‘BLOCKBUSTER is exploding!” – Worthy: Lakers trade will send Durant to LA amid Suns “frustration”

‘BLOCKBUSTER is exploding!” – Worthy: Lakers trade will send Durant to LA amid Suns “frustration”

ACC sportset Lakers I’m your host Chris McGee joining me it’s the Laker Insider Michael bresenhan and the Lakers reporter Mike trudell on a rare off day you’re here with us well I’m happy to be here with you usually when I see you it’s like once a month at the home games

When you a big game come down I’d like for you to join us on a road trip sometime soon oo have you been on one uh you w on one this year right went to Portland for like 10 minutes it was great Lakers won by like 15 nice nice to

Get a win when you’re it’s good to get out there a little bit when you’re with the team maybe the Grammy trip get out some good cities for a while did everyone have a nice Christmas I I mean I know the Lakers lost but the crew is so Lively today everybody’s excited guys

Are great energy is high even after a loss look just happy I’m happy to be home in Los Angeles now the Lakers have one home game as we’re going to talk about against Charlotte and then back to the road for TP back to back but then we’re basically going to be in Los

Angeles for the entire Sil in the league how come they’re putting mik on the road so much it it always comes around eventually just December was a tough month true in New Orleans for New Year’s Eve by the way yeah I don’t love that don’t love that one being honest let’s

Get right to it because Ryan our producer put a lot of effort into this show the Lakers have a a rut as of late they’ve lost two of their last six no sorry six of their last eight I wish it was two of the last six six of

The last eight uh defensive stats across the board have fallen they’re allowing over 120 points per contest opponents wrting 42% from three what 49% uh from the field the defense rating also has dipped the rating of 18.2 after the loss on Christmas Day LBJ acknowledge the team needs to be

Better I think the League’s best teams right now so far is uh since we you know in Minnesota they pretty much healthy OKC was pretty much healthy besides giddy um and Boston is is like they’re fully healthy um I don’t think we’re healthy right now I don’t think we’re

Where we want to be to compete versus the the top teams until we continue to get better and better continue to work our habits and uh you know for us we still trying to you know figure our situation out as far as um how we want

To continue to attack each game so um you know but we’ll be better know the the pathway for Boston forwards right seems pretty straight line like it you know like Darin was saying they kind of know what they are and for you guys though it seems like that path is going

To maybe Veer a little bit more um what gives you the faith that that you think like this is going to get figured out you know you go back to last year and you know kind of how we you know figured things out late in the year and um you

Know ran with it I feel like we at that time you know had a real good understanding of you know what we were uh who we were and what we were you know doing every single night um you know and unfortunately for you know the first of

This year you know we didn’t have that lineup uh to start um and kind of you know plant that Foundation uh we had you know obviously youall know guys out um but at the end of the day you know you go in the locker room and everybody you

See in there they’re they workers um you know intelligent guys that have played the game for a long time obviously with the head of the snake you know uh Brown and AD they know the game they know what we need to do to be better and you know

For us we just got to figure out how to you know help them and you know from there we’ll you know continue to get better but um you know we’re not going to give up obviously you know frustrating you know being I think we’re 15 and 15 but there’s a lot of

Basketball to play and you know we’ll figure it out the Celtics starters in that Christmas Day matchup everyone scored 18 or more that’s 108 of Boston’s 126 points so it’s kind of a two-part question I’m going to ask you guys it could be a positive or negative but what

Did you see from the Lakers team in this loss and do you believe right now they can compete with the League’s best press well yeah you look at that starting five for Boston that’s what they’ve had for two months now you know they got porzingis during the offseason they said

Here’s our starting five you guys try to beat us meanwhile the Lakers new starting five just had their first practice together today they’ve already played two games together gone one to one a really good win and then a really tough loss against Boston so I mean yeah

The Lakers are still a team trying to figure it out still a team in transition G I do think it can work but these guys need to get to know each other a little bit um kind of some tough news over the last day or two no Gabe Vincent Lakers

Just announced that he did have successful surgery he’s going to be out for 8 weeks so you’re going to lose a nice uh backup piece so the starters more than ever G really need to come together and make this thing work look we’ve seen that the Lakers can play

Really good basketball when things are optimal it happened in the inseason tournament that’s how they won it they played several good teams and beat them along that run we just saw them beat OKC at OKC which is not easy to do they’re third in the west one of the better

Teams they play pretty well every night they’re young they play hard so for the Lakers like they can get there but Boston is the best starting five BR just alluded to it all the cohesion that they have but forget cohesion for a second just look at the town like they’re 345

There with holiday and porzingis and white that’s really really strong especially surrounding a Duo on the wing like tum and brown the Lakers like the cohesion element you don’t always have to have it when ad was first traded to the L ERS and LeBron and AD that team

Was basically new and they shot out of a cannon it can so it can happen but for it to happen you have to have the like LeBron four years ago at that stage versus this year in year 21 where it’s going to be harder for him to reach that

Level every single night of the regular season so that’s all like they just have to figure out and maximize what the rotation is figure out the best starting lineup I think it’s going to happen in the next couple of weeks here U but in the meantime like they’ve still been

Able to beat good teams so I’m it’s not I don’t have any long-term term concerns necessarily it’s just stuff that has to be tightened up a little bit in the short term I want to give the Celtics their props they are definitely among the League’s Elite but I also know the

