Stephen A. isn’t sold on the Lakers to the NBA Finals 👀 | First Take
On First Take, Stephen A. Smith and Brian Windhorst weigh in on Luka Doncic and the Los Angeles Lakers’ recent performance, react to Draymond Green’s comments on Victor Wembanyama’s MVP case and debate whether NBA Commissioner Adam Silver can stop tanking in the NBA.
0:00 Is Luka playing well enough to lead the Lakers to the Finals?
3:30 Stephen A. on the Lakers’ NBA Finals hopes
8:50 Does Draymond Green have a point about Wemby?
17:50 Believe Adam Silver can stop tanking?
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28 Comments
These 3 are such whiners. OMG
This was definitely more of a shot at the media more than anything. Most of the coverage is offence bias. But I do think the award has been given to great defensive players, they just also happened to have really strong offensive numbers too. But the coverage of this year's MVP race has largely from what I seen been about Shai's scoring, and people making arguments for Luka over Wemby have been about Luka's offence. Stephen A even openly admitted that his stance on MVP changed after Wemby's comments. Further proving Draymond's point.
Lakers aren't beating OKC, Spurs, Nuggets, or Timberwolves in a 7 game series!!
Curry was the first unanimous mvp and was abysmal on defense.
Y’all are tripping. Giannis literally won DPOY and MVP. Defense has always mattered
It should be an offensive player of the year award and a defensive player of the year award. And MVP player of the year that shows who is most valuable to their team
I never won an MVP
Sincerely Dennis Rodman
Shut up
Here's my solution to the tanking issues…two sets of NBA Playoffs. One is the one that we have now, where the NBA Champion is crowned. The other is the NBA Draft Playoffs. Every team that doesn't make the playoffs plays a bracket style playoffs where the winner of these playoffs wins the #1 pick. Teams with worse records get byes. Currently, there's 14 teams that don't make the playoffs. The worst 2 teams record-wise get byes into the 2nd round, first round matchups are based on record with teams with the best records forced to play each other and have more difficult matchups to win the #1 pick. Do a best of 5 or 7 series so winners truly earn the top picks. Where you lose determines your draft pick. Lose in the Draft Finals? #2 pick. Loser of semis gets #3 and #4, etc. Yes, this will not help the teams at the bottom of the standings as much, but it will eliminate tanking because losing in the first round of the Draft Playoffs puts your pick in the teens. What it will do is take teams that are in the purgatory between really bad and non playoff teams and give them a key piece that will push them into better playoff contention. Rebuilding teams now have to get better incrementally (win a little more each season and go deeper in the Draft Playoffs to get better picks) or start being more aggressive in free agency and be willing to pay for guys in free agency…yes, small market teams will whine about this, but those small market teams have to quit crying about being a small market. It's not going to change, so quit crying and do a better job at finding talent you can sign.
Here's how it would look:
First Round – 1 & 2 seeds – First Round Bye, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6, 7 vs 8, 9 vs 10, 11 vs 12, 13 vs 14
Second Round – 1 seed vs winner of 3 vs 4, 2 seed vs winner of 5 vs 6, winner of 7 vs 8 vs winner of 9 vs 10, winner of 11 vs 12 vs winner of 13 vs 14
Semi-Finals – winner of 1 v 3/4 vs winner of 2 v 5/6, winner of 7/8 v 9/10 vs winner of 11/12 v 13/14
Finals – Winner of each half listed above
mhmmmm the Los Angeles Lakers needs some Shaqalicious Xl Gummies real talk he he he ha…
So which is it is Luka the only player that did it or did MJ does it as well 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
They really hate Luka. Absolutely insane.
Steph curry
No They’d be lucky to get out the first round. At least they won’t be in the play in tournament. The Lakers bench is problematic and Reddick doesn’t like to go deep into the bench, thus the starters are overworked. Secondly the defense while a bit better over the course of the season, playing lots of disguised zone defenses, it’s a huge weakness. You must have the defense anchor the team. Can I trust the defense…no !
Lakers will lose in the playoffs then everybody will say, they missing pieces they werent supposed to make it
Steph, Shai, Harden didnt play no defense, and now its an issue with Luka?! Stop with the BS and give the man the MVP.
JORDAN PLAYED DEFENSE AND WAS AWARDED 6 🏆 CHAMPIONSHIP…. LUKA DOSENT PLAY DEFENSE AND HAVE 0 CHAMPIONSHIPS…..AND NEVER WILL… AND I'M A LAKERS FAN
Everything that everyone on this clip said was correct today from Wembanyama to my three guys talking to the lady everybody was spot on. I felt exactly how Draymond Green felt and I think that Wembanyama feels that his numbers are right there with SGA, but he is so much better defensively that he thinks he should be the runaway for the MVP this season but then if we are gonna talk about history, I could have sworn that for a very long time in the NBA the best player on the best team wins the MVP and I am sorry but rightfully so that’s what I think should be. That means the regular season means something and it should. You don’t think these teams that play the best team in the league have more butterflies in their stomach when they play the best team? Of course they do. There is definitely a reason for the regular season. I am not saying that the best team wins every single year and we know that’s not the case but it definitely gives you an edge in the mentality part of when they go up against each other. These other teams know what’s about to happen.
i saw a comment the other day that perfectly explains why wembys point ab defense is important. if you are in mvp conversations but also the clear frontrunner in dpoy you should almost automatically get the mvp
How do you win DPOY but only make 2nd Team All Defense??
Are nba players getting more injured from not playing enough.
The league needs a secondary league, when you have a second division as in europe, when the teams make his rebuild on the second division and the first, second and third place from that division, goes up to the main division for the next year and those teams get the first, second and third draft pics respectively, then no team on the first division will want to tank, and the second division will be to rebuild. Beside, you can take the six worst team from the NBA and expand with 6 new teams and you have your second division with 12 teams. Just an a idea.
To fix tanking:
The top team to miss the playoffs/playin, gets the #1 pick. This pushes teams to actually play seriously and to push the team to do better in the offseason as well. A team that’s always at the bottom (like Washington) this hurts you for continuously being bad and not trying to do better.
They should have DPOY , OPOY and MVP this way you can have burger Luka and FTA getting OPOY and Victor Goatbanyama MVP becouse he adds way more value to his team on both ends of the floor like one wise man said Defence wins championships
And Windy STF*!!!! You clown media members gave KOBE… KOBE BRYANT… ONE SINGULAR MVP when hes the most skilled player to ever play the game AND was locking up opposing teams best guards GTFOHHHHHH!!! How many all team defenses did he have while being unstoppable on offense again? Oh ok. YALL FLIP FLOP AND THATS WHY MEDIA NEEDS TO BE STRIPPED OF MVP VOTING!!!! fohhhhh
The lakers just lost for the first time in a month too…
I like the idea of making the lottery odds even and including the play in teams.
ONE LAST THING… NBA…. Why cant shooters be contacted and have their shooting space protected but a player going for a dunk or layup CAN be contacted and their landing space isnt protected? How a you protecting a jump shot but not a layup or dunk? NBA… HIRE ME!