LACE EM UP Sports
Let's Go Lakers Podcast Ep. 1
What's happening everybody, it's Mike from LASEMUP. I just want to talk about the documentary series that's being brought to you by LASEMUP sports. It's called "Are the Clippers Cursed?" It's a docuseries that highlights the Los Angeles Clippers history. It goes in depth about the trials and tribulations of Donald Sterling, the sale of the Clippers to see Balmer, and much much more. Episodes 1 and 2 are available now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, and all streaming platforms. Episode 3 will drop on all platforms on October 10. Are the Clippers Cursed available now? Four seconds, three, two, one. The Lakers are the champions. I think that the middle is just what I thought. I hope you got a drum. Good! Two seconds left, the Lakers take the lead. Can't move to good. Can't move to good. Final seconds, flying for the win. Did it be happier about the job's not finished? Job's finished? No, I don't think so. The Disrupt Rondo, he puts it in. Here's Davis, four, three, and the win. Oh, it's gone! Anthony Davis has wanted for the Lakers. Organization, want their respect. Laker Nation, want their respect. And I want my damn respect too. Ah, how's it going everybody? This is Mike Andrade, and welcome to the inaugural. Let's go Lakers Podcast. This is a podcast that has been near and dear to my heart to start. Ever since I've started doing the lace-up podcast way back in 2017, basketball has always been my favorite sports since I was a little kid. I've always been a passionate Lakers fan growing up. And so putting together this podcast specifically for the Los Angeles Lakers has been a dream of mine. So if you guys have been following the page over the last few months, you know, we've gone through a lot of different changes. We started implementing a pro wrestling podcast with my good friend Ryan. I started putting together a lot of stuff on YouTube, a Rams report, stuff on the Dodgers. Currently, we're in production to continue the Clippers Curse documentary. Episodes 1 and 2 are available now on YouTube if you haven't checked it out. The Los Angeles Lakers are near and dear to my heart. Like I said, they have been my favorite team since I've been a little kid and I'm really excited to start this journey with you guys. So what do we want to talk about? To quote the great Cody Rhodes. It's been the off season. Well, not a lot of changes with this team. The biggest change this off season was the hiring again of a new head coach. I believe the seventh head coach in about a decade plus, which is really a spot where you don't want to be as an NBA franchise. You know, going through the carousel circle of hiring coaches is not a good look on any team. So when you take in consideration that this is the seventh head coach in about 10 years plus, it's not a good look on the Lakers, not whatsoever. And one thing I want to hammer down on this first episode is the expectations and reality for Lakers fans. So let's dive into it. After a long round about of rumors of who was going to be the next Lakers head coach after the Lakers relieved Darven Ham of his duties back in May, people were already putting the rumor in the window that JJ Redick was going to be the next Los Angeles Lakers head coach. JJ Redick former players for about 12, 13 years, ESPN analyst was doing the NBA finals at that point. Most notably was doing a podcast with LeBron James. And because of his association with LeBron James, people were already putting JJ as the front runner to get the job. Now, the one thing that the Lakers definitely did right was that they took their time finding their next head coach. Even though the rumors were out there that JJ was going to be the coach, the Lakers definitely took their time and trying to find who was going to be the right person for this job. And it wasn't necessarily a decision based off of pleasing LeBron James, or was a decision based off of, oh, well, this guy is a former Laker, or he has ties to the team. Because in the past, that's been the way they would go. They would try to follow in the Laker tradition. Was he a Laker through and through? And for the most part, that style, that logic of thinking is really outdated. That is not the way you're going to win in the current NBA. If you're thinking that, oh, well, this guy has to be tied to the Lakers somehow, then that's already a step in the wrong direction. And the one thing that I applaud Jeannie Bus, Rob Palenka, and the rest of the Lakers organization for doing was stepping out of the box for this decision. Back in June, whoosh from ESPN laid out one of his signature whoosh bombs was that the Lakers were interested in Dan Hurley, coach of the national champion, Yukon Huskies. This would definitely be a great get for the Lakers if they could entice Dan Hurley to step away from his job as the head coach of the Yukon Huskies and step on over to the NBA and coach to Los Angeles Lakers. Now, even Hurley admitted this would have been a dream for him to do. Just being considered for the Lakers job was a dream come true to him. And of course, he thought about it. So the Lakers gave him about a week to think about things. Now, the one