All right, Rob Parker is in for Fred today. But let's keep chopping
it up because that's what we got to bring in our my favorite NBA insider,
my man double a Adam Austin. What's going on? What's up?
Rob? How do you know? It's always a pleasure of my man.
The pleasure's all mine. Uh, All right now, because we've been talking
about it all morning, and before we get into the entire NBA about Lebron
in the minutes, and I said this last night watching him, he really
looked fatigued. You really looked tired last night. What what do they need
to do because I I you can't minutes restrict him because he's gonna walk fast
Frank Bogol and go to the scores table and check himself in the game.
You gotta fit him totally, don't you. There's a decision that has to
be made because sometimes in Rod and you can relate to this, but you
gotta protect players from themselves. You got to save guys from themselves. So
of course Pedro Martinez wants to stay out there on the mount. Right,
You're the one who has to manage him. You're the one who has to
make that decision for him because guys are always going to to play, especially
guys like Lebron James who are chasing the all time scoring record with Kareem Abdul
Jabar. But I do think if there's a way to put a minute restriction
on him, even if you have to be firm about it, even if
you have to lay down the law, because it's not just that game last
night, the game against Miami. I thought he was petering out at the
end of that game Saturday before he had the tip. But he wasn't taking
over offensively as much in that game down the stretch as he was last night.
And he thinks he's invincible, but we've already seen him, seen him
in a Lakers uniform get hurt for an extended period of time with that groin
injury, So he's not. We've seen it already. They have to find
a way to load manage him in a way that satisfies Lebron James. And
that's tricky because you're dealing with the ultimate superstar who's a franchise unto himself in
some ways. But you got to protect guys from from themselves. And I
was saying, I'm sorry, I would say on that point that I guess
and Rob believes it's different. Prior to the last three games stretch that Lebron
was certainly at the top of the list in terms of MVP, and one
of the reasons people would throw out that he's the MVP is because he was
playing forty minutes a night and he was and he was, you know,
putting up numbers, but he was playing every single night, and maybe in
the back of his mind is like, that's my way to solidify an MVP
is if they look up and see I played eighty games and I played all
these minutes. How can I be denied? Oh? I think there's three
things going on with Lebron right now. He's chasing titles. He's chasing the
regular season MVP because he feels like he was snubbed last year and he wants
to prove he was the guy. And then he's also chasing the scoring record
and getting that could be like having another ring in his mind. Maybe maybe
he only gets to five rings. He can't surpass Jordan in that way,
but if he's the all time leading scorer, that elevates him higher. So
he has a lot on his plate in year eighteen at the age of thirty
six. And I do believe at the beginning of the season the reason he
was pushing things so hard is he was looking at Anthony Davis coasting a little
bit, or maybe it was because he was hurt the whole time, we
don't know, and he thought, Okay, I'm gonna pick him up for
the first half of this season. I'm gonna get way out in front in
the MVP voting, and then by the end of the year he'll pick me
up. We'll both be healthy and peeking towards the playoffs. But now there's
uncertainty with Anthony Davis. He might not be back till April. We don't
know how long it could be. What if he only plays a month and
a half of the rest of the season. Well, Lebron's had to carry
more of the load than I think most people expected. And then with Dennis
Shrewd being out, it's not just and they talk about this with pictures all
the time on the mount and those high intensity innings and how much more taxing
those are. It's not just that he's out there on the floor, but
he's running the show because they don't even have Dennis shrewder right now, So
he's the number one ball handler and everything runs through him like he's twenty five
again, right, and Adam, that eventually catches up with you. I
don't care who you are, it does. And then if you're the Lakers,
I get what he's trying to do as far as you know, because
if you're right, if he doesn't get to six champions and even if he
gets to six, he's still lost six. So he needs the other thing
to be able to win an MVP in year eighteen. Right with Anthony Davis
on your squad, that would say something. To be the all time leading
scorer in pass Kareem that would say something. So he needs those other things
as well, just in case he can't get to six championships or just because
or just maybe you know, people won't totally recognize him because of the six
losses. So it's like, if your management and you're the front office,
you gotta kind of take that out of Lebron's hands because ultimately it's about for
the Lakers winning a championship in the Yeah, there seems like there's two different
agendas going on. The Lakers are just trying to win now, Anthony Davis
is their future, and he's supposed to get them past this Lebron James phase
and into that next era of Lakers basketball while they're still winning right now,
and that's supposed to be a smooth transition. Well, you can't do that
if Anthony Davis does his Achilles and now he's LaMarcus Aldrich instead of Anthony Davis.
