Why Lakers SHOULD NOT trade for Mavericks forward PJ Washington to pair w/ LeBron & Luka

Why Lakers SHOULD NOT trade for Mavericks forward PJ Washington to pair w/ LeBron & Luka

What’s up, guys? Thanks as always for supporting the show. It would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any more of our videos. Also, make sure you follow us all over social media so you don’t miss any of our content or show announcements. PJ Washington is due for an extension and the Lakers need a two-way forward. PJ has already has chemistry with Luca and could fit that 20-year-old starter you mentioned. Would you move Gabe Dalton or a pick or Gabe Dalton in a pick for him? No, I would not. I think PJ Washington is a power forward. I think the Lakers need a smaller and more athletic player at the two or three. I think like there’s a lot of like big picture conversations the Lakers need to have in terms of like what type of player they want at at certain position groups. So like if LeBron is your power forward now and he’s going to play two more seasons, you need a big picture power forward plan. But I don’t think PJ Washington fits like that big picture power forward plan, you know, multiple years into the future. You know, maybe Ruby Hatchima is that, but you know, obviously you could potentially look to move him in the short term. I don’t see PJ Washington as a guy that is like a demonstrable upgrade in the short term or in the long term. So, I wouldn’t like like to me I’d be looking for more of like a uh like we’ve been talking about Aaron Nmith, we’ve been talking about, you know, Andrew Wiggins. Andrew Wiggins obviously is a little too old, but a player that fits more of that 23, a better athlete who can guard on the perimeter better, and that power forward position, I think, is a little bit more easy to replace, if that makes sense. So, I don’t think PJ Washington makes sense as the kind of guy the Lakers should be going after. I’ve seen you say over and over, the Lakers need to upgrade their athleticism. Does the last three signings help with that? Also, do you think it would help the Lakers defense if Vano played more at the point of attack and picked up ball handlers fullourt instead of being used to rebound because we had so much trouble? No. I don’t think any of these moves marketkedly improve their athleticism. It’s a mild upgrade. Like, if both DeAndre Eaton and Marcus Smart are healthy, they’re certainly more athletic, but they are they’re like, they’re still in the bottom tier of NBA teams in terms of overall athleticism. I will say it’s more complicated than that because the Lakers are definitely a better version of what they were, which is a slow down power basketball team. But they just don’t add they have not added athletic versatility. Athletic versatility is what gives you better chance of surviving four rounds against four very different types of teams. This doesn’t mean they can’t win. They certainly can win, but they’re more vulnerable now to certain types of teams, and that makes it harder for them to win four rounds. Like, for instance, one of the teams that I’ve talked about um ever since they matched up in the regular season at the end of last year, I think the Warriors are match up really well with the Lakers in a like advantage Warriors. They’re just so much faster, right? Like that’s a team where if the Lakers got marketkedly more athletic, I think the Lakers would match up better with a Golden State. But as currently constructed, I think they would have some issues with Golden State. potentially a lot of issues pulling slow perimeter athletes and DeAndre Eaton who can really struggle in complicated coverages out to the perimeter and then having a bunch of iffy defenders on the backline rotating around like it could get really scary in that particular type of matchup, right? But who knows, maybe you avoid Golden State, maybe you catch, you know, teams that you match up better against along the way and it doesn’t end up being an issue. But chances are if you play four rounds, you’re going to end up running into a team that can attack your weakness. And right now, the Lakers still have a pretty substantial weakness in terms of that athleticism. And that, by the way, kind of going back to the PJ Washington piece, I don’t think PJ Washington’s a decent athlete, but I don’t view him as like a floor changing athlete for this Lakers team the way that like an Andrew Wiggins would be, for example, or an Aaron Nmith, right? So, like I that that’s a big part of why I don’t think PJ Washington’s the type of guy for them to put real asset um uh put real assets on the table for. Next question. What improvements can Oklahoma City make individually or as a team to convince you and others that they can be the team to break the curse, this postwarriors curse, and win back-to-back championships? It’s all about internal improvement. their margins will shrink over the course of the next few years as it gets more and more expensive to retain everybody. Everyone just got their big deal this last off season, right? But because of the timeline of when they kick in, they won’t actually reap some of the negative effects of that in their payroll for a couple of years. But that will eventually happen. And when it does and they have less depth and they have less surrounding talent, all of a sudden the work of guys like Chad Homegrren and JDub and Shay Gilders Alexander will become that much more important, right? It was more of like a young flawed group showing a lot of ups and downs. Like even with Shay, we saw Shay play some really bad postseason games this year. We saw Chad face some extremely low lows. JDub early in the Denver series, some really low lows. They were able to get away with that because they had such insane supporting talent which is going to fade over the course of the next couple of years and those cons inconsistencies will become a problem. Right? So internal improvement is their pathway. Now that’s more of like a big picture thing. This next season Oklahoma City is more or less running it back. But even within that context, the rest of the league got better. Maybe not in the uh Eastern Conference, but certainly in the Western Conference, right? Houston demonstrabably better. Denver demonstrabably demonstrabably better. The Clippers and Lakers obviously a lot of variance there regarding injuries and some older players playing up to some of their younger capability. But both the LA teams are potentially better than they were last year. Anthony Edwards, if he continues to improve, potentially better, right? the Warriors with Horford and uh if they bring back DeAnthony Melton and if they make a trade at some point, they could be potentially better. So, the West is better. Therefore, OKC’s margin for error shrinks, right? Even with bringing back the roster. So, what needs to happen in order for Oklahoma City to make that curse that no one can repeat, no one can even make the finals twice in a row curse go away. For Cadet, I think it’s his offensive polish. I thought he was awesome on defense throughout the majority of the playoff run. Not really a whole lot you can get into on that end of the floor with it. But consistent uh catch and shoot jump shooting. Some of his decision- making, some of the ways he was forcing the issue against guys particularly like Miles Turner when he would try to go one-on-one against him and kind of like go away from the flow of the offense. Some of the turnovers and just fumbling of the ball in the middle of the floor like just becoming a more reliable higher floor offensive player I think will be big for Chad Homegrren. JDub and his consistency. Obviously, he was great for large chunks of uh the playoff run, but he had his moments. He had his moments specifically in the Denver series where he really really struggled. And that inconsistency against a tougher matchup, like let’s just put it this way. Let’s say they face Denver again and the exact same situation happens, but you have a better Denver team. If JDub plays that poorly for chunks of that series, you lose to Denver, right? So JDub’s consistency on the offensive end is going to be big. Shay’s decision-making. We saw massive swings in the way Oklahoma City’s offense operated in the finals based on Shay and just his willingness to take what the defense is giving him early in games and how he can establish rhythm and flow within his offense. him being consistent in that regard. Him learning the lesson, him replicating the successes and cutting the failures. That’s going to be how Sheay becomes a more consistent force. And those three things happening are going to be the key to them actually being able to repeat in a much better Western Conference. Smaller things, too, like spot-up shooting, reliable spot-up shooting from guys like Quesan Wallace and Lou Dort. There’s a bunch of different things we can get into, but for the most part, it’s going to be the improvement of their stars.

Jason answers a question on whether the Los Angeles Lakers should trade for Dallas Mavericks forward PJ Washington to upgrade their talent around LeBron James and Luka Doncic.

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