thing that kind of just bugs me about the way things are reported nowadays, when things are reported, people genuinely don't take it as just reporting. They take it almost as well, it's going to happen, or as if it's already fact. And I don't blame them with these type of things because it's kind of presented it in the way that, oh, yeah, I mean, why wouldn't Dan Hurley take the Lakers job? It's the Lakers. But they don't realize the type of decision that Dan Hurley has to make here. Dan Hurley, a committed father, committed husband, has up and root his family from Connecticut to Los Angeles. That's not an easy decision. The man has built a foundation, a culture with all of his players at Yukon. Players were committed to Yukon on the basis of Dan Hurley being the head coach. So for Dan Hurley just to say, oh yeah, I'm going to take the Lakers job. You can't just outright do that. His decision affects a lot of different people. But the Hurley family, they flew out to Los Angeles and the Lakers made them pretty nice offer. So Wu's reported that the Lakers offered Hurley about $70 million for six years, which Lakers haven't offered that kind of money for head coach since Phil Jackson. Hurley then stewed on the decision for a little bit, but ultimately decided that leaving Connecticut was just too hard and decided to go back and coach the Huskies. Which you know what, that's really respectable. For you, our committed to your team over there, committed to your boys, committed to your family, keeping them in the exact same spot that they are, then that's really respectable. And nobody should think badly of Dan Hurley for doing what's right for himself and his family. Hurley did say though that there was a magic number that would have enticed them even more to join the Lakers. Probably in the $100 million range, which yeah, that wasn't happening. No, not whatsoever. But he could dream. But a lot of Laker fans were left dejected knowing that Hurley decided to not take the Lakers job. And of course they thought negatively of Jeannie Bus and Rob Palenka for not doing what it takes to get the coach that they wanted. And you could say, yeah, maybe it's a bad look. But ultimately it was Hurley's decision and he did what was best for him. And even though Hurley decided not to be of the Lakers head coach, I really respect Rob Palenka and Jeannie Bus' decision for going after a coach that really believed in setting a culture with the team. And that's something that they needed in their next head coach, somebody that was going to set a culture and someone that was going to be around for the long term. Like I had mentioned earlier, the Lakers were used to firing coaches within two or three years. And that's something that should never be happening with LA Lakers. The Lakers are prestigious. The Lakers are a team that players, coaches, they should be sticking around for years. And they're most definitely, even though LeBron James and Anthony Davis, we won a title in 2020, there was no culture with any of these coaches. And that's something that's predicated mostly throughout the NBA nowadays. Besides Miami, besides San Antonio, can you think of a team that has a culture? Really? I mean, Golden State maybe? I'm not quite sure. Boston, perhaps. But NBA franchises don't have cultures anymore. You can't look at it at a place and say, "Yeah, this is what they believe in. This is their tone. This is how they play basketball and it's unique." And that's something that's definitely lost in today's NBA. But the Lakers struck out on Dan Hurley, okay. Well, back to the drawing board. And they ended up hiring as people guessed JJ Redick. Now you can ask yourself, is JJ Redick really the top guy for this job? Well, that's yet to be answered. JJ Redick, as you guys know, has zero experience coaching basketball. Yeah, he coached his fourth grade kids basketball league, but that's something that's just completely way different. Yes, he was a player for about 12 or 13 years. And the guy does definitely know basketball at the highest form, but has zero experience coaching. We have yet to see JJ Redick as a coach and how he's going to be able to make in-game decisions, how he's going to be able to relate to players, and how he's going to manage being a coach. Because it is much different being a player than it is to be a coach. The same thing applies in the everyday workforce. It's much different being a regular employee. And then when you get promoted and you're being a supervisor or you're being a boss, it's much different. You can't socialize the way you used to socializing. You can't have conversations the way you used to have in conversations. Now you have to make different decisions. Now you have to have uncomfortable conversations. Do I believe that JJ Redick is competent and can do the job? Absolutely, but we haven't seen it yet. And that's just something that we're going to have to see throughout the course of the seats. But like I said, I have a lot of confidence in JJ Redick and his ability. The one thing that I do also applaud the Lakers for is going with somebody that doesn't necessarily fit the Lakers box, but is young enough to build that culture in which they are