? I feel like if you get to 70 in this day and age, you lose almost no MVP points.

Yeah, I would say if he if I would say if it's 10 games, but I mean, 10 games is basically three weeks. It seems like that would be as optimistic. Yeah, I mean, they play that gets them basically to February 1st. They play another one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight games.

the first two weeks of February going into the all-star break would seem to me if, if it's even remotely close, that it would be better to just give Durant the extra time. And even if he misses an extra five or six games, if you give them six weeks off to rest and recover through the all-star game and come back at the end of February, I mean,

for a guy that we saw wear down last year that has missed, as you, as you pointed out one game this year, he's played 36 minutes a night, every game. He's been incredible all season. You know, I'm going to be really interested to see how the nets manage that because yeah, look, if he misses three weeks, he's got an okay chance of winning MVP still, but,

I think though, both he and Steph are probably going to fall in the same boat where they both missed a little too much time to really end up being able to win. Cause they're both going to miss some more games. I assume Kevin's going to miss some more games after this. I would imagine they'd be pretty cautious with him coming back, which is a shame because when I did the first drop hole, literally started a month ago today, there were seven, eight guys who had, you know,

pretty damn good candidacies for the award. And as we see every year, you have to both be really lucky and really good because you have to be able to stay on the court. And in both Steph and Durant's cases, these were completely fluke, random injuries that could happen to anybody and just won't just so happen to happen to them. Yeah. And this, again, this is the third one just like this for Durant who also in between two

Two of the three had an Achilles tear and has missed a lot of games. And this is one of the reasons why I think some teams, notably Toronto, who we're going to talk about later, were not just frothing at the mouth to put every last thing in to get Kevin Durant this summer when he was only pseudo available anyway. Like, I don't know how serious the Nets actually were in trying to trade Kevin Durant during his trade request period. But he averaged the average 45 games the last two years. They didn't play.

The year before that. He's not getting any younger. He gets hurt here and there. He seems to grow unhappy, although he's been very, very happy lately. Winning tends to make people happier. Winning 18 out of 20 is pretty good, Zach.

And the Nets have been winning 18 out of 20. I mean, they've been the best team in the NBA in the last six weeks, period. A championship contender, absolute stone cold championship contender if they keep playing like this. The if, the other shoe, the anvil that always hovers over this franchise, I think we all were envisioning something else. And certainly no one ever wants to see a player of Kevin Durant's caliber or any player get hurt. But Kevin Durant was on fire.

I mean, I had a whole 15-minute monologue about how brilliant the guy has been this season. He's been incredible. But if it's 20 games, and the past two MCL injuries have been about 20 games for KD, Woj reported today that there is optimism around Durant and the Nets that this will be a little bit less than that. I've heard similarly that...

I've heard similar optimism that maybe this one isn't as bad or as painful. But we'll see. Time will tell. And like you said, the Nets may get to All-Star or two weeks before All-Star and say, you know what? Like, this doesn't make any sense to bring you back and then, you know, take this week break. And let's just bring you back after All-Star. We may see that. But if it's 20 games, that brings up the possibility. I mean, you just look at the standings. The Nets are second. There are only two games in the loss column out of fifth.

And so if it's a prolonged absence, that's if one. If two teams, three, four, and five in the East, that's Milwaukee, who is just kind of an eh right now with Chris and Drew in and out of the lineup. Cleveland and Philly, Embiid still out, but Philly winning games anyway. If those teams stay healthy or get healthy, that's if number two in that interim, there is the possibility of the Nets slipping away

I don't want to say to sixth, but at a point where your first round matchup is hard instead of a little bit easy and you don't have home court advantage. I just don't even know that they care. They're a great road team. Their home court arena stinks is, is terms of an advantage. They had a better road record than home record last year. And it's close this year, but all things considered, you'd rather play like the Knicks in the first round, then have to have home court disadvantage against like Cleveland or Milwaukee or Philly or something like that could matter.

Yeah, it could definitely matter. And look, the Nets, you know, the Nets have been a heck of a story for the past 20 games, right? I mean, the fact that they turn their season around the way they have is pretty incredible. On the other hand, it was a stretch that had you like, I would actually push back on the idea that they were a championship contending team, despite the fact that they have won 18 of the last 20 games.

I don't have the exact numbers up to now, but as of last week, before they played Chicago, they were shooting 13 percentage points better than league average from the mid range over that stretch. They're hitting 56% of their mid range shots. They were hitting more jumpers than every team at every single level. Uh,

offensively. Now they have guys that can do that. Obviously Kevin, Eric, Craig Irving, two of the best shooters in the league. But as we saw earlier in the season with the Celtics who have an overall more talented, deeper team, they were incredibly hot for the first six weeks of the season. And then they had the 28th ranked offense for over a month because their jump shooting completely cratered on. And so, and you also look at the nets played a fairly soft schedule, had a lot of pretty close, uh,

you know, escape artist wins in that stretch. None of that's to take away from the Nets winning these games. I did not think we would talk about the Nets as a potential top seed in the East, as a potential home court advantage team in the East. They deserve all the credit for turning things around, but they already were playing on the margins as it was without Kevin. And now they go into a stretch where they start with the Thunder later this week, but they play, um,

Or no, actually, they have a couple days off and then they play the Thunder. But they play the Celtics. They play, you know, later in the month, they play Philly. They play the Knicks. Man, I'm looking at this now. They even have a bunch of soft games here. They might be able to, you know, they get the Lakers. They get the Pistons. They get the Jazz who are slumping. We'll see if Steph's back for Golden State. They play the Spurs again. So, yeah, I mean, if he does only miss three weeks, they might do a lot better than five and five against that schedule. It's in the beginning of February is what I was looking at before. That's where it gets tough. They play...

They play the Celtics again. They play the Clippers. They play Phoenix, who by then could have Devin Booker back. They play Philly again. They play the Knicks and Heat again. That's a real tough stretch.

going into the all-star game so that that i think is where you really start to see the difference of whether he's back in three or four weeks or in a post all-star game situation because that could really determine like you said whether they're able to hang around second or third maybe or whether they're down fighting for something in like a four or five matchup which sets us up for a potential armageddon series in the first round with philly which would be uh oh boy very fun very fun

That's by the way, you know, the other, the other loser here, honestly, is these Philly games. Everybody's just been, there hasn't been one game yet between these two teams since the trade where everybody's been available last year. Ben Simmons didn't play the first game. Joel and bead missed this next game. Durant at least is going to miss the,

I would like to see these two teams have everybody on the court and play a game. And we might not even, we might not even get it till the end of the season. I think the next game is sometime in late March or April. Well, as you mentioned, as you mentioned before, the Nets started to streak around Thanksgiving to stretch around Thanksgiving. It was very obvious that it was then or nothing for this team. It was then save your season, save yourselves, be functional, be normal, win games or it's over.

And they have been, too, to their credit. And they won games. No distractions. Nothing at all. But as you pointed out, then the schedule got harder and they kept winning. But there were a lot of close wins. Some close wins against bad teams, even. Some close wins against good teams. But they won the games. And we are also...

because Durant's injured. We're also this, this game against the Celtics on Thursday on TNT was one of the most eagerly anticipated games of the year. Not so much anymore. And the Celtics of course are one of those two losses in this 18 and two stretch. And it was a double figure. It was a close game, but it was like an 11 point Celtics win or something like that. So only be good teams.

And that was going to be a game, I think, where the Nets hope to make a statement at home with their no home court advantage and try to get a win over another marquee team, a team that swept them out of the playoffs last year. And now Durant won't play that game. And it strikes me as we talk about the Nets. The jump shooting is built. That's how they've played since they got Durant. They have been a heavy jump shooting team that makes a preposterous amount of jump shots because they have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and all these great three-point shooters.

Um, it strikes me that they're kind of the nets and the Raptors are just opposite teams. It there's literally stylistically opposite teams. They, the Raptors take a lot of jump shots and can't make any of them. They're like the worst jump shooting team in the entire league. They take some, that's, I guess, a similarity and they make up for it with free throws and offensive rebounds and all that. Um,

You know, look, without Duran, it's going to be really interesting to see how they hold up. I gave you the numbers. The numbers aren't good. The pressure is on Simmons now to not be just sort of a – I wouldn't call him a bystander or a wallflower. The Simmons of the last month has been an active participant of

In the Nets offense. I mean, sort of. Particularly in transition. Particularly sort of cutting around the rim. And if he gets it around there, he'll shoot. Now that's not good enough anymore. Now he's going to have to actually try to score a little bit more. Try to get to – well, not try to get to the line. Like accept the possibility that he might actually have to go to the foul line. What?

Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say. So I was looking up his numbers before because like the free throw thing, I mean, as you pointed out, is incredible. He made four free throws when they played Indiana on the 25th of November, right before the streak started. Since then, he has taken a grand total of 13 free throws and has made one of them. Yeah, it's not good. It's not great. And he's taken more than nine shots in a game one time in that entire stretch. And lost in all this –

hoopla about all the wins and all the normalness. No franchise can celebrate just normality like the Nets. Normalness has been that Joe Harris just has been a non-factor. He's playing like 11 minutes, 12 minutes, 13 minutes. They're going to need him now. Seth Curry, it's like he seems to either score 23 points or zero points. It just depends on the night. They're going to need him more consistently now.

I'd like to, I, it'll be interesting to see how Kyrie adapts to life now as the number one, the number one guy. I mean, here's all you got to say about the Nets. They have Kevin and Kyrie both playing incredibly right. Shooting super high percentages, scoring Durant's just under 30. Kyrie's at 26 points per game. Nick Claxton's at 11.9. Nobody else on the team is averaging more than 10 points a game.

They are the definition of a two-man team. Now one of those guys is out. Can I give you an absolute scorcher of a – Sure. So I'm starting the process of picking my all-stars. Okay. And as you know, I – You're going to say Nick Claxton's an all-star? I start from scratch.

I ignore the fan vote. Not because I disdain the fan vote. I also can't get people every, it's like clockwork. It's like, it's, it's taking the bait. Everyone gets so outraged over how does Derrick Rose have all these votes? I can't believe Derrick Rose is seventh in the East. I'm like, you don't have to care. You're not mandated to care. It doesn't matter. Derrick Rose is going to make the all-star team. It's all fine. Julius Randall, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Uh, you don't have to care. I personally was pretty stunned. Nick Claxton had more, uh,

fan votes than Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson. I didn't think I'd see the day that a Nets role player would be getting more fan votes for all-star teams than the top two players on the Knicks. So as to this point, I picked 12-man rosters. I do obey the constraints that the NBA puts upon voters, as I am a voter, for the starters. But

We're not... We really are just going to do this thing where Tatum's going to have to come off the bench in the All-Star game? Like, is that going to... Are we not going to be able to list him as a guard? Can we... Like, what are we doing if we have all of the Giannis and Embiid and Durant? One of them's not going to start. Well, now Durant's going to... Right, now Tatum will probably... Tatum will probably replace Durant in the starting lineup if he doesn't play. In any case...

One of the things I do is I make my spreadsheets with all the advanced metrics. There's like 10 columns of advanced metrics. I call it my Vorps and Schnorps. And I'm liberal in who gets included in the spreadsheet extravaganza. I expand the candidate pool significantly.

To a Vucevic level of candidate. Just in case. Let's be inclusive. Everyone's having fun. Let's get in. Let's have 30 all-stars in each conference, and then we'll start whittling. Sure. The advanced metrics say Nick Claxton deserves a real look as an all-star. I can't get there personally because he's –

points, but he's doing a little more than scrounging this year with these catching traffic and make bank shots. But between his defense and his efficiency, his screening, his passing, the advanced metrics are seeing something where it's like, Oh my God, Nick Claxton has like better combined advanced metrics than Jalen Brunson. It's, it's, it's, it's not insane. It's not, I wouldn't do it. I think it's pretty close to insane. I,

Well, and that's not it. And that, listen, now that's not a reflection on Nick Claxton who has taken meaningful strides forward. The Nets have been a pretty good defensive team. He is a massive part of that as is Kevin Durant, by the way, who has played as consistent. And so now we're getting to my next point, which is. No, go ahead. I'm actually more curious about.

About what happens to Brooklyn's defense without Durant. Because talk about an area where they are hanging on by the thinnest of margins to average to slightly above average defense. And they're doing it.

with Claxton and a bunch of interchangeable big wings, the best of whom defensively, and yes, I'm including Simmons in this, has been Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant has been their second best defensive player, maybe their best. It's between him and Claxton. It's been close. I think Claxton's rim protection probably gives him the edge. Durant has been incredible.

Incredible on defense, incredible protecting the rim, switching out, doing everything. And without him, you know, they start these, they start Claxton, Simmons, O'Neal, Durant, all together. They could come off the bench with Watanabe and Warren, two other big wings.

Without Durant, that entire lineup construction, they have fewer iterations of it. And none of them just work as well without Durant's seven-footer with a long wingspan and the ability to do everything on defense. I actually think the suffering might be equal on offense and defense without Durant. And the rebounding, like they lose Durant's –

Durant's not a great box out guy, but by sheer size and tenacity gets a fair amount of rebounds for a team that is a bad rebounding team. Yeah. I mean, look, the Nets are almost a one man team with Kyrie as sort of a satellite of that, right? Everything they do is built around what Katie can provide them. Obviously their offensive shot profile. Like you said, we talked about it earlier, just jump shot, jump shot after jump shot. And if any team is going to be able to outperform Kyrie,

They're that sort of thing is going to be a team where Kevin Durant is shooting 19 times a game and shooting 56% from the field, basically all on jumpers, right? Like he is just superhuman as an offensive player. And then on the defensive end, he's averaging one and a half blocks a game. He and Claxton are the only remote rim protectors on the team. Ben Simmons, you know, everybody's talked about Ben, you know, could Ben Simmons play center? Ben Simmons has never been a rim protector. He can do a lot of other things really well. He can't do that.

So now you have Nick Claxton and then really nobody else is a threat at the rim at all. And like you said, Durant has been a tremendous defensive player this year. I think he's been as engaged at that end as he's been in his entire career in terms of flying around. He's been really active. He has an all defense case. No question. I, yeah, I think he's been great. And again, you like,

we talked about going back to the summer. How are the nets going to be able to contend against these other teams with their lack of size? Well, part of that is they have Kevin Durant who is sort of a shooting guard. That's seven one, right? Like that's, that gives you the ability to do some unique things with that piece out of the mix.

Now, all of a sudden, you've got a bunch of super small guards and Nick Claxton and no size. And for as good as Claxton's been, he doesn't have the size to go up against an Embiid or any of the other Giannis or any of these other physical guys they have to play. So, yeah, I'm with you. I think for as good as Durant's offense is, he's been a massive part of them being a good defensive team. And it's...

you know they do have a soft schedule the next few weeks that should help him get some wins but man i mean he we're gonna see how valuable he's been i think with the way these next few weeks go well the nets defense doesn't even have to be good just has to be good enough and it's been good enough in the last month to win a lot of games and and to your point the emergence of off the bench the re-emergence i guess of tj warren and the emergence of yuda wananabe

Has sort of allowed the Nets to never play Patty Mills and never play Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving together or rarely play those two together. And because the size and the rebounding is just too much to overcome. It's too many targets for good teams with a lot of big wings like Boston, for instance, who they play on Thursday. Do we have to see those lineups again? We shall see. But look, the bottom line is this. The luxury being 27 and 13 and the sigh of relief that this isn't more serious than

then it could have been all amounts to we can move on and talk about other stuff because Kevin Durant, if all goes well, will come back with the Brooklyn Nets in a really strong playoff position. He's never really suffered any downturn from these MCL things before, so he'll come back guns blazing, and the Nets will be fine. Even if you stretch it out to your point, Zach, to the very far end of that, and you say he sits out through the All-Star game, they give him all the extra time, he comes back,

you know, around, you know, whatever, February 24th or 25th, whatever the day after the all-star break is, like you said, this 18 to two run, the nets have gone on is going to at least put them in position where they're going to be in the middle of the pack somewhere in the East fifth or sixth or something. And it's not like Kevin's going to come back and go, man, if I'm in fifth, I have no chance to win. I mean, he's not going to be afraid of any of these other teams in the East. And the one, the one other thing I want to say to real quick to put a ball on this is, um,

This is a really interesting opportunity, I think, for TJ Warren, who has come back, has been really solid off the bench, has looked pretty good. He's shooting 54% from the field. And I think that I don't know what the Nets are going to do. My guess is he will move into the starting lineup and replace Kevin.

