01:00It's the Lakers. Well, we talked about it the last time we saw each other, right? I mean, you told me it would be, well, a miracle if the Lakers won it all. So, well, they're eliminated despite being the third seed. Your thoughts on that?
01:52There's no pronouncements about things. Austin Reeves had a badly sprained big toe. You know, those kinds of things come up.
02:22You know, you don't know if LeBron will be back. You don't really know what all is going to happen in the offseason.
02:29But when you have that kind of promising stretch down the springtime of the season and it looks like you're going to make some noise in the playoff.
02:44Well, they call it small ball for a reason and the Lakers were forced to play small ball.
02:51And so, maybe they should have gambled on Mark Williams from Charlotte for Dalton Connect, but they looked at that.
03:04They looked at him and his physical and they said, no, this is not. We were deceived, basically, is what they said.
03:14So, it will certainly have a lot of people's attention. The Lakers are out of the playoffs, but they have an awful lot of people around the globe thinking about what happens next with that team.
03:28Yes. Actually, sir, I wrote something for Basketball Network. This was about a forensic lip reader.
03:37After she evaluated the final video after that loss to the Lakers when they were eliminated.
03:47And she picked up some words like LeBron telling his wife Savannah that she's good and it is over.
03:57But what's her assessment? I mean, assuming that is what those words that came out of LeBron's mouth.
04:05Well, I would say he's got big decisions to make. He's a 40-year-old man. He's played better than most 25-year-old men as a 40-year-old man.
04:25He has been exceptional in all that he's given the game. The game has rewarded him handsomely.
04:33He's an exceptional person, an exceptional human being, not just a basketball player.
04:43And so, in my mind, he's deserved every right to make whatever decision he has to make.
04:51And, you know, he's got 50-some million coming to him if he wants to play again.
04:57Now, the 99 and nine-tenths percent of us on the globe would make that decision in a minute.
05:04Yeah.
05:05I don't care if I had to walk up and down the floor to get my 50 million. I would do it.
05:11And so, but he is a billionaire. And so, when you got better than a thousand million, what's another 50 million if you're not happy?
05:26And I guess he could end up somewhere like Golden State where they could stack up a bunch of golden oldies and try to win it with an old team.
05:37But I think what we're seeing across a lot of the NBA, Oakland, Houston, Cleveland, it's a, but particularly Houston and Oklahoma City, it's a young player's game.
05:58Yes, it's true.
05:59And it has always been that way. Young and athletic. Now, they have to become experienced or have to be just otherworldly smart to get it ahead of their maturation.
06:15But, you know, young players can accomplish a lot of things.
06:22And it can certainly outrun a lot of older players.
06:27And that's just more credit to LeBron for what he's been able to do.
06:34You know, but the bottom line on everything I've just said is the better team won.
06:43And hats off.
06:46I think everybody acknowledged that from Luka to LeBron.
06:51The better team won. Hats off to them.
06:55Good luck in the next rounds of the playoffs.
07:00Matchups are always big in playoffs.
07:03And the Lakers did not match up well, obviously, with Minnesota and all that size.
07:12Yeah.
07:13As you said, the younger players are stepping up.
07:17And, well, the Lakers have those players.
07:19They have young players.
07:21But on whether these players can match up with the players from other teams is another question.
07:29Yeah.
07:29Every series is different.
07:33And, you know, NBA coaches, I remember Tex Winter and Phil Jackson studying matchups.
07:39Matchups, you know, you play 82 games in a season, you think you know it all.
07:46But the whole thing resets for the playoffs.
07:50And you really have to study the matchups.
07:54Because that changes things over a seven-game series.
07:58You know, a matchup can emerge that is an advantage.
08:03And, you know, you can exploit it in teams.
08:06A lot of times can't adjust to it.
08:09And basically, that's what happened to the Lakers.
08:12They could.
08:13You know, and I think, J.J. Reddick, we're from the same small city in Virginia, Roanoke.