looking for with Dan Hurley. I'm not saying that it's going to happen, but it's certainly possible. JJ Redick comes off as a guy that wants to build culture and wants to build a structure with a team. Last week, Rob Palinka and JJ Redick had a press conference in which JJ Redick said the coaching staff that he selected, they're all basketball sickos. And if you wanted to have some fun, you should come watch these guys coach basketball at practice. So that's really encouraging to hear that these guys are relentless about basketball and they're willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. But now all we have to do is just wait and see how JJ Redick is actually going to put those things into use during the games. Because one thing that Darvan Ham really struggled with last year was making correct in-game decisions and really having good rapport with his players. JJ Redick talked about giving the ball to Anthony Davis in which last year we saw a lot of different times throughout the course of games where Anthony Davis wouldn't have the ball for about six, seven, eight possessions in a row. And you would think, my god, this guy is going off right now because Anthony Davis had one of the best seasons of his career last year in terms of defense and offense. But there'd be times where Anthony Davis on offense wouldn't be able to touch the ball at all. And you're sitting here scratching your head thinking, why doesn't Anthony Davis have the ball? The guy is a walking bucket. Just get him the ball. Whether it's off a screen or in the post or some kind of play where he's able to have the ball, Anthony Davis needs to have the ball. So JJ Redick talked about it in terms of we're going to see Anthony Davis having the ball on almost every possession. JJ Redick also talked about DeAngelo Russell and how Russell's going to be able to fit with the team. Redick talked about he's excited to see Russell's progression, the leadership that he's been embarking on during the summer with workouts with the guys and this that and the other. The way JJ Redick is talking about implementing these different guys like Anthony Davis, DeAngelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachamora is really promising. Last year we really didn't get a sense of any of that during the season. During the early season, Darvin Hamm was playing Torian Prince way too much and teaming with the starting lineup way too much. JJ Redick already answered that he's going to be starting the lineup that went 28 and 13 last year towards the end of the season. Basically the team that went to the Western Conference Finals two seasons ago. It's already promising to hear that JJ Redick already has a plan because far too often last year the Lakers did not have a plan and it cost us a lot of different games that we could have won. All different promising stuff with JJ Redick but at the end of the day we're just going to have to see how it all plays out during the course of the season and I hope that there is a little bit of grace for some mistakes with JJ. You know far too often people are already crying for the team to fire a coach after after a few games. Guys please let's just have a little bit and I'm just asking for a little bit of grace for JJ. Let's not call for his head after the first loss okay. Let's give the guy a little bit of time to get adjusted. Now I want to get into expectations and reality with the Los Angeles Lakers. As everyone knows the LA Lakers stands and I'm including myself in this. We get way too excited and this is the medius fault too because they kind of link everybody to the LA Lakers at some point or another but we get way too excited when a players name comes out and then we automatically attach them to oh well he's gonna be a Laker one day and then when a player is available we automatically think that the team is automatically gonna get them and at some points through history that has work right. We have traded for guys like Kramer Abdul Jabbar, Shaq, Paul Gasol. We've signed guys like LeBron James, Dwight Howard, drafting Magic Johnson. Basically maybe though we traded for Kobe we basically drafted Kobe so I could see why fans would automatically think that when a star is available that the team would be attached to him but in this current NBA things have changed and for the Lakers it hasn't been in our favor. No longer can we just say hey we're gonna go after this player because this player is available. It doesn't work like that. We can't just trade away players in order to get another player in return and think that that's gonna be enough to work. With the new collective bargaining agreement that was signed two years ago it has made it even more difficult for teams like the Lakers to build upon our roster. There's things in the CBA specifically put for teams like the Lakers that make it almost impossible for us to improve. So if you're unfamiliar with how things work currently in the current CBA let's break it down for you and truth be told a lot of this stuff is very very confusing. I'm still learning it as it goes and I'm just trying to do my homework on it to explain to you guys and so we're all on the same page about this. So I don't think