And if he can up his minutes and be healthy, that's a guy who not only can continue to have a big impact for these guys this season, but has a chance to get himself a position to get back in the market in a big way this summer after obviously missing the past couple of years with foot injuries. He's come back and looked pretty good. And that could turn out to be one of the real value signings of the entire league if he's able to stay healthy, given they got him on a minimum this summer. It's funny. Some injuries happen and I...

begin to pencil in the new rotation and who replaces who and how did... And some injuries are just so big and the players injured such immortals that I didn't even start to think about things like who's replacing Durant in the starting five and what's the... I just didn't even think about it. It's Kevin Durant. I only thought about it now after a day and 30 minutes or whatever talking about the Nets, to be fair. It's not like I spent any time before that thinking about it. No, but it's funny. That's Kevin Durant. The guy was...

If he had stayed healthy, the season would have, I think, jumped all the way to number 10 on the all-time scoring list, has a chance to finish fourth, and maybe that fourth is probably a good assumption for him. We'll see. I mean, this is who Kevin Durant is, and you mentioned before, the Nets have Kevin Durant. We did a segment on NBA Today we were going to last week, and the segment was going to be built around Nets Pelicans, and the question was very simply, like, which of these teams has a better chance of winning?

To reach the finals this year out of their respective conferences. And we were doing the pre-production call and they're like, Zach, what do you think? I said, Oh, the team that has Kevin Durant. And then there was like, there was silence on, there was silence as if I was going to elaborate. I was like, no, that's the whole answer. It's like whatever, whichever team has Kevin Durant on it is, is the, is the answer.

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Let's switch to a team that doesn't have Kevin Durant on it. The Toronto Raptors. You spent a week in Toronto. I was there for the end of that week. You have a piece up today. Again, we're recording this Monday on ESPN about the Raptors as the most talked about team. Well, actually, you said not enough people are talking about them. The Low Post has been talking about the Toronto Raptors as a trade deadline. The league is talking about the Raptors. I think the general public is not.

Well, that's just part of the greater anti-Canada conspiracy that's engulfed the NBA for all these, nigh all these years. 17-23 after a win over Portland yesterday. They have played the second toughest schedule in the league by some measures, but 22 of those games have been at home, 18 on the road. They've got some road games coming up after the conclusion of this long homestand, which concludes this week, starting tomorrow, Tuesday, or today by the time this podcast goes up.

Two games against Charlotte and then a third game against Atlanta. They better win all three of those games. They better get out of this homestand 20 and 23 or else the vultures that have been circling are going to be circling even closer. And your piece is sort of just about the dilemma that they face, which is both a dilemma and a sort of –

The enjoyment of optionality. Like they're not trapped into this. We built. We traded all of our picks. For this iteration of a team. That doesn't work. And now we have to pivot. They have a team that is still.

fairly prime aged and young, full of players who I think have a lot of trade value around the league, but just hasn't worked this year. And by the way, I was dead wrong about them. I thought the Raptors were going to be really good this year. I thought I had them picked to be a top six non-play in team, hammer the over all that stuff. You and me both, by the way, we're in lockstep on that. I've been wrong. And you know,

They're 17 and 23. You know what their scoring margin is right now for the season? I believe it's zero, but I could be wrong. Zero. Exactly zero, which might suggest that they're better than 17 and 23, except their record in crunch time games is like not really that much worse than you'd expect it to be. And their scoring margin is benefiting a little bit from a 30,

30-something point win over the Hawks and then a 43-point blowout over the Spurs early in the season. So I don't know kind of what to make of it. To me, Tim, I told you this when we were in Toronto. The alarm bells went off for me when they were 13 and 14 and off two days off hosting the Kings at the start of a three-game homestand. And I think the Kings were on a road back-to-back.

The Raptors led the whole game, the whole game, almost wire to wire and just could not put the Kings away. And Sacramento came back and stole that game in Toronto. And I watched that game live and I thought to myself, that's just not a game a good team should lose. I don't really care that losses happen and weird stuff happens. That loss set off alarm bells in my head. And since that loss, they are four and eight. And every time I watch them, even when they win, they're

I just come away thinking something is wrong with this team. Something is wrong with this team. It could be basketball things are wrong with this team. I think they have, I mean, we all know they can't shoot. They can't shoot from anywhere. They're the worst three point shooting team in the league. They're the third worst mid range shooting team in the league. They're the 11th worst shooting team at the rim. They cannot shoot from anywhere, make any shots. We all know they try and compensate with rebounds, turnovers and all that stuff. We all get it. You can't shoot.

They also just have a weird playmaking deficit. Like they just don't have a lot of good passers on. They have a lot of okay passers on the team. Just even Ananobi's assist to turnover ratio is negative this year. He misses a lot of interior passes. Pascal is a good passer.

But he's more of a let me dribble the ball for a long time, draw a double team and pass passer. They don't have a lot of like quick, snappy, beat the defense one or two steps ahead kind of passers. And in Scotty Barnes, OG Ananobi, and Pascal Siakam, those guys like to kind of play with the ball, all of them. And you get all these power forward size guys who like to play with the ball a little bit. It can work. They're all decent players.

They're all good players. They're all strong. Scottie's a good passer. Pascal's a good passer. It just gets, to use Paul Hollywood's word, it gets a little claggy. It gets a little claggy like a badly baked bread. It gets a little claggy. And then you throw in, you know, Doug Smith wrote that column in the Toronto Star about a month ago that ruffled some feathers in Toronto about Scottie's work ethic, so to speak, and he needs to work harder. It included this line, Tim.

There are those in the organization whose eyebrows were raised in the summer when Barnes would flit, flit in and out of team runs in both Las Vegas and Los Angeles. You interviewed Fred Van Vliet for part of your story. He kind of chuckled and referred to Scottie Barnes as the golden child. I don't know what's really happening there.

But I would say Golden Child is only used in one way. That's how I would say that. I would say this. I asked a lot of people about that Doug Smith column and what he says about flitting in and out of Vegas and Los Angeles. I think that happened.

I also don't necessarily think there's a big concern about Scottie Barnes' work ethic because a lot of these guys, particularly young guys, when they work in the summers, they like to work with their own guys too independently from the team in the place of their choosing at a time of their choosing. So I don't think there's a big Scottie Barnes work ethic concern. He's a worker. He's fine. They're not worried about him, I don't think. I will say you just look at the makeup of that team. Fred is undrafted.

OG is a late first round draft pick who came with a big knee injury in college.

Pascal is a late first round draft pick who like has this incredible late to basketball journey from New Mexico State to the NBA to being a role player who never dribbled to this. They're all so like self-made. And here comes number four pick rookie of the year, future star of the organization. It wouldn't surprise me if there were just a little unspoken tension about all of that.

And between that and the basketball stuff, it's just like I said, I watch the team. I'm like, something just isn't working with these guys. And they're running out of time to make it work. And clearly, Tim, Musayu Jiri and Bobby Webster, they could have easily broken up this team a year ago, two years ago, whatever. They didn't. And they didn't not just because they didn't find deals that they liked. They didn't because they like this team and believe that it won 48 games last year. And that was real. They're running out of time to make it real again, as you point out.

Yeah, I mean, the Raptors, it's sort of a perfect confluence of events that has them in the position they're in, right? Over the past several years, they haven't had any cap space. And as we know, with the way the NBA is set up, you're naturally going to

you know, attrition in terms of talent over time, they lose Kawhi Leonard for nothing. Obviously you want them a championship, not saying that was a bad trade, but he leaves for nothing. Marc Gasol leaves for nothing. Serge Ibaka leaves for nothing. Three critical pieces, right? They turn Kyle Lowry into Preston Sachua and Goran Dragic and never played for him. He then becomes that young, that young, another guy that fits in with the general theme of the Raptors, which is they don't have a lot of scoring. They don't have hardly any guys who could create easy shots for either themselves or

or anybody else, as you point out, right? They have a bunch of good players, but they don't have a ton of playmaking. Then you add in the fact that over this 20-game stretch, when they're 6-14, the Raptors have created the 11th best three-point shot opportunities in the league.

per second spectrum pretty good right a lot of open shots they do have gary trent they've got fred they've got pascal they got og like solid shooters the thing like these guys that's the weird thing is like those guys can shoot they're not like bad shooters that's right they're not bad shooters but the raptors not only have been the worst team in terms of making shots over that 20 game stretch which is half their season according to second spectrum they are 6.2 percent

worse than what they should be on the shots that they're taking. So like they're getting open shots. They're basically missing all of them. They have generally lost talent over the past several years. So they've got a really good top four or top five, I think, including Gary Trent. The rest of the bench is pretty sparse. There's barely any scoring off the bench. Malachi Flynn's the only other guy who can really handle the ball on the team in terms of guard play outside of Fred.