So Lebron is out there trying to enhance his legacy while at the same
time the Lakers franchise is just trying to win this season. There's a lot
of different things going on and that are in play with the Lakers right now.
Then I think there probably should be, but a lot of it is
just due to injury. If Anthony Davis is healthy, if Dennis Shrewder is
healthy, they might be the number one or have the best record in the
NBA right now. And we're not worried about Lebron James taxing himself. I'm
not so sure about that. I'm gonna say that, you Rob, can
you believe that how many times you're gonna bring up you lost six times in
the finals. You want to get that in one more time, one more
time? All right? You know what I'm saying, how about when you
said, you know, he thinks he got snubbed with the last last year,
he didn't know. But but I'm just saying this, Adam, from
the standpoint of I gotta admit, I'm impressed by the Clippers, from the
standpoint of the way they crashed and burned last year. You know, Doc
gets run out of town. You know, uh Tylo takes over, and
they had the second best record, or they have the second best record in
the West. And they've played remarkably well. They were coming off a high
of beating Utah, right and then Brooklyn came and and they just lost back
call at the end, but they lost to Brooklyn. But they're still playing
really well. And then you gotta look at Brooklyn. So I'm saying,
yes, while the Lakers, you know, could be there, I'm still
not sure they're the best team in the league. I still think that they're
the No. Rim protectors. Gasol is at the ten man. There's some
issues there. I don't think they're the best team in the league, even
if Shrewder and ad will help you. Right now, well, when everybody
talks about how you have to beat the best to be the best or they're
the champs until somebody beats them in a seven game series. But this isn't
the same Lakers team that was constructed from last season. They are different.
It's a completely different year. And if they lost in the playoffs this season,
everybody would say, well, that wasn't the team that won the championship.
Inside the bubble and not having that inside rent protection really came back to
haunt them, and it may I've been talking about this since day one.
Marc Gasol has cankles, He's got weights on his legs right now, he's
stuck in Wow. I mean they're not as apparent as James Harden's, but
he can still move with them. James hard and is balling. They have
more flaws this season that will be accentuated in the playoffs I think in a
seven game series. But they still have time to make a move. They
still have time. They could bring in. He's not defensively, That's what
I'm saying, because they need somebody defensively, right and if he can't do
it, what is the point and just bringing him in. I don't see
how that worked. It could be just a short stint while not having Anthony
Davis would be the reason you bring him in for now, for the next
month or so, But long term they need another Javail McGee type. They
need another another Dwight Howard type. I look at someone like Newland's Noel who
I think is out right now with the New York Knicks, a young guy.
He didn't get paid his money, and he could be trade bait.