I'm some salary cap or CBA expert because I'm not. But let's go into it. Okay so there's a couple things actually a few things that we're gonna have to discuss here. One being the salary cap another being luxury tax the third being first apron and the last thing being second apron. We'll go through all those different things first let's talk about the salary cap. So the salary cap as you guys know is a set amount of money designed to limit what teams can spend on a payroll. The number is determined for each season based on a percentage of projected basketball related income for the upcoming year. So in 2024-25 the salary cap will be at about 148.5 million which is a whole lot of change. So under the salary cap the NBA is under a soft cap which basically means there is a cap to which teams can spend but teams are able to go over that amount but they're going to be punished severely in taxes if they go over and that's where a luxury tax comes in. So if a team's payroll exceeds a certain threshold greater than the salary cap then that team must pay a tax. So for this season teams will start paying a dollar fifty to the league for every dollar that they go over the threshold. So think about a dollar fifty for every dollar that they go over the amount yeah a whole lot of money and that rate will only increase the more that they go over. Additionally the league imposes a repeat offender tax penalty which is a dollar for dollar tax over the payroll threshold. So for example the Golden State Warriors paid 176.9 million dollars in luxury tax last season followed by the Clippers who paid 142.5 million dollars in taxes to the league last season an astronomical amount of money to pay in taxes but teams like that are okay doing it because why they have a rich-ass owner that can foot the bill for these kinds of things. Alright so with that said let's talk about the NBA's first apron threshold. The threshold for teams under the first apron will be at about a hundred and seventy-eight million dollars roughly over. That's where majority of teams lie right now. There's a couple teams that needed to go to meet the requirements to get up and over the salary cap but most of the teams in the NBA lie around here. Where do the Lakers lie in this? Well it's funny because the Lakers lie in this actually a fraction just under where the second apron threshold meets. So the Lakers total apron right now is about a hundred and eighty-eight eight hundred and eighty-five million dollars. The number to get you to the second apron is a hundred and eighty eight nine hundred and thirty one million dollars. So they're right there just right there right at the cusp which is why the Lakers didn't really do any moves this soft season because teams in the second threshold are severely punished in taxes i.e. the Clippers, i.e. the Warriors, the Celtics are right there they're in the second threshold the Bucks are right there in the second threshold these teams are paying a lot a lot of money millions of dollars in taxes but it's like what i said before the teams are able to do it because their owners can't afford it and they're happily going to do it as long as their teams are competing for a championship. Jeannie Bus the Lakers do not want to be in this category for reasons why we'll get to that later but the Lakers are still in the first threshold for aprons and because of this the Lakers are still very limited on what they can do in the off season. Basically all of this is just to give teams that are meeting the salary cap to stay there and not go over and teams that do go over you will be very limited on your resources that you can use such as sending out cash what kind of draft picks you can send out in a trade players that you can sign using your mid-level exception the stat and the other. The Lakers were very handicapped this off season. Last season we re-upped with the Angela Russell we re-upped with Rhea Chomora Austin Reeves and those contracts even though they're beneficial for us because those are three really talented players those set us back with flexibility going forward because we knew that we were going to offer LeBron James X amount of money even though he took a salary cut the Lakers were prepared to offer him X amount of money and also having Anthony Davis under the contract that he's under the Lakers are still very limited. All of these different things were put in place for the NBA to give every team a better chance of being competitive but not allow teams to almost run a monopoly of the NBA. For years and years and years David Stern and even into Adam Silver they wanted all the NBA's to be more competitive and for that to be league wide more parity way back in the day who were in the NBA finals it was the Lakers it was the Celtics you had the Bulls spurs 76ers there was a set amount of teams that were in the NBA finals but never would you see the Sacramento Kings the Charlotte Hornets the Memphis Grizzlies all these mid-tier market teams that one struggled to get a fan base going but you would never see them actually be competitive and actually have a chance to make it to the finals now under all these rules you have a situation where a team like the Oklahoma