08:20But, in fact, in the years when I was AAU coaching, I would coach his younger sister here and there in a game.
08:30She was never on a team I coached except for occasional game.
08:36But I would say that J.J. learned a whole lot this season.
08:43He's going to be a good coach.
08:45But, you know, he was trying to make this thing work.
08:49And he made a good run of it.
08:51He got them a good playoff advantage.
08:54They might have been better off at the fourth seed where they didn't have to go up against the Timberwolves.
09:00But that doesn't matter.
09:03At some point, they probably would have had to meet them.
09:06Yeah.
09:06But you mentioned J.J. Reddick.
09:08Like, there was this game where he played five players the whole second half.
09:17What's your assessment on that?
09:18What was going on in his mind in that game?
09:21He realized he was in a tough matchup situation.
09:25And he gambled that he might be able to eke out a win with that unusual thing, playing everybody.
09:37Now, once the playoffs come, NBA players play long minutes.
09:44It's not like they – I mean, there is substitution.
09:47And some coaches have different philosophies.
09:50But they made a decision to do that, and it didn't work.
09:54So, Luka Doncic, is it worth keeping him?
09:58Or do you think –
09:59Oh, yes.
10:00Yes.
10:02You know, Luka's a great player.
10:04You know, everybody learns lessons.
10:07You know, I don't care who you are.
10:09You get into things there.
10:11The game – you see that all the time in Philippine basketball.
10:17The game is the game.
10:19It teaches every season.
10:22And every team is different.
10:23But Luka is a centerpiece.
10:27And it was the most unusual circumstances.
10:32You know, it's almost like the politics in America these days.
10:37Propaganda drives everything.
10:39And as soon as Nico Harrison, the GM of the Mavericks, traded Luka, he started the propaganda.
10:49And he recruited certain media people to repeat.
10:52And he didn't stop.
10:53He just kept it up.
10:55I've never seen that.
10:57I've been doing this 40 years.
11:00I've never seen a team trade somebody and then set out to really bash him to protect themselves from having traded him.
11:10You make your trade and you shut your mouth.
11:13I'm old school about that.
11:14He shouldn't have been running his mouth.
11:16He's made those fans angry.
11:18I would have fired his butt long ago.
11:21But that's me.
11:23I don't know if you're going to agree.
11:25Is it time to move on to LeBron and start the Luka era?
11:29I don't think you move on from LeBron.
11:34I think LeBron will make his decision.
11:37He is one of the ultimate all-time players, if not the ultimate all-time player.
11:46In some ways he is.
11:48In other ways he isn't.
11:49But LeBron is a great, great figure in American basketball.
11:54In global basketball.
11:55And he has shown that he's very capable of laying his heart on the line for an entire season.
12:04He is remarkable beyond remarkable.
12:08So that's his call.
12:10And no, you don't move on from that.
12:12Now he may move on and try it somewhere else.
12:15I think it's up to them to talk that out and to see what's in everybody's best interest.
12:22And I have no idea what they'll do.
12:26So it all depends on what LeBron does.
12:30Yes, I think that'll be the first order of business.
12:34You know, it will, I think it would be a blow to the Lakers not to have him back.
12:42A huge blow.
12:43A blow to LeBron.
12:45I mean, a blow to Luka.
12:47A blow to all the guys on that team.
12:49They've got to get some size.
12:51I mean, he can't go into battle with a pea shooter when everybody else has got cannons.
12:59And you can't expect LeBron to have to play all those front court minutes.
13:05The fact that he was at that age having to play as much as he did down low and the things he did,
13:12that's even more remarkable.
13:14The fact that he was at that age, he was at the age of 16,000-2010.
13:24And he wanted to go into battle with a great game where he had to play a little bit.
13:28But we can't expect LeBron to have to play over.
13:29And he didn't know what they did right now.
13:30So let's play the game, and he got this game.
