Locked on Lakers

Nick Young has been among the brightest surprises in the entire NBA this season. Honestly, he’s been great, and leagues better than anyone could’ve predicted heading into the year. Oddly enough, his resurgence seems to have been aided by his being allowed to be “Swaggy P” again. His play has been good enough to warrant the interest from all kinds of TV shows, and in this case, I got together with Andrew Santino, host of “Where’s The Rub” to talk about Santino’s time recording with Young. This was a highly entertaining conversation that covered all kinds of topics, so I hope you enjoy it. Before that conversation, I also went live on Silver Screen & Roll’s Facebook page to answer your questions about our Lakers. I got to speak about the kids’ development, my time talking to James Worthy and all kinds of other things and, as usual, it was fun to be able to talk directly to you, the listeners about what you want to hear about.

The Los Angeles Lakers snapped their season-high eight-game losing streak with a win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday before falling to the Cleveland Cavaliers the next night, but the team has shown encouraging progress over their last three games. To talk about what’s going better for the Lakers, host Harrison Faigen was joined by Pete Zayas of Laker Film Room. The two discussed why Brandon Ingram’s near triple-double against Cleveland is fairly replicable, whether or not Jordan Clarkson can bring back the playmaking skill he showed during his rookie season, if the Lakers are closer to the team they were in the first 20 games of the season or the last ten, and much more on the latest episode of Locked on Lakers.

Before we got to any part of talking about actual basketball, Harrison and Anthony spoke about how they’ll remember Craig Sager. His mark on the game is and will always remain indelible, and the fact that the guys can be comfortable enough to be themselves is due in large part to what Sager taught everyone in how he went about his business. From there, the guys preview the Lakers game against Philadelphia. Can the game be considered a must-win? Crazy as it might sound, both Harrison and Anthony think so, and give their reasons why. After the break, Anthony welcomes Chris Manning of Fear The Sword and “Locked on Cavs” to talk about both teams’ seasons to this point, coaching in the NBA and how the Cavs might be able to learn from the end of Kobe Bryant’s career when LeBron James reaches the same point in his career. Harrison may or may not have participated in the interview.

The Los Angeles Lakers have now lost eight straight games, tying their season high from last season. The team can’t seem to make a shot or offer much resistance when other teams try to do so, so hosts Harrison Faigen and Anthony Irwin decided to dig in to the stats and their notebooks to try and answer: what is wrong with the Lakers? The two broke down the numbers from the last eight games, as well as debating whether or not the Lakers can fix this, or if it should be what we expected all along, on the latest episode of Locked on Lakers.

The losses are beginning to pile up for the Los Angeles Lakers. The team has lost seven-straight, with head coach Luke Walton saying they quit against the Sacramento Kings. Is all of the failure going to lead to bad habits for the Lakers? Is the team taking steps backwards from all the progress they made earlier this season? Hosts Harrison Faigen and Anthony Irwin explained why the think things are going to be okay (and still WAY better than last year) on the latest episode of Locked on Lakers. Later in the show, Harrison gave his latest hot take on D’Angelo Russell and Kristaps Porzingis, and the hosts mourned the loss of their favorite Timofey Mozgov stat before asking listeners to come up with their own.

The Los Angeles Lakers lost their seventh-straight game on Monday night, so hosts Harrison Faigen and Anthony Irwin decided to discuss the loss to the Sacramento Kings and whether or not they can find any positives for the Lakers right now. Then, the Phil-Jackson-back-to-Los-Angeles story continues to draw attention, so Anthony decided to bring on Jared Dubin (of “Locked on Knicks”) to talk about what rooting for a team headed by Jackson is like. Basically, there’s a lot going on with precious few dull moments given his proclivity for the grabbing quote. From there, the conversation made its way to the Kristaps Porzingis-D’Angelo Russell relationship. The former will forever be tied to the Lakers, seeing as they were one of a few team to pass up on drafting him, obviously opting instead for Russell. Both players have enjoyed nice starts to their careers, with Porzingis having a slight edge thus far. Because of the franchises they play for, don’t expect this pseudo rivalry to go anywhere anytime soon. Finally, Anthony brings up how the Lakers and Knicks are once again showing their fans what it’s like to enjoy basketball again, which is no small feat considering where both organizations have been in recent years.

Both the Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves have fallen victim to insane expectations. For the former, early success has spoiled fans to the point where they find themselves bummed if they lose to a team they thought they might beat, given how the season has gone. How funny is that: expectations? Honest question: where’d they come from? So, for this episode, I (Anthony) welcomed David Naylor of Canis Hoopus to talk about insane expectations, because which other NBA franchise has dealt with expectations the same way as literally every bloggers’ favorite team (the Wolves, of course)? Both the Lakers and Wolves are dealing with unrealistic hopes and dreams, so David and I try to figure out why.