So you have some depth issues there. And then on top of it, and maybe the most important thing, whatever the work, you know, set aside Doug's column, right? Scotty has either flatlined or probably regressed as a sophomore. Again, not uncommon. He's going to be fine. He's a really talented player, but he has not played to the level that they hoped he was going to this year. And Fred Van Vliet has been worse over this 20 game stretch. He shoot 29% from three on nine attempts a game.

Like that, they can't win if two of their four mainstay players are not playing as well as they were last year. And that is really when you boil it all down, all that stuff together is why the Raptors are, you know, in a funky place right now and six games under 500 and have a lot of questions to answer about themselves for the next month until the trade deadline. Yeah. Fred, Fred's never going to be a good two point shooter. No, never going to be a threat at the rim.

Never going to be one of like the eight to 10 best playmaking point guards in the NBA passing point. And they're just, when you're that short in that sort of, he's not a leaper or anything. There are just passes you can't make. You just don't have access to those passes. He's got to hit threes. They can't survive him not hitting threes. And as for Trent, you know, we've been reading and hearing for months that, well, Trent might be the most likely Raptor to be dealt. He's on a semi-expiring contract. He's got player option.

For next year, is he happy there and blah, blah? I'm like, every time I watch the Raptors, I'm like, they need Gary Trent. Like, they can't survive without Gary Trent. He's in essentially a three-way tie with Ananobi and Van Vliet as the number two leading scorer on the team. He's the only rotation player, unless you include Flynn, who floats in and out of the – flits, flits in and out of the rotation that's shooting above 35% from three. The only one. Right. Like –

And they have guys, and that's the thing. Like, I know you're not wrong about that they can't shoot, but their main guys outside of Barnes are decent to good shooters. Yeah, they should be better than this. They should be making these shots. It's not like they've got, you know, guys who don't know how to shoot the ball chucking up.

43 is a game. They just can't make anything. And so you combine that with the frustrations with losing with everything else. And it, it's just a, it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy and they've gotten themselves into a, a pretty rough stretch. And like you said, these games this week, two against Charlotte, one against a team better when they, they, they win those three games. Okay. Things can maybe stabilize a little bit. They go one and two or something in that stretch.

They better be 20 and 23 coming out of this homestand. I would agree. Even Anunobi, who I think had and maybe still has because people go through weird slumps over 100 and 200 attempts, I thought he had solidified himself as basically a 40% catch-and-shoot three-point shooter.

He's at 34.9 right now and only 38 from the corners. And he'd been at above 40 pretty regularly from the corners. Like he just has to be better as a shooter. Yeah. And he's missing open shots too. I think he'll, I think, I think those guys are going to hit more shots. I think the bigger issue is the playmaking part. They just don't have, you know, and they've, you know, Nick nurses always trying different stuff and they're throwing different things at the wall, but they, they just don't have the ability to create variations.

Very easy shots. You know, Matt Williams, our guy stats Williams from our stats and info group had a pretty fascinating stat. They are, I think, first or second in terms of transition opportunities. They get a ton of transition opportunities, but they're pretty far down the league in pace.

And why is that? Because they're one of the absolute slowest teams in the league in terms of half-court possessions. They take longer in half-court possessions than I think every team, but maybe Detroit and a couple others. They're in the bottom five. And that's because, as you pointed out, the guys that they have, they generally have to... Like, Pascal's got to wait to kind of find a crease to attack, right? They don't have...

Quick attack guys. Oh, geez, not really a play make for himself or anybody kind of guy. Scotty Barnes takes a long time to get somewhere. Pascal takes a long time to get somewhere. So if they're not out running in a transition opportunity, it's a lot of stand around and kind of wait for the defense. And it just gets harder and it's just very hard for them to score.

anytime they're in the half court. And like you said, they're just playing in mud all the time when you watch it. It's not a fun watch. Other than Jack Armstrong, who is just such a delight on the broadcast. Yeah, their broadcast is very good with them and Matt Devlin. I always enjoy it. So get that garbage out of here is Jack Armstrong's signature call. And the pitch on it just gets higher and higher every year. And now he's almost not even saying the words anymore. It just sounds like...

It's not even – he's like not even pronouncing the words anymore. I love you, Jack. You're the best. Jack Armstrong, huge Bills fan. He was talking about the Bills. Very exciting times. The game was so ugly yesterday that he was talking about the Bills. They had a whole – him and Matt Devlin did a whole thing on game show hosts yesterday because they were playing against the Blazers who have drew Eubanks, which made Matt Devlin think of Bob Eubanks, who was a game show host back in the 70s. And then they just started going on – it was delightful. Anyway, a couple of things.

Underplayed, I think, in the Raptors season has been, I mean, there's been a lot of stuff about Otto Porter who's never healthy and like the frustration is over boiling, boiling over now. Precious Achua being just a total zero so far this season due first to underperformance, then to injury. And now he's back and he looks more like himself. He's five of 34 from three so far this season. Like they really need him to be alive.

A legit switchable stretch. Yeah. I mean, he's the, he's the jewel of the Kyle Lowry deal, right? Like they could have in theory, let Kyle go and tried to get some cap space and like tried to add some pieces, but they decided to go get precious and go and drag it. You again, then became fad. So like, really you look long-term with precious is the guy that came out of that transaction. That's a guy that I think they hope is a part of their long-term future there. And yeah, like,

I mean, again, five for 34 is not going to cut it. He was fantastic last season as he had a reliable three. He would pump and go off the dribble. He could guard all five positions and he just hasn't been there. And I think if he's there, he's,

For the last 40 games. And now they will all tell you like, well, we started slow last year and won 48 games. I don't, this doesn't feel like that to me. This feels more disturbing, but if he's back, the East is also a lot. The East is also a lot better this year too. Way, way, way better than last year. But if he's back full time, I'm not saying they're, they have a chance to win 48, but they have a chance to stabilize their season. He gives them, he gives them a lot of the stuff they don't have. They, they just have not had enough.

any punch off the bench at all, especially now that Gary Trent's back in the starting lineup. They need Precious to be a energy guy at both ends for them, provide some offense, get out in transition, be able to guard some people, give their main guys some time off the court. You know, obviously in Toronto, there's a lot of attention on the minutes that their top-line guys are playing. I'm just not sure what else they're really supposed to do. Like, they're in a hole. Their top-line players have to play, and they don't have –

really anything behind them to make up for that. Other than you get precious. And if auto Porter can return, get the two of them back, then you kind of get back to what your team was supposed to be. But auto has been out for two months. Precious has been out for two months. Uh,

that that's a huge chunk out of their wing rotation which is you know as we both know the way this team wants to play and by the way coming up uh at the end of january is a seven game western conference road trip that is ugly um so they better be more than stable by the time they get there yeah that road trip ends right before the trade deadline so they will have a lot of information about themselves as they approach go time last thing on scotty barnes

The last two weeks have started a very interesting period for him where he has now functionally on both ends of the floor become the center for the Toronto Raptors in the starting five. And teams are treating him like Ben Simmons. No Andre Mon Green. No one is guarding him. No one is within 20 feet of him. And he's had to adapt to, oh,

Okay, do I do some dribble handoffs here? Do I eat up this space off the dribble and go into my push shots? Do I screen and dive? And it's been interesting to see. I think he's actually adapted to that, okay? But that's been interesting. So let's get to the real question here, which is if they pivot, what does that look like? And all the cash tag blow it up chatter is,

There's a lot of that that doesn't ask the follow-up question of like, okay, so blow it up. Like, yeah, go to the bottom, chase Wimbanyana, blow it up. It's very easy to push down on the dynamite trigger and blow things up. It's a lot harder to actually figure out what that looks like. Well, and I've said this before. Traditionally, that would mean you trade your oldest good player and rebuild around your young players and you get picks and young guys for that player. Well, that would be Siakam.