City Thunder the Kings the Atlanta Hawks all these different teams even though they may not be competitive right now all these different teams can be in the conversation for getting the assets that they need to be competitive no longer are the days where the Lakers can just rely on solely being the Lakers and just utilizing their name to get free ages to come or to believe they're way into a trade i.e. the pogis all trade to bring superstars over it doesn't work like that anymore now as Lakers fan I would love for that to happen I would love for these players to die to be Lakers I would love for the team just to say hey look we're gonna call player X and he's gonna sign because we're the Lakers but unfortunately it doesn't work like that anymore it's live and adapt with the times and as a Lakers fan we have to expect going forward that the team can't operate the same way that they used to be able to operate and lastly here's one thing that I feel like a lot of people don't recognize loyalty in the NBA does not exist anymore it really doesn't now let's have any conversation with my brother the other day and he goes man I wish like guys would just like die to be a Laker you know and I wish that these guys would just see the purple and gold and see it for what it is and want to be a Laker but the truth of the matter is that one these guys yeah maybe they respected Kobe and they watched Kobe growing up but then we'll see it the way we look at it once you become a professional athlete all that goes out the window all they care about is where can they get the most money where can they be a star on their team and work in their town speed utilized the most it's all about the money and the opportunity for these guys at the end of the day you could say yes they had a favorite team growing up as a kid just like we all did then do but when you're put in the position of signing a multi-million dollar contract your loyalty goes out the window all you care about is how can I provide for my family for generations to come and if the Orlando Magic is going to offer you a 200 million dollar contract you're going to go sign with the Orlando Magic despite being a Laker fan your entire life that's just common sense and once they are on a team let's say player X does sign with the Orlando Magic their loyalty still doesn't really lie with the Orlando Magic because of the way the business is now a team can just trade you at any point even if you're a superstar look at Carl Anthony Townes Carl Anthony Townes was drafted by the Timberwolves was a star for that team had made the Timberwolves relevant for the for the most part but because the business they just traded him way to the to the next because they don't want to offer him the contract that he was going to deserve it's all business and the players are recognizing that they can do business for themselves too they're going to sign with one team and yeah they may fulfill that contract if they don't get traded if they do fulfill that contract they're going to go explore free agency just because they were with a team for four three four five years doesn't necessarily mean that they're loyal to that team to resign they're going to go and find the best deal for them wherever that deal may be now obviously their families and where they're at does matter markets do matter still LA is a big market New York is a big market Chicago is a big market but at the end of the day these guys aren't going to say oh well it has to be New York and LA and Chicago no they're going to do what's best for themselves they're going to look at the situation where can I get the money and if that situation is somewhere where they can get money and they can be utilized in the best way it really doesn't matter if that team is on the brink of competing or not it's just a matter of when do I get my paycheck and how fast does the money come and it's a sad world that we live in and it's a much different world than what the NBA was 20 years ago and beyond that players were loyal to some degree but players were loyal to the teams not anymore now as i'm recording this right now Lakers media day is going on at this moment i love media day it's one of my favorite days just to watch all the interviews get an insight to what the team is going to look like past years if they were new players it would it was pretty cool to see them in the Lakers uniform but i love media day because it's just the birth of a new season so that's currently going on right now what i want to do to close out the show is play you a couple clips from media day we're going to start with a clip from general manager Rob Palinka then we'll move to LeBron James and then we'll finish out with Anthony Davis for coming into the building the energy on these courts has probably been at an all-time high you know our players have been we have you know voluntary workouts where guys can come in the gym and get up and down do mostly player development work and small group work but some some pickup ball at the end yeah it's been fun to just see the guys competing and having fun with JJ and his staff they're doing a great job so you talked a lot about continuity when you're working with the media here