With the Lakers and Suns set to tip of Friday night, Anthony and Harrison called on Scott Chasen of, well, basically everywhere to talk about the relationship between the two franchises. Madness ensued. Okay maybe not madness, but still. The conversation was a fun one. Can we consider D’Angelo Russell and Devin Booker rivals at such an early stage in each other’s careers? Chasen made an interesting point about what it would take for the Suns to consider any team a legitimate rival. They have quite a ways to go. Then, the guys look back on the most painful and exuberant moments from the memorable playoffs matchups from over the years. Get ready, Lakers, fans, Tim Thomas gets mentioned.

The Lakers (despite their recent struggles) are off to one of the most surprising starts in the NBA. Few people have paid as much attention to the organization over the last few years as Spectrum Sportsnet analyst and former Laker James Worthy, so who better to judge how far these kids have come? Somehow, “Big Game” agreed to come on the show, even for a few minutes to talk about that progress. First, the conversation began with what the biggest difference might be from last year to now. Much has changed, but it was still hard to see this success coming, regardless of who might’ve been added and taken away from the mix. Then, Anthony and Harrison wonder how Worthy might’ve fared in the NBA in its current form. Worthy was very insightful on the topic and how he would’ve made it work. Oh, the Lakers played tonight, too, so the guys spoke about that game and the experience tonight as a whole.

The Los Angeles Lakers got some good news on Tuesday (kind of). D’Angelo Russell was cleared to resume basketball activities, however, he hasn’t been cleared to play in a game yet. Hosts Harrison Faigen and Anthony Irwin discussed why that is still good news for the Lakers to start the show. Later, Los Angeles D-Fenders point guard Josh Magette joined Harrison and Anthony for a discussion on the D-Fenders historic start to the season, what D-League locker rooms are like, the improvements he saw from Ivica Zubac, whether or not he’s ever had a teammate traded for a washing machine, and much more on the latest episode of Locked on Lakers.

The Los Angeles Lakers have officially been bitten by the injury bug. The team is waiting for an update on D’Angelo Russell. Nick Young, Jose Calderon, and Larry Nance, Jr. are out (although Nance was cleared to play, but sat out anyway). The team additionally lost Tarik Black to an ankle sprain in their loss to the Utah Jazz, and all of the injuries led hosts Harrison Faigen and Anthony Irwin to ask: should Luke Walton further break up his bench so the starters have at least some playmaking? The two hosts discussed that, as well as the game as a whole and Russell’s NBA Finals hopes on the latest episode of Locked on Lakers.

The Lakers are finally almost through the schedule stretch of death they’ve been trudging through, but face yet another potential playoff team Monday night when the Utah Jazz come to visit. So, what better time than this to catch up with David Locke, radio play-by-play voice of the team and host of the Locked on NBA and Locked on Jazz podcasts to see what he thinks of the Lakers to this point? Oh, and Harrison may or may not be there. He thinks he will be, so that’s fun. While he was around, however, the guys talk about something regarding Lakers expectations that annoyed Anthony, which isn’t all that hard to do. Anthony and David talk about the latter’s extended thoughts on D’Angelo Russell, what Brandon Ingram might be capable of (David is quite high on him) and Julius Randle’s exciting start to the 2016 campaign. Then, no podcast would be complete without mentioning what Luke Walton has brought to the table this season. Anthony shares the key ingredient to what make a Walton team work.

The Lakers find themselves well ahead of schedule in terms of team-wide development, which has obviously been great for fans, but might not be great for their hopes of keeping their first round pick this year. So, Anthony welcomed Sean Woodrey of Raptors HQ to talk about that very topic. Harrison (staring warmly into Ivica Zubac’s eyes) was out for this one. Then, Anthony and Sean found themselves talking about how important it is to enjoy the building process, even if it might not lead to a title. For whatever reason, sports fans have bought into a “title or bust” mentality, which vastly more often than not will lead to disappointment at the end of every season. Raptors fans are enjoying their team, so why shouldn’t Lakers fans do the same with this young core, regardless of how it all turns out? That and plenty more in a free-flowing episode of Locked on Lakers.

Over the last two years, the game the Lakers played last night was one they almost definitely would not have won. Actually, scratch that. They absolutely would not have won that kind of game over the last two years. Luke Walton deserves a ton of credit for that, so we bring on Pete Zayas on to talk about the job he’s done. Before that, however, Anthony and Pete (Harrison could not make it) get into the specifics on how injuries have affected everyone as a whole, and a couple guys individually, both in negative and positive ways. Finally, we get to see the influence Phil Jackson had on Luke in how the latter challenged Julius Randle. Anthony even presents the scene in which it happened. Fun show as always when Pete is with us.

The Los Angeles Lakers suffered one of their worst losses of the season on the road against the New Orleans Pelicans. Nick Young went down with what was tentatively being called an Achilles strain just minutes into the night, leaving the Lakers without both members of their starting backcourt for the forseeable future. Will injuries end any hopes the Lakers had of a postseason berth? Hosts Harrison Faigen and Anthony Irwin discussed that on the show, and also brought on Anthony’s wife, Dr. Jennifer Irwin, DPT to discuss Young’s injury, how long he might be sidelined, and what recovery for and Achilles strain could look like on the latest episode of Locked on Lakers.