Okay, so name me the Siakam trade. I mean, we could probably name some, but he's 29. He's on pace, I think, to make another all-NBA team, which does also make him on pace to get the Supermax. He's a homegrown player, great story, popular guy. That's not an easy trade to make, and he's not at the age where you're like,

It's a no-brainer. He's in decline now. He's going to be really good for a long time. So we can talk about those deals. If it's not that, then it's sort of retooling, refitting around Pascal Siakam, not rebuilding, not going into the tank. And if that's what it is, well, is it just letting Van Vliet walk away, trading him now for what you can get?

Is it trading in an OB because of the overlapping skill sets that we talked about earlier and just seeing what the market would get you for in an OB? Because I think there'd be six or seven teams calling with decent offers right away for in an OB. Then you bid them against each other and you get a really good offer. I don't know what the answer is. I don't think they know what the answer is. What do you think of all those answers? I mean, I think they're going to wait.

This entire month and see, I think where they're at on February 1st. And I think that is when they're going to really take a hard look, see where they sit and then decide what they're going to do. That that's my sense of what they're going to do. And frankly, that's what the entire league does now, Zach, with the play in tournament in both conferences, right?

You just have so much more time to evaluate your team that I just don't think we're going to see many deals of any consequence before then, because everybody's just going to wait and wait and wait and wait. And then, you know, if you're Chicago, if you're Toronto, if you're Atlanta, if you're Washington, you know, if your team's out West for Utah, whatever, you can wait the entire month of January, see where you sit in this. All right, we got 10 days. We can start making trades now and we'll, we'll redo our team at this point and we'll decide whether we're going to sell or not.

I think the obvious two questions are what happens with Gary Trent and what happens with Fred? Both of them have the ability to be unrestricted for age this summer. They both have player options. I would assume both will decline them. Fred said, you know, Fred gave a long speech yesterday that he hadn't actually turned down the max offer that the Raptors could have given him, said there was never an offer given.

The bottom line is when I talked to Fred about it, he said he thought he outplayed that contract and he didn't want to make it easy on the Raptors and sign it, which is certainly within his rights. At the same time, he's now an unrestricted free agent potentially in six months. And while he could sign this extension between now and then, the fact he hasn't signed it, I think it does lead you to wonder, do they do something like with one or both of those guys, what

what they did with Norman Powell two years ago when they got Gary Trent. And do they try to turn one or both of them into controllable younger assets or picks or something? As they said, as you said, to kind of retool going forward, do I expect the Raptors to trade both of those guys and Pascal and OG and like, no, like this thing up around Scotty?

I mean, I don't see that necessarily happening. I think it would have to take a pretty crazy turn of events. I would think to get there. But I, but look, I think let's see what happens over the next three weeks. I think, you know, if they're playing, if they win these three games the rest of this week and they make a push towards 500 and they're playing better than, you know, I could very easily see a world where they sort of stand by and kind of continue to move on the path they have been. But again,

You know, right now they're two games. They're tied for sixth in the lottery odds. They're two games away from Orlando. Like they are in a pot and a spot where if they turn the other direction,

they've got a real shot to be in the mix for Victor Wimbanyama or Scoot Henderson or these guys, which makes you have to at least think about it. Here's the thing about that. As you correctly pointed out today, they're currently sixth in the lottery standings. It's 17 and 23 tied with the Zards of Washington. And yes, there are only two games behind the semi-competent Orlando magic or two games ahead of slash behind in lottery order. The magic that would get them to fifth, which again,

Incrementally increases their chances at the number one pick from 8.3% to 10.5%. That's meaningful. And your top four goes from 35% to 42%. That's very meaningful. They're going to really have a hard time getting above fifth. My only point, yes. The bottom four are going to be real. The ones where you have the 14% chance, the bottom three, they have no chance of that. They're going to be really bad. My point, though, is that they're not like 15th, right? Like they're sixth in the top four.

in lottery odds. Like if they just stay in sixth, they've got a real shot to jump up. Like this isn't the lottery of old when the first pick had a 25% chance of winning the lottery. And then it went to like 20 and 50. You know, like now it's like first to sixth is kind of the same. I mean, it's not exactly the same, but it's a lot flatter than it used to be. And if they're just up there, they'll have a shot at getting a generational prospect. And so I do think it's going to, I do think the fact that they have gotten to this point

It's going to cause them to think harder about going that direction than I think they ever imagined they would have. They certainly believe in their team. They thought they, they thought they were going to be better than this. They think they are better than this. And they would point to shooting luck, some injuries, guys underperforming and stuff that they think will turn around and that there'll be a lot better in the second half of the year, but they're close enough to it now. And they've got juicy enough stuff to put on the table. That teams have come after hard. That they,

I think, you know, they're going to have to think long and hard about where they're headed over the next month because they, you know, before the season is funny. The machine, Kevin Pelton and I did an all-in tiers story. We ranked all the teams in the league in terms of what tier of all-in they were in. Some teams are all in on winning a championship now, some now in the future, some trying to win half their games.

The Raptors were in an all in on nothing tier, which got a lot of jokes from people in Toronto, including with the Raptors themselves. But the point was they had the ability to go any direction they want. They could go all in and trade for Kevin Durant. They could go the other way and try to compete in the sweepstakes to get Victor Wimby Yama. They could sort of just take the middle path and try to be good and continue to try to add to what they have. But they have as much flexibility as,

As any team in the league. And that's why this makes it such an interesting situation for them to be in because they do have young prime, really good players at premium positions. And they've got some veterans, guys like Fred in particular, that if they got put on the market could really help championship level teams. But they also believe they're a playoff team and they've already got a young guy they think is going to be their franchise champion.

cornerstone in the future in Scotty Barnes. So they don't, they don't have to go in any direction. And it's what makes their choice over the next month. So interesting because they really have the ability to choose any direction they want. Yeah. I think Ananobi is, is the easiest one to move just because of his current salary. And, and, you know, Ian Begley came on this podcast and said, the Knicks have called on Ananobi.

I think Portland at the draft was in on Ananobi. I think that ship has sailed now. I don't think there's any shortage of teams that would be into probably the best, if not the best 3 and D wing in the league. Certainly one of the top two or three best 3 and D wings in the league. He's got a shooting pass better than he has this year. Siakam makes a lot more money, and I just –

I mentioned with Bobby just purely speculation, Phoenix, Dallas among teams that I think he could fit in and have, particularly in Phoenix's case, have the assets to make a play for him in terms of picks and swaps. Dallas does not have as many picks and present day good players that I think would interest Toronto.

on their team. But that's the thing. Toronto's not... That's a trickier one because of his salary and his meaning to the team. Like, someone even threw at me, would Toronto take Russ and the two Lakers picks for Siakam? I said, no, man, they're not doing that for Pascal Siakam. No, they would laugh. They would laugh and hang the phone up. That's ridiculous. Anyway, we have a long way to go for the trade deadline. Great piece on the Raptors. Tim Bontemps up on ESPN.com right now leading our NBA page. I will see you probably in Brooklyn on...

on Thursday for Celtics Nets, which is not as eagerly as anticipated as it was 48 hours ago, but it's still at least by me anticipated. Tim Bontemps, everyone. Thank you, sir. Thanks, man. Appreciate you having me. All right, let's bring in, go out to the West Coast, Dave McManaman, our Lakers insider beat guy, extraordinary, fresh from a trip to the Rocky Mountains where the Lakers played

What a bummer. I was so looking forward to that game. And then LeBron out with ankle soreness, AD out, of course, in the Lakers. Five-game losing streak. The latest in a string of just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. Here come the Lakers reviving their season. Streaks ended. They are now 19-22 as we are exactly 29 days from the NBA trade deadline. Dave McMenamin with a Phillies hat on. How are you?