i'm wondering if that continuity is because that's your vision or is that because other stuff that you had in your mind or we're looking on out there didn't work out for some reason yeah listen continuity is is an agree an ingredient in sports that is always successful if you look at sort of sustainable championship teams there is continuity at the center of it so that's an ingredient that we strive for that said we're not going to settle into continuity or not looking for ways to improve our roster but that'll be through a lens in and sort of making sure if we do something it's it's super smart for both the now but in the long term and that's a that's a tight rope to balance on we talked so much about the older players on your team noticed obviously the brawn James but how important in this new era of the collective bargaining agreement is it for your team to get younger and for the younger players to to contribute more well Ramona it's it's really important especially when you look at the top teams in the west and the team that won it last year they're they're younger teams and we all probably had to slug through in high school or college you know economics and learn about supply and demand and i think in in this double cap apron system that we're in the supply of trades is just way less significant than it used to be and so if there's a demand it makes the prices really high and it just kind of changed the overall calculus you don't want to walk into a a really bad trade that'll set you back so the right opportunity just hasn't come we'll continue to look for it and if there's a a lever to pull with the first round pick or multiple first round picks that makes sense for us we will absolutely do it our goal is to always be a championship caliber team and that'll remain our goal so if that type of deal presents itself we'll do it guys um i had a lot of fun you know this summer with Ant-Man and and Tyree's Halliburton and some of the young guys on the team um you know and they give you a lot of energy a lot of life so to be able to be alongside him he's 19 years old be 20 soon in October it just gives you some more life and the rest of the young guys on the team so it's awesome hello bro um when we did this last year it was coming off and off season where after you guys have been swept by Denver you hit it at retirement um you were beat up pretty badly physically how different is your energy level at this stage and kind of what's also your big picture view for yourself is yeah a part of you think maybe this could be the last season or have you started to think about that legacy type stuff well i'm definitely not um as beat up as i was uh last time um i feel damn good i had a great summer not a great summer um body you know was uh responded very well um overseas um along with team USA um so took care of that and i kept that going you know after um even when we you know stop playing i kept it going so i feel really good physically um you know mentally i feel really good really sharp very fresh looking forward to getting to work tomorrow um have not thought about what the you know what the future holds kind of just living in a moment um especially you know what brony being here too i don't i don't want to take this moment for granted i've always kind of never gave myself an opportunity to kind of just like you know i guess you know take in the moments um but this is a moment that i've made you know enjoy a little bit more than just like my actual set you know with a Olympic year it's a little bit different you know especially once a camp what have your conversations been like with JJ Redick does he want you to do different things than darvin wanted you to do or is it just more of the same and just do it better um i think he just wants me to be uh the hub of the offense like he talked about um numerous times uh you know whether it's elbow nail top of the key block like whatever it is um you know being an anchor to defense um so it's some some uh similarities from last year um but also you know some differences as well everybody's coming back from last year's team you got a lot of continuity this year um what how do you feel about this group and what impact do you think JJ's gonna have um it's always good to have continuity you know bringing guys back no i think that's how you kind of you know build something um you know instead of bringing four five six seven eight new guys and um we kind of you know messing up that continuity so it's good to have guys back i think the only guy that we don't have back is uh tv you know but for the most part we have our you know same group um going to have a lot of good feel from last year and all right so that was general manager Rob Palinka LeBron James and Anthony Davis all right guys so that's it for today's podcast i just want to thank you guys for listening and being a part of the first let's go link here's a podcast i could say it's been a dream mind to put this thing together next week i'll be back we're going to be recapping the first lectures preseason game against the midst of timber wolves and we'll be talking about more about training camp until next time guys take care and let's go Lakers all acres