Lakers can play with the best teams in the league and at this point are 16 and 15 and we’ll see where they are in a couple of weeks but some news to get to on the injury front Gabe Vincent underwent successful arthoscopic surgery on his left knee today it was reported

On Christmas that Gabe would elect for surgery for his left knee Fusion which has kept him out all but five games this season G be revalued in eight weeks here’s Darin Ham on the latest news you know it’s definitely impact impactful um but you know we’re we’re on

The flip side of that we’re pleased that you know now there going to be some a Hu a huge light at the end of the tunnel in terms of him getting his stuff cleaned up and uh you know we going to check on him nurse him back to health and uh get

Ready for a big contribution once he’s cleared yeah it was kind of a good sign that he came back but obviously it didn’t work out the way have you talk him a lot as a yeah but and I told him in OKC you know you

Got to do what you got to do man so you can put this behind you and that’s the biggest thing like trying to manage it and do different things and have these little micro setbacks it’s like it’s too much so the fact that we can go ahead

And get it alleviated and and put it behind us is great for him great for us he me it obviously hurt you know he’s a big component of what we do you know great player great system player so um you know obviously Health cones first

So you know we want him to get healthy and you know for us you know uh next man up mentality you know um you know continue to play the right way and you know uh have some guys step up in his absence here’s the injury report for Thursday’s game against the Hornets

Jared Vanderbilt is probable ad and LeBron cam reddish all questionable gab Vincent will be out for a long time uh play players have missed over 90 games due to injury only 31 games in by the way that’s an absurd number mhm and here’s what’s even crazier ad and Braun have been available

Outside of just a few games it’s frustrating I think for fans it’s frustrating for all of us who cover the team but imagine what it’s like for the players and for Darin ham it’s just been a bad bad hand yeah I mean it’s almost like there’s a different trade

Every week like who’s in who’s out so many different faces in the starting five and maybe they finally found some some cohesion with these guys true we’ll have to see if that’s the case uh personally I think they might need a little more injection of offense with

The current starting five we’ll see if maybe Austin Reeds cracks that at some point uh but the Lakers finished the month of December strong they got a a game they should win uh here on Thursday against Charlotte and then that that double uh two in a row kind of the

Double header he got Minnesota and New Orleans back to- back eat not an easy way to finish the calendar year they can go two and one the rest of the way that’s a really nice step into a pretty schedule friendly January Mike yeah so just starting with Gabe Vincent I think

The tough part of not having him really for the whole season cuz he played a couple of games but you know he was new and then the knee had been bothering him you lose a player that can defend and give you some spacing and shot creation on offense and I think that’s something

That isn’t really there on the roster now you Reeves and Russell can defend but not necessarily point of attack like Vincent Ken so anyway that’s gone right just throw that out for the next couple of months we’ll see what happens when he gets back in the meantime you know I

Agree with what brez was saying this new starting lineup I love the idea and the philosophy of Leaning into the defense leaning into the size we saw what Vanderbilt was able to do when he started last year but are they at some point going to have to have a little bit

More creation a little bit more shooting I do think Reeves is the name right that is there he’s the third best player to me he showed that last year throughout the playoff run and so at some point maybe Reed for reddish maybe that solves your issues and that ends up being your

Best starting lineup until then they really had to defend well as a starting group and then they’re going to have a lot of pop off the bench cuz if it’s if it’s not just Reeves but D’Angelo Russell and Ru haimura like we saw in OKC Crest when they really those guys

Took over like if the starters can just play defense and kind of survive on offense give ad the ball give LeBron the ball then let the bench take over that can work okay in the short term yeah that was one of the best offensive games

Of the year in terms of balance and and especially coming off the bench and we’ll talk about that starting lineup a little later in the show are you moving forward brez with the thought of Gabe won’t help this team this year you know so now you’re talking eight weeks you’re

Talking obviously late February after the All-Star break who knows what moves the Lakers will make uh you know uh the trade deadline which is pretty early in February this year it’s going to be hard to he have to be ready to go in March uh

And again they didn’t say he’s back in 8 weeks they said he we will be updated the media members will be updated in8 weeks so you know he’s got to get his rest you know it’s it’s a tough rehab especially a third of the way through

The season or so I hope he’s back CU I I love what he did in Miami true you’re a huge basketball fan they they don’t win the series against the Celtics without him I mean I thought he was that impactful uh you know he just helped

Them get also against the Bucks too he just helped them get to the finals then he petered out a little bit but uh you know I thought it was a great uh offseason acquisition three-year deal I thought the money was good too for the Lakers too bad that his first season is

I’m not going to say a total wipe out hopefully he’s back by mid-march right of the go yeah so the first thing we’re not sure if it was a repair or if they just took the meniscus out so those are two different things it’s two different rehabs two different timelines so we’ll

See um that’s you know per that’s private medical information but we’ll get an idea as to when he actually does come back into get the court I think that there’s a chance he could still come back and help you know so that’s that I wouldn’t put that out of there

But in the short term is anytime you’re there in the locker room and you’re interviewing LeBron he’s only thinking about the next game so like so that’s that for not you got you got to put him out yeah so just you can’t think about what he’s going to give you right now

Because the it’s so longterm like two months is a long time so don’t even worry about that for now what you have in front of you in the locker room who’s available that’s what you have to to think about and how do you maximize that the Lakers get another home game there

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‘BLOCKBUSTER is exploding!” – James Worthy BREAKING Lakers trade will send Kevin Durant to LA amid Suns “frustration”