I'm doing well. And actually, that was a five-game winning streak they had. And we're so used to talking about losing streaks. Did I say losing streak? You said losing streak. Oh, my God. What a Freudian slip. They're currently on a one-game losing streak. Apologies to the Lakers. I mean, they're so undercover. And I feel so bad that I shorted them in the national media. That is uncharacteristic, I think, of me. But five-game losing streak.

winning streak winning hawks hornets heat hawks kings yeah lakers rookie max christie uh told us afterwards he made his first start of his nba career played pretty well for 19 year old uh you know hit 14 points and played with some poise uh you know they like him a lot but he said the first message being shared in the locker room afterwards was let's start another one start another streak and it's it's

You got to there's some potential because they're back home for a five game stretch here. But they do have some tough opponents coming to Crypto.com Arena. You know, you got Luka and the Mavs. You got Ja and the Grizzlies. You know, there's some teams that are trending upwards, just like the Lakers have been. Well, LeBron has been putting not so subtle pressure on the front office to do something, anything to help this team.

his job in the interim, and it's a tough job without Anthony Davis, is to keep them within enough of a spitting distance that the front office maybe even should consider it. And as you said, the Lakers, after playing a million home games, have now actually played 18 home games and 23 road games. They're going to have a home-heavy schedule the rest of the way. But Dallas, Philly, Houston, Sac, those are their next four. And then Memphis, that's a five-game homestand. Four of those teams are good, and then there's the Rockets.

Then Portland on the road, Clippers, Spurs, that should be a layup. Celtics, Brooklyn, Knicks, Pacers, Pelicans, those last five all on the road. So it's not going to be easy for them to stay in it. Let's start with the basic stuff. LeBron's ankle. Is he playing the next game? Was that just a one game, like, let's just bank these five wins and rest it? Yeah, I mean...

I test. I didn't see him coming into the arena last night. I felt like his gait was affected slightly by the ankle. Just I test. But you look at the chunk of time here, you would have four days off, actually five days off straight. You count Sunday, five days off to prepare for the Mavericks game. So I would assume he'd be back in the lineup on Thursday.

Anthony Davis, you broke the story yesterday, and I think you reported when they returned to L.A. this week, which is now, or I guess they're probably back now, if not soon, he will begin ramping up for his return, which could be in a couple of weeks. In a couple of weeks, I don't want to misconstrue what you said. Today's January 10th.

A couple of weeks would be the 24th, which is like six or seven more games. Is that too optimistic? What are we actually talking about here? By my understanding, that's within range. That's on the table. So long as the ramp-up process does not

contain any setbacks. And I mean, that's, we don't know that yet. Right. But the thought would be that if he continues to check off the boxes that they have in place for him to return to play, that this ramp up process wouldn't have to be more than, you know, a week and a half, two weeks. And then, so, you know, you, you,

extrapolated out to the 24th of January, you can be looking at that long five game road trip against pretty good opponents where he could be a part of that trip and on the court. And they may miss Durant. They will almost certainly miss Durant on that trip. I mean, we'll see. That's three weeks from now. I shouldn't say almost certainly, but I would guess 20 days from now, Durant will not be playing in Brooklyn. And you mentioned the

You don't know how the ramp-up is going to go. You don't know if everything's going to be on schedule. They've also been missing Lonnie Walker, who's had a nice season for them, and Austin Reeves has had a nice season for them. So they're down a lot. And Thomas Bryant has stepped up. Dennis Schroeder has stepped up. Quietly shooting 40% from three, Dennis Schroeder, for a team that was kind of joked about for its lack of shooting around LeBron. Well, he's a German laser right now, lasering in all the threes. But, you know, this has been my...

I have leaned on the side of I understand the Lakers' reluctance to trade the picks because, A, the team just is very good. I mean, there's a million reasons, but you mentioned the ramp-up thing and the uncertainty of that. Like, you can't just guarantee that is –

Team building, you can't team build based on the worst case scenario. So the classic example of that is Philly over-investing in a backup for Joel Embiid. Like in case Joel Embiid goes down, we can say if Joel Embiid goes down, you're done. It doesn't matter what else you do. You can't overspend on that. You also can't over-plan for the best case scenario when the best case scenario like never seems to sustain for more than 15 or 20 games. And that's a scenario where LeBron plays like this.

and AD plays like the AD we saw for literally probably 15 games when he looked like maybe an MVP candidate again. If you can guarantee me that, that AD comes back and is just that for 30 games plus the playoffs, that LeBron is this uninjured for 30 games plus the playoffs, then...

In a fantasy world where that's guaranteed to me, then I start thinking a little bit more about the picks. But as I've been saying over and over again, I don't know what the deal is. The Indiana deal. How close were they really before the season to the Indiana deal? Hield and Turner, Dave, by your reporting. I've heard different scenarios involved. I heard that there was someone within the Lakers organization that said,

fully believed that when they went on a short break before the season really got going, that they'd return from the break and those two players would be on the Lakers. I have also heard that the, uh,

Pacers had some reluctance ever really making that a true deal, making it a reality because of where the Pacers' ownership are at this stage of their life. It's more important just to see a competitive team than necessarily plan and grab assets for a future championship run. And so I don't know if I can characterize one-yard line or anything like that, but certainly

Of all the deals that were discussed during the summer, I think that one probably had the most realistic chance. And I'm assuming that's off the table. I've been assuming that's off the table for a long time.

The Turner extension talks have become reportedly public. Actually, as I said last week, I'm not really sure how far those are going to get. But they also should be off the table because the Pacers are 23-18. They're sixth in the East. And the discussion has gone from, well, they'd really have to tank really hard to get even close to Wimbanyan. And now it's like they're four games up. They're four and a half games up on 11. Like they're locked into the play-in at worst. And so...

Then we can make up all these other fake trade. Maybe they can trade one pick for Kuzma, our old friend, one pick for Bogdanovich. You know, that makes the Lakers interesting. Maybe there's a Russ deal out. Maybe there's a Levine deal. I think that one.

you know, Levine's starting to play better now and the Bulls are starting to play better. Do they want to punt and retool? Not just, not necessarily punt, but do they want to retool around DeRozan? I don't think the Lakers have enough to get Beal as things stand now. Russ is still viewed as like, you got to pay me a pick to take Russ's contract. And so then I'm really trading Beal for like a first round pick and whatever else. What's your sense of like where the brain trust is?

on as as 29 days out like has has anything changed or is it still like yeah we'll probably do something on the fringes we'll see i think there is a organizational belief that they they want to find the right deal or deals to make this team more competitive in terms of a championship group

sometime either leading up from now until February or sometime from July until September. And that's a commitment to having LeBron James where he is at this stage of his career, having the commitment from him resigning this past summer, but also recognizing that they kind of get one shot. And if they get it wrong, then you're stuck.

And if something presents itself that is a no-brainer or maybe not even have to be no-brainer status, but something that presents itself that makes a lot of sense between now and February 9th, I would not be surprised if the Lakers made a move and parted with the pick. But if that doesn't exist or teams are insisting we got to get both picks, the Lakers will win.

walk away from the trade discussions and go back in, in the summertime when they will have another draft pick available to them because the step-in will kind of reset and see what they can get then. And again, it's about recognizing what you have and just because pressure is coming,

Not making a hasty move because again, making the hasty move when they already had kind of a complimentary deal lined up with Sacramento to begin with making a hasty move to wedge Russell Westbrook in there is what put them in this predicament in the first place. I have heard.

You know, I last checked in on this last week, and I don't even remember what LeBron's comments were last week. They've since been superseded by more recent comments. Oh, they were to you when you asked the question at the press conference, and it was about the losing's not in my DNA. I don't want to end my career, blah, blah, blah, like this. I just keep hearing, you know, despite this rush of like, well, what could the Lakers get if they traded LeBron? And how much of a flight risk is he? I just keep hearing this.

He wants to stay with the Lakers. He wants to finish his career with the Lakers. His comments, though, should be interpreted as his patience is not infinite. And if this is just a continued morass of losing, maybe that changes. But if you force me to bet, I'd still bet on him finishing his career with the Lakers. And I'd feel pretty confident in that. Do you see any...

Flight risk or trade risk? I mean, my assumption has been no one will ever trade LeBron James. The Lakers are never going to be in the business of being the team that traded LeBron James. What about the other side? Flight risk stuff once his deal is up after next year, potentially?

I mean, he has the opt-out for various reasons. One, because if he sustains an incredible level, then you can opt out and add more guaranteed years at that point. Two, and him and I touched on this in our sit-down last week, that a very real goal of his is to find a way to potentially play even on the same team with the Sun. And that opt-out coincides with

under the current collective bargaining agreement, the first time that Bronny James would be eligible to play in the NBA. And who knows what happens to that point? If, you know, and again, knock on wood, but things could happen in the negative sense between now and 2024. It was LeBron's body being 21 years in and 39 years old. And maybe he has to consider, you know,

He would be, I mean, this sounds crazy. I'm not trying to sound ludicrous, but he would be the complimentary player to his son. Like he, if he couldn't play, you know, if something happens physically where he couldn't play, you just go to be there with, with the son. So there's all those scenarios in play.