Uh and the New York Knicks, you know, when they fall out of
the playoffs at some point, when they are well out of being a top
eight seed in the Eastern Conference, somebody, and he'd be a huge boon
for them. He'd be a huge pickup for them. But they can't get
Javail McGee back. That's that's not happening. That ship has sailed because they
couldn't even trade for him, or even if he got waived, they couldn't
be the first team to pick him up. He'd have to go through somebody
else's team and then be rerouted to the Lakers, and whoever picks him up
after he's gone anyways, is unlikely to let him go again. So they
do have issues, and there are more injury concerns and maybe even locker room
stuff that we don't even know about yet, because that was like the thirteenth
man for them last season. They were so well put together in that locker
room. Guys liked each other so much, and you bring in combustible personalities
like Montrese Harold and Dennis Shrewder, guys who want the ball in their hands
at all times. I don't know if the same level of sacrifice self sacrifice
as VTB would say, is there with this Lakers team. But look,
we're nitpicking right now. As long as Anthony Davis is healthy, as long
as they have Lebron James in a seven game series, they're still gonna be
favored. Yeah, And it will be interesting to see how much Anthony Davis
when he comes back plays before playoffs starts. One thing, Adam, that
bothered me when we're talking ab about minutes restriction as I'm watching the game the
other night with the Clippers and the Brooklyn Nets, is the minutes restriction on
Paul George And this has been so and I get I get the minutes restriction,
but why is he out of the game at the end of the game,
and why can't it be managed better in terms of play In the last
time at the time and post game toeront Lu said, we had to put
him back in as early as we did, just to get back into the
game because at some point they were down fifteen. At the nine minute mark
in the fourth quarter, it was amazing they even tied the game, but
they did so without PG on the floor. They kept scoring. When he
went out at the three minute mark, they were still a plus two without
him on the floor. That's not the reason they lost the game. I
can see though, why it would be frustrating because he was having a great
game. Hit I think six three pointers, had thirty four points, twenty
one of them in the second half, and go on off. But if
you go back to Friday night against the Utah Jazz, his first game back
after missing six post game, and he only played twenty seven minutes, he
said, I'm not ready for thirty minutes yet, something to that effect.
So in the same vein of you have to protect athletes from themselves, even
though post game, after what happened with the nets, he said, I
was ready to ready to go. I wanted to come back into the game.
Well, two days ago you were talking about how you might hurt the
team because you don't have your win back yet, and I don't know if
it's back two days later. So I think there was a lot of logic
and rationale to why they took him out, and they're just listening to the
training staff and the medical staff anyways, the press conferences. Yet No,
I do want to get to take he signed for four more years on the
Brooklyn Nets. I mean when they were put together and the hard and trade
went down, people said, oh, they're gonna be bickerin there's only one
ball. All these guys want the ball. Who's going to shoot the last
shot? Then it was their defense was atrocious when they first started, they
were last in the league. Now they're already up to fifteenth and playing much
better. What is your take on that team and how it's put together?
And I do believe they'll get a big man or some defender. They got
one DeAndre Jordan is actually playing well now he is playing well, But they'll
get I think they could get it Andre Drummond or somebody else. But I'm
just curious, Adam, as to how they're constructed the three headed monster,
and uh, you know, can they win the East? Can they get
to the finals? I had my reservations about bringing in James Harden because of
how much you had to give up. But once Spencer dinw he got hurt
anyways, and when Kyrie went a wall, you really had to bring him
in for insurance because you don't know what's gonna happen with Kyrie Irving. He's
gonna be there for now. Kyrie's just fine, but back then we didn't
know. No. But the way James Harden has fit in with the type
of role he's assumed by being the playmaker and facilitator, guys are now filling
roles and it makes sense because at first I thought you have so many different
individual superstars, and it's not like the Golden State Warriors because they already had
a foundation. They had a system with Steve Kerr and guys playing within that,
and Kevin Durant will sacrifice and he did with that team at times.
