Los Angeles Lakers can’t make any ‘game-changing trade’ to help LeBron James | Colin Cowherd NBA

Los Angeles Lakers can’t make any ‘game-changing trade’ to help LeBron James | Colin Cowherd NBA

Welcome to the official YouTube channel for the Colin coward podcast go on hit the Subscribe button there you go right down there if you want to be among the first to hear my weekly takes NFL college football more right there A lot of times there can be sort

Of um overhyped uh trade suggestions I have not seen any irresponsible reporting by uh NBA guys I don’t think there’s a ton out there I think Deon Murray would make the Lakers better I don’t think he’s a game changer so your thought on what is a pretty quiet trade

Interesting because I think the playin tournament has made it so that more teams than ever are more willing to think within the scope of the current season which has diminished the number of Sellers and yet and yet there are so many teams that feel close which has

Increase the number of buyers but the problem is the majority of those buyers don’t have much to offer like the Milwaukee Bucks and the Phoenix Suns would love to have a perimeter defense upgrade but they don’t have any first round picks to offer which severely limits their ability to go out and get

Somebody the Lakers would love to go out and get an athletic guard but they have some limitations in that they basically have this one draft pick to offer and chances are you can’t get a really great transformative player for that type of talent and so in a weird way even though

There are a lot of teams that would like to make a trade there aren’t just there just aren’t that many trades to be made and so I think that will kind of limit what we see over the course of the next couple of days of course you never know

We’ll see what happens before the deadline of desperation kicks in and some stuff starts flying around but I have a feeling that we’re poised for a relatively quiet uh deadline so you follow the entire league let’s start with the Lakers because that’s always been a primary uh asset of

Your NBA knowledge I’ve kind of rolled my eyes at any suggestion to trade LeBron mostly because the five previous years before him they had the low lowest winning percentage in the league and he saved the franchise ticket sales merch intelligence he’s still an elite scorer and distributor I’m not giving up LeBron

For 19y olds that may or may not hit and be players my here’s what I view the Lakers as and you can tear this apart I view this team as an elite scor and distributor LeBron the best defender in the league and Anthony Davis an excellent third wheel sometimes

Inconsistent but a good score in Austin Reeves excellent length that’s why they can match up with a Denver they have excellent length could use another shooter I would love to see him give up a little length to get a shooter to jante Murray then I think

They would be in the discussion as the third best team in the league they’re not Boston though the Celtics have no bench and they just beat him and they’re not Denver if joic it just it Anthony Davis does about as good a job as you

Can on him and he’s going to give you 288 and8 or whatever but I think the move is a tweak and I don’t think I’m selling the future uh when I don’t know because of the way the NFL draft works I get 23 year olds in the NBA get 19y olds

Who knows what they become I have a much greater sense of a first round NFL pick than a first round NBA pick so my take is if you could get a shooter give up a tad length I think you’re arguably capable of beating a Milwaukee a phoenix

Is that a fair uh kind of view of the Lakers have had such a weird season but it makes a little bit more sense when you kind of split it into thirds so they come out the gates and they’re actually pretty solid in spite of the fact that

D’angela Russell and Austin Reeves are both struggling they started 15- n capped off with winning the inseason tournament right then immediately after that which was somewhat I was kind our mutual friend Logan swam I was texting him at the time I was like I hope they don’t just completely fall apart after

Winning this thing they go three and 10 over their next 13 games was some bad losses they lost to a Spurs team that hadn’t won in like a month they lost to the Bulls they lost to the Grizzlies they basically let go of the rope and it

Does a ton of damage to them in the standings well they kind of circle the wagons and they get their feet back underneath them and they’re 10 and six in their last 16 games with some impressive wins they beat the Clippers they beat the Thunder they beat the

Celtics they beat the Knicks they beat the Mavs they beat the Warriors so I think more or less I’m kind of exactly where I was with this team before the season which is they’re really damn good but they’re not as good as Denver they’re not as good as Boston and so I

Think I think I think the Silver Lining and the reason why I would invest in this group is you and I talked about how LeBron and AD in a lot of ways needed to get better especially on the offensive end for them to be able to hang with

Denver a LeBron James jump shot last year was worth 0.9 points a LeBron James jump shot this year is worth 1.06 points that’s an 18% Improvement you’ve seen that when you watch the games he’s he’s executing the Golden State Warriors with pullup jump shots at the end of games he

Just was completely incapable of doing that last year he had a bizarre shooting slump in last year season and then Anthony Davis is having the best postup season of his career he’s reading double teams better than ever and so to me he’s been so good and so to me like uh you

Mentioned that core three Austin LeBron and AD the biggest question mark for the Lakers is the two guys in between D’Angelo Russell brings a lot of offensive Firepower to the table but you can’t play him next Austin Reeves against good teams you’re not athletic enough in the back Court torian Prince

Has been Darin Ham’s favorite player all season long he is a bench player here’s a crazy stat for you he has started twice as many games this year as he did in the previous three seasons combined so he’s miscast as a starter on this particular team although they just

Recently moved him to the bench your opinion there that bench length they have all these guys like ruy Aura and Jared vanderbel are really good but they can’t really play on the perimeter on both end the floor the way they need and so bringing in someone like a Deon

Murray another guy that they wanted last summer that they didn’t get who I know they’re looking for again this year is like a Bruce brown or even like a smaller move on the margins with a team like Brooklyn for something like Royce O’Neal and Dorian finy Smith getting