I think if he had his druthers, he plays on the Lakers until he hangs it up. Ronnie James is on the Lakers and the Lakers are back in the playoffs every single season. And I think that would be enough. It's not championship or bust. It's competitive basketball or bust. And I think that's his breaking point. Well, well, and that's interesting because, you know, I've said all along, if you're going to, if you're going to trade away these two picks with light protections, no protections, whatever. And by the way,

Just take Kuzma and Bogdanovich, Detroit Bogdanovich, for example. You're not getting those guys for right now on January 10th for a crap first round pick for like lottery protected. Then whatever it stays lottery protected or top 10 and then it converts to seconds. You're going to have to offer particularly the Pistons are really, really good first round pick with very minimal, if any protections to get boy on Bogdanovich because the competition is going to be that stiff and the Pistons are

They may not trade him. I've been saying that I think they're posturing and they'll trade him and I'd still bet on that. But they may be a little more serious than I give them credit for. The Wizards, God only knows how dearly they want to hang on to their mediocrity and keep Kuzma and build around Kuzma and Beal and Porzingis. And I think you are going to have to offer them real stuff. Like you're not getting – if you get cute like two seconds plus a bleb, you're not getting these guys. But just say you got them. Just say you found a way to get them.

What I've been saying all along is like, yeah, that's a competitive team. If that best case scenario that I talked about with LeBron and AD plays out, that's a good team. It's a team that's got to – everyone uses the phrase, just got a chance against anybody in a playoff series in the West. Well, the West is still pretty damn good. There may not be a Warriors-level juggernaut in there, but it's pretty damn good. And if I'm going to trade those two picks and really hamstring my future that badly –

I got to really believe I can't just win one playoff series. I got to win three and four. And that's a tall order. And the interesting thing is, you know, Howard Beck, I heard him making this argument of, well, this is the Lakers. Like, why do they care about draft picks? This is the team that got Shaq.

that got Kobe, that got LeBron, that gets stars to come here. And then in the same breath, you hear people argue, well, this is a new era where players are getting choosier and the Kyrie and KD chose the Nets over the Glamour Knicks. Kawhi and Paul George chose the Clippers over the Glamour Lakers. The Lakers struck out in free agency with Carmelo, with LaMarcus, with over and over, with Dwight Howard, over and over again. Um,

It you can't I don't think count anymore on just the Lakers are the Lakers they'll get stars even if they have no draft picks know anything like competent players choose competence now and so I do think they have to be careful but boy oh boy you mentioned LeBron.

And let's get to your sit-down with him because that's an event. That's an event. He doesn't do these sit-downs. We're going to air the whole 13-minute thing on NBA Today shortly. And I loved it. And I thought you hit a lot of good stuff in there. And I want to start with what I thought. Everyone gravitated to the LeBron-y stuff and all of that. I am just fascinated by...

So LeBron's sort of ambivalence with the term score and with referring to himself as a score, how did that come up in your sit down and sort of like what's your reaction to his reaction, I guess, to being labeled a scorer as he's now approaching the all time scoring record?

Well, I've covered him for a while now, and I think it was my first season covering him when he returned to Cleveland after leaving Miami that he hit the 25,000 point mark. And that's one of those tentpole numbers. You know, I don't know how many guys have done it. Twenty, twenty five guys in the history of the league. And it was in Philadelphia and his performance.

And his group scrum comment included, well, you know, I'm not even a scorer. You talk to my teammates. But my eyebrow kind of raised. And at this point, I didn't know him as well. I was just starting, you know, my first year of now nine, covering his teams on a daily basis. And when the scrum dispersed, I kind of just gave him some credit.

sarcastic, like, what are you talking about? And his answer on Friday when we did our sit-down echoed that first conversation we had nine years ago where he was like, well, I came up through the game of basketball being taught by my biddy league coaches that passing the ball and setting up your teammates is how basketball is supposed to be played. And he's always taken pride in that. So if you –

get to the marrow of him as a basketball player, that's what he considers himself. A guy who sets up his teammates for the best chance of success versus a

There are other players, and I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer. I think some of basketball culture celebrates the score more so than those instincts because it's the Jordan model, and Kobe has become the second coming of Jordan model where you want the ball in your hands, and you're going to take the last shot. It could be a double team or a triple team, but you have that willpower as a scorer. You're going to make it happen.

Well, you know, again, LeBron a long time ago took a lot of flack for making the right basketball play. And he's been stupid with that. Right. Just to flag. So I think that's the that's where the things converge. Like it's about his ultimate skill set.

But at the same time, he said, don't get me wrong here. I can still put the ball in the bucket. And I think he is a little sensitive to people saying his bag isn't that deep. Again, people meaning the

The basketball Twitter culture that's out there. Because he puts in a ton of time on all the things that a scorer must be able to do. He's also made a ton of big shots in his career. And if you look at the numbers, he's made as many big, high leverage shots as anyone in the history of the NBA. And I vividly remember on the jump years ago,

Rachel Nichols and Scottie Pippen and Tracy McGrady had this debate about whether LeBron was as clutch as Michael Jordan. And Rachel put the numbers up. The numbers were comparable. And Scottie and Tracy just... You could have...

You could have put any numbers in front of their faces. You could have had Michael Jordan come on stage and say, I, Michael Jordan, believe LeBron James is as clutch as me. And they found the whole notion of it completely ridiculous, no matter what the evidence said. And I thought it was interesting what he also said about, you just alluded to the bag thing. He talked about how, you know,

Maybe it's because I don't have a signature move and maybe my signature move is – in his view is the tomahawk slam in transition. That's what he – that's how he phrased it. And that goes back to like to your point.

10 years ago, 12 years ago, there would be like, who's the best pure scorer in the NBA? Is it Carmelo? Is it Kobe? And I would just be like, why is it not LeBron? Like, why are you like he averages more points than those guys or as many points? He's way more efficient. Like, why is it not him? For some reason, people that it wasn't just LeBron, like people had a hard time considering him a scorer. And I guess it's because of his like, if you close your eyes and say, what is LeBron's signature scorer?

move. You've written about his left to right spin move in transition. Is that the one that you think of? I just feel like at this stage of his career, as he's lost just a teeny tiny bit of athleticism, that that has become something that he's gone to more often. But he also goes through stages, you know, he for a bit.

Now this year, he can't hit threes. I don't know what's going on there. But over the last couple years, that kind of step back three where he gets switched with a big man on him and he stares down, looks at the ball for a second. Everyone in the arena knows what's going to happen. And he does that exaggerated step back.

And he made it a pretty efficient clip. That became a signature move of his. Still attacking the rim, though, is something that he is incredible at. Not only attacking the rim and, you know, I guess one time I teased a story on your podcast and some people pay attention. So I'm working on something that will come out sometime this year about LeBron's ambidextrous abilities. But

He is so good in transition, not just as the athleticism, but he can be attacking from the right lane or the left lane and finish with equal applause. Like he,

Does everything off the court left-handed. He shoots right-handed, but his touch with his left hand when he's going 85 miles an hour right towards the cup is incredible. And so as I keep rattling off all the things he does, no, I don't think there is a signature move because he does a lot of these things well. So if you ask me what – close your eyes and visualize LeBron James. Big.

being awesome at basketball. What's the first thing that comes to your mind? The first thing that comes to mind for me is turning the corner on a high screen and no look, looking to the left corner and no look two handed, like backhand pass to the right corner, right in the shooting pocket with the defense leaning the wrong way. Like that's the first thing I think of. He's the king of that pass. He's the best to ever do it. That's what I think of. What's the biggest shot he's ever made? What's the first LeBron shot you think of?