But Kyrie and James Harden aren't built like that. But if you have James
Harden as the main playmaker out there and Kyrie Irving basically playing the two guard,
a small two guard, and then Kevin Durant doing a little bit of
everything else, it works, and those guys seem to like each other so
far, and defensively, look, they just have to be a middle of
the pack team, that's right, because they're gonna put up one thirty and
easy efficient one thirty. They're gonna end up setting the old time efficiency record,
which was just set last season by the Dallas Mavericks. They're gonna break
that this season. But Rob, there were my pick coming out of the
East after Game one of the preseason when I saw Kevin Duran go baseline for
a dunk and show off that explosion again. So even before they got James
Harden, I thought they'd be coming out of the East. So it only
emboldens that now they have James there, I think they are going to be
the Eastern Conference favorite. I don't think they're fools gold. But in a
seven game series, do they have enough scoring? With Ben Simmons out there
and Tobias Harris is having a really good season, but I don't know if
you can rely on him in that way to get you twenty five to thirty
points consistently in playoff games. And Ben, look what he does great is
getting transition and get to the basket that way. That stuff gets bottled up
in a seven game series when you're seeing a team over and over again,
what he does best doesn't necessarily translate as well in the playoffs. He's a
great defender. Joe lmbid is gonna get you thirty and twelve every night,
and that's going to be an interesting thing to see because it's either DeAndre Jordan
or whoever whoever else the Brooklyn Nets pick up, and that could be a
mismatch for him. But they could also run Joel and beat off the floor
if they want to go small, and they have been going small. Dj
has been coming off the bench recently, right, So there are they just
I mean, somebody don't be open on that team. You're poison and it's
like they're not going to be as might be open. Right, Yeah,
Harris, who's shooting fifty two percent from three, He's gonna set the all
time record from three, which I believe was held by Steve Kerr with a
shortened three point line back in ninety six and ninety seven. And he was
just taking two three pointers a game. You got Joe Harris now taking eight
and hitting over fifty percent of them. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it's it's
crazy. What they're they're capable of doing, and they're doing it without Durant,
as you mentioned. But I do think that they have settled into that
role as James. When both Kyrie and James Harden on the floor, it's
James Harden is a facilitator in Kyrie is two and then when they get Kevin
Durant, he's just get the ball to Kevin. I forgot how good James
was. I'm serious, playing in Houston, what you know, he was
a ball hog and did all that, and now to see him make beautiful
passes and what he's done, I'm marveled at him. I mean, he's
must see right now, he's such a problem because he has that dribble drive
where you don't know if he's going to the basket or if he's putting up
the lob for DJ or whoever else is there with him, and you have
to make a decision because also if he's and they call him the dribbler Charles
Barkley, but he's doing less of that now. But on the perimeter,
you have to play him tight because think about this, it's not just Joe
Harris. He's having a career year from three James Harden, Kyrie Irving is
having a career year from three, and Kevin Durant is. All those guys
are elevating each other out there and getting easier shots because there's so much star
power and there's just no way to contain them for more than six minutes.
You know they are going to have an explosion at one point in the game.
Yeah, you better hope, Yeah, you better hope that you made
your run early and you have a little bit of a cushion before before we
let you go. Adam, I just want to go back to the West.
Now, what do you see outside of the Lakers and Clippers. We
see Utah having a great season. Can that last? You know, there's
Phoenix. I think I think I was gonna get to that because I think
when you look at the West, you see that you know, the top
four or whatever, and you go okay, But Phoenix could be a problem.
You know, Portland at some point can be a problem. Golden State
is is a thorn. I don't think we're gonna be there, but there's
not an easy walk through the West, especially because Dallas isn't even a playoff
team. Right. Everybody talked about Luca don chits right, rob being the
MVP, being the favorite coming into this season, and there's still a couple
of games under five hundred, but Phoenix is nine and one in their last
ten games. Now, they've gotten that chemistry. They've come together. And
when you have CP three and Devin Booker in a playoff series, and we've
never seen Booker in the playoffs before, but we did see him in a
must win situation last year in the Bubble and they won eighth straight and they
still didn't get in the tournament somehow. But Devin Booker to me, has
it that intangible, the clutch gene, whatever you want to call it.
He's hit a lot of big shots. They're dangerous. But I still think
the Utah Jazz to me, even though they are the number one team right
now, they're the third team behind the Lakers, behind the Clippers in the
West, but they are flawed because Rudy Gobert can get run off the floor
in the playoffs, teams play small against him, so you have maybe your
most impactful player when you account for his defense, not being able to spend
enough time out there on the court in big moments. And the Clippers did
it to him Friday Night because they just run small and you can't as good
as he is on the parimeter with his defense. Now, when you have
all those interchangeable pieces and there's so much more versatile players and versatility in the
league now, Rudy Gobert can be a liability at times and you can't have
that from your second best player, as good as Donovan Mitchell is. No.
Absolutely, all right, Well we got tonight, we got the pre
game at six pregame at six, Clippers and Wizards. I think the Clippers
can win it. I might have to put a couple of shackles down on
this one. Yeah, a couple of shackles on this one. LA Sports