Quality NBA starters at the two and three will give them their best punchers chance but at the end of the day Colin like is Denver just better than everybody because that I think is what’s causing a lot of the reticence here is whether or not they can even beat them

So a couple of nights ago out and Lawrence Frank is sitting next to me and we just chop it up for an hour and I said man was I wrong on that deal I said I hated it I’m like oh y what are you gonna do with Westbrook he went to

The bench where he’s playing about 23 minutes a night and doing really good things in that 23 minutes last night he had a couple of beautiful passes against the Hawks um uh Kawai and Pao was tremendous two-way wings uh they’ve got size plumbley you know they’ got some

Size but I said I I said you’re a beautiful team to watch the the ball movement they don’t have a single player in the top 35 in ball usage and you can see it I think they’re the most beautiful basketball right now in the league to watch Jason the Clippers ball

Movement they get a great shot three out of four times down the floor they get beautiful shots they have surging offense with with with uh like a coffee and a Westbrook off the bench size experienced wings veteran point guard experienced head coach and I’m sitting there watching him I know it’s the Hawks

And I and I know the Celtics probably no I’ll just give I’ll give them to win over the Celtics that’s a cred credible win and I’m watching those two games and I’m like this offense you can score your way to a title there’s there’s no Tim

Duncan in this league now like you can score your way to a title joic is not a great defender Milwaukee’s not a great defensive team I think we have to take the Clippers seriously I think they’re a machine offensively Westbrook deserves credit and Harden Lawrence Frank said right now in his

Career all about winning most coachable guy so you’re Takeaway on what you’re watching with him I think with James Harden we overestimated I think going into that deal how much like his playoff shortcomings really play a role in the regular season which is they don’t like

James Harden is still even last year in Philly one of the best regular season offensive engines that you can have in the league that specifically is of Great Value next to Paul George and Kawhi Leonard because they are both very much tip of the spear type of scorers if you

Can get them into Advantage situations they can kill people Paul George has been playing with like a Defender closing out at him most of the season this year and he’s so damn good when you give him that type of Advantage right and just in general their overall floor

Organization with James Harden has just made offense so much easier for them which was interesting because early on they struggled offensiv L with James Harden that took a little bit of time for them to figure out now the offense is clicking in addition to the defense and now they’re beating everybody the

Other part of it too is when when when we really look at uh uh the Clippers as a regular season team they’ve been more on like the Lakers side in years past where they’re kind of just getting through the regular season and one of the things that NBA history has told us

Is Denver Nuggets one seed Warriors before Steph Curry sprained his foot right there with the Suns at the top of the West the Bucks one seed the Lakers one seed the Raptors a two seed like the team that is a veteran team that has talent that attacks the regular season

With like a real ferocity usually wins the title and so the Clippers I think just from the top down have approached the season with a lot more urgency this year and I think that that’s a big step in the right direction for them now I want to be clear there’s some question

Marks around in this team they’re 23rd in defensive rebounding that’s usually a a big red flag for the playoffs they also attempt 26 pull-up jump shots per game which is the second most in the league and right now they’re making them at a really high rate but we’ve seen

What happens when I mean when they lost to Denver in the bubble that’s what happened their pull-up jump shots went cold and they didn’t really have another punch at that point but to be clear all these teams have holes Boston has offensive issues Milwaukee has defensive issues so it’s not like the Clippers

Issues are you know the only team in the league that has that type of red flag but I the the way I look at it it’s it’s one last thing on the James Harden front that I think we didn’t properly account for in Philly he was getting the best

Perimeter Defender every night tyres Maxi was viewed as the secondary option they’re throwing the forwards at Joel embiid he’s getting the best guy on the other team at guarding a perimeter initiator who you throwing your best guy at for a perimeter weapon with the Clippers you’re probably throwing it at

Kawhai who you throwing your second best guy at uh you’re probably throwing it at Paul George James Harden is getting quality matchups every single night I think just in general there’s lower pressure on him in this post season there’s if you actually look back last season they were below 500 in the

Regular season and in the playoffs when James Harden shot below 40% they did not have that margin for error in Philly for James to have a bad night with the Clippers this year they’re well above 500 when James Harden shoots below 40% there’s margin for error James can go

Off the reservation and they just keep trucking right along and I think I think they just kind of increased their margin for error they improved their regular season offensive organization but once again it will come down to Kawaii and Paul George knocking down pull-up jump shots when they get into the

Postseason yeah and then Westbrook comes off the bench where he’s often the best guard on the floor you know when he comes in at the eight minute Mark he’s only playing like 23 minutes a night but he’s first of all he’s always been an energy guy I’m never worried about that

But I think he really he deserves credit he just said listen Carmelo really struggled to adapt to his role Off the Bench for like 3 years Westbrook’s like I’ll do it and it’s I mean when Terren manager fourth best starter in the starting five you’re like that’s a

That’s a good team like I and I think you you it’s a really brilliant point they’re a little bit of a matchup issue so um because Kawai and Paul George are very similar um I think Paul’s the most underrated player in the league like he gets this whole playoff p and then you

Go look at his playoff numbers they’re not bad at all they’re not bad at all so I think he’s a really underrated player and he in choir very similar players so you have to pick your Poison

Colin Cowherd & ‘Hoops Tonight’ Jason Timpf discuss whether the Los Angeles Lakers need to make a move to catapult themselves into the conversation as an NBA Finals contender. Colin also outlines who he thinks the Lakers need to target. Then, Colin & Jason move onto the Los Angeles Clippers and whether the Denver Nuggets have another team to worry about.

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