Well, I'll tell you the one he thinks of first. I wasn't there to cover it, but he brings up the shot against the Orlando Magic in the playoffs where they would have fallen down, I believe, 2-0 in the series. And inbounds pass, he catches it, fires, left wing extended, bang, buckets. You know, they tie the series. Ended up losing that series, but a huge, huge moment. And to me, that was...

you know, he was not a great outside shooter at that point. You can still say he's not, but he's proven himself far more as outside shooter at this point. I love the shot he hit against the Chicago Bulls in the 2015 playoffs. Oh, the David Blatt drew up the play for J.R. Smith's shot and it wasn't that, that wasn't a play? Yeah, I just love all, every, all the elements of that and,

And that was looking like a disaster season at one point. And then they make the trade for the next guys and team of fans. I was gone. They make the run and they fall down in that series against the bulls as well. They're in Chicago, Michael Jordan's house. The coach runs up a play, not for him. And he says, no, I'm getting that ball. He makes the shot. They go on, make the NBA finals and go one Oh, on, on the words. And who knows if Kyrie doesn't get hurt. That's my favorite shot that I've seen him hit in his career.

So the other other candidates would include the runner at the buzzer against the Raptors, which I believe completed a sweep. Right. So that's why that's like not a super, super memorable one, because the stakes like if he misses that, OK, fine, we're still going to win the series. That was an incredible full court up and down runner on the left wing. But this is like Jordan has and we're just naming like postseason buzzer beaters like, bam, this one, that one, that one. Like you don't you don't.

you don't have this many of those without being a clutch player. But if you ask people, what's the iconic final shot of LeBron's career? Like there's multiple answers for that for Jordan, including the very last shot he ever took in the finals as a member of the Bulls. I don't, LeBron's biggest shot in the finals is probably 2004, 2013 rather against San Antonio in game seven to put them up by four along to with like 27 seconds left to put them up by four.

I kind of like that's a huge shot. It's just people don't really remember that shot. His most famous play in the finals is a defensive play. Obviously the chase down block of Andre Guadagno, which is an all-timer. It's just, it's just a strange sort of,

phenomenon how we think of he takes pride in that shot he mentioned that to me and i know the heat habit blown up you know 30 by 20 feet in the catacombs of whatever we're going to call that arena these days actually i i talked to jason jackson uh one of their broadcasters out there so we call it the heat house so it's like we got to work on that

Don't mess with the heat. Don't mess with heat nomenclature because he culture will come after you, man. They, they like the, this is welcome to the heat house. Another adventure in Miami heat basketball here at the heat house. But I remember he also did an interview with Lee Jenkins of SI around that time. And he, he,

referring to that shot, making a long jump shot to seal the championship. He said that was my Jordan moment. So I think that one means a lot to him, but yeah, it doesn't have the same resonance. It wasn't at the buzzer. It wasn't a three. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't even a tie game at the, at the time. You know, that, that 2018 post-season run that he had before he went to LA, he had a buzzer beater against the Pacers. He had a, a,

a game seven in boston where he played all 48 minutes there was uh you know that game one in gold state where that block charge call you know should have been called the correct way so jr smith doesn't you know make lebron lose his mind um by decision making um to be that whole smith forgot the score game for people who got the score game yeah that whole run though uh

that's the best muscle i've seen him play and and it was a lot of like having the confidence to take the jumpers being a score and not worrying about obviously kairi wasn't on that team and um yeah he was he was the guy um uh before we just circle back to the present day lakers just a couple of things on that you you just nailed it the two best games i've ever seen him play

are game six in Boston in 2012 when the entire heat infrastructure was on the line and does he have a signature shot from that game maybe not because he came out and won the whole goddamn game in the first 20 minutes and just completely dominated it and then game one of the finals in 2018 which I have said before it might be the best game I've ever seen anybody play considering the opposition and the defenders they were throwing at him multiple people with the Warriors and

have told me it's the best game they've ever seen anybody play in person. And if you go watch this game back, he's just like, I'm like Draymond Green is in front of him. Andre Iguodala is like the next line of help, like Hall of Fame, all-time great level defenders. And he's just going through them like it's nothing, like they're irrelevant to his existence. It's incredible. And then a game no one talks about, and this may be foreshadowing for me,

The 2003, 2013, the Ray Allen game. Remember, it is the Ray Allen game in the finals. LeBron scored or assisted on 29 of Miami's last 38 points in that game. And if you watch the fourth quarter in overtime,

Aside from two turnovers in the last 90 seconds, which were bad, it is like an absolutely jaw-dropping display of all-around basketball. He's everywhere on defense. He's doing everything to keep them alive in that series. And obviously they go on to win the game and the series. And right now to circle back, with Anthony Davis out, all hope was lost. They can't defend anybody. It's over, blah, blah, blah. They're 7-6 without AD.

They're 6-4 in games in that stretch that LeBron has played without AD. They are minus 23 overall in that 13-game stretch. They are plus 54 with LeBron on the floor.

in those 13 games, 10 of which he played. So think about that. That means they're minus like 77 or something at all the other minutes. It's not just that he's averaging, and these are real numbers, 34 points, eight assists, and seven rebounds a game on 57% shooting, 66% on twos. That's leading to them winning his stints by a lot against decent teams.

What he's doing is absolutely incredible. And although I am on, I think this sort of blind rage of trade the picks, trade the picks, Palenka's a bum, trade the picks is a little bit misapplied and it's not nearly that simple. And all you have to do to reveal that is ask people what trade they want the Lakers to make.

I understand where that rage is coming from because what this guy is doing is so special and so unprecedented at his age that it's really like you do have to sit back. I wonder if you do this at times during these games and be like, it's 2023. Like this is weird that this is happening. This guy is still doing this. It's crazy. Yeah.

Well, it's amazing to me as I've covered him this year in particular, just because I think all the historical context things are really hitting home with him to be covering a game in Orlando and Darius Miles is courtside. And you're like, oh, wow. Think back to the Cavs days. Yeah, exactly. And he's telling...

telling me that he wanted to be there as a fan to see him this year. He said he'd like to be at the record-setting game. He wouldn't know if he would be able to do it. So when he came to Orlando, he made sure he was going to go see him as a fan.

Kyle Korver now works with the Atlanta Hawks, and he went on the L.A. road trip and went to the game to see LeBron play. He didn't have to be there to add him. Also, it's L.A., and the Hawks are a mess, and so probably they wanted more hands on deck. But yes, Kyle loved playing with LeBron. He loved the challenge of playing with LeBron. He loved the pressure of playing with LeBron. It's not for everybody. Being a shooter with LeBron –

you're going to have to make shots and it's not for everybody. Last year, you know, there was a game where he had that remarkable 50.9 and Drew Gooden was in the building. And I just remember seeing them see one another in the hallway afterwards. And it just struck me like, he's still doing it.

Drew Gooden is doing a great job with his broadcast career, but LeBron's just ridiculous and silly. And, you know, I guess the burning ember there is the winning part, but it's also, he wants, you know, he wants to share this moment for the James family and get, you know, his son or his sons, you know, have a chance to share a court with them too. And it's,

I don't know, man. I think there is a LeBron fatigue by sports fans because he's been part of the public consciousness for so long. But I think you just got to recognize that he's done that not by smoking beers. He's done it by hard work and dedication to the game of basketball. You love basketball, like

There should be a lot there for you to appreciate. Yeah, a lot of people just reflexively – it's like Barkley always said. As soon as you reach the top, people want to tear you down for athletes. And like a lot of people just want to be cranky about everything. Even when we talk about the Lakers, why are you talking about the Lakers? They stink and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, well, they do stink and we probably do talk about them too much. But what happens to LeBron James –

is really, really important in basketball history. Like he's either the greatest or the second greatest player of all time, how he ends his career, how his team is doing, how he feels about it is a massively important story. And even if you don't care, cause you want to talk about Orlando and Charlotte, like I'm sorry to tell you, you are in the very small minority of basketball fans, most of whom really do care. And also when LeBron's gone and retired, uh,

Like the transition to wistful nostalgia for those people will be very, very fast. It'll be like, oh man, I remember that LeBron game, this and that. Anyway, long way to go. They're 19 and 22. They're not out of it yet. These next 10 games are key. Dave McMenamin has an article on ESPN.com with his sit down with LeBron. I'm sure you can find the whole thing. I know you can on NBA Today, which means you can find it on ESPN+. Anywhere else we can find this thing?

I think there's going to be a full version airing or going on YouTube as well. There you go. YouTube, YouTube, where all things go to air, including this podcast. Dave McMenamin, you're doing a fantastic job. I will see you soon, hopefully in Los Angeles. And thanks for giving us a little time. Sounds great. Thanks, Zach.