Lakers in that case shouldn't have challenged the call. You need a damn timeout. Darvin Ham is unbelievably dumb. He would finish 3rd in a 2 man IQ test.

weird 3 full days off between gm2 and 3 in minn/den

think that favors nuggs w/ the thinner bench, pretty stupid



re timeout, I still think you challenge (if you expect to win, Jokic 2 FTs vs you having the ball is huge there with 2 mins left in terms of equity vs having 1 TO vs 0), there is only 2 mins left and 2pts is massive

He's an idiot but if you're pretty sure you're gonna save 2 points with 3 mins left in a tied game I think you have to challenge. Would you really give the other team 2 points to have an extra time out in that situation if it was the option?

I think the real problem with challenging is it wasn't that clear it would be overturned. I also don't know how you only have 1 time out with 3 mins left in a super close game.

Meanwhile the game before when Lebron is 100 percent sure he didn't touch that ball that went out of bounds and was screaming at the coaching staff to challenge they said their with their thumbs up their ass.

edit: the poster above me says 2 mins left not 3. if that's correct it's even more of a reason to challenge.

AD had his elbow shoved into Jokic’s back and also made contact on the follow-through, that overturn was absurd. Ham is a moron but also Lebron with his 200 BBIQ should have known they were out of timeouts would need 6-7 seconds to go the full length of the court and not let the clock run down to 26 seconds on the possession before.

How does the rule even work? Can they go back and watch and earlier part of the play?
Jokic was clearly fouled earlier on the play where they didn't call it. But the point at which they called a foul was not a foul.

it was 3 mins, you are right

same idea though, 2pts huge in that spot

They reviewed the whole play because they announced that the contact with the left arm which was the elbow into Jokic’s back was “marginal”

that's really bad then.

Scrap challenges all together

Challenges should be for goaltending, out of bounds and clock violations.

Fouls in the NBA are so dumb. You can call or not call a foul on every single play and replay doesn't change that.

That call they overturned last night never gets overturned in the regular season. They always find some **** to make up to say it was a foul on replay even when it clearly wasn't. I hate officiating.

Darvin Ham is mind boggling dumb to burn a timeout there, especially considering it never should have been overturned.

Why was it Lakers ball out of the challenge btw? Shouldn't it have been a jump ball?

I was wondering the same thing. Even Anthony Davis was making the jump ball signal after the whistle.

Because there had been a clear turnover of possession, no?

The idea that you lose anything for a successful challenge is absurd.

But getting that possession does seem worth it. If the Lakers didn't give up every offensive rebound in the last 3 minutes they win.

What about LeBron to the Warriors? seems like if he opted in, lakers could do him a solid and deal him for like kuminga/CP contract/picks

close enough to LA where his family is, would be a huge story at the time NBA is changing TV contracts

if he leaves LA, i think this is the only possible destination

dont see dallas/miami/philly really

I wonder if there’s any possibility he opts out and then signs back at a discount, 3 / 72 or something.

I don’t think any of Steph / LeBron / Durant can win a championship through the remainder of their career if they continue to take the absolute maximum.

It sounds like the Lakers are willing to pay him the max 3 year extension but LeBron will be smart enough to know that likely precludes a championship. Accepting all athletes are delusional and LeBron likes his money - I just wonder if that’s the twist here, rather than going somewhere else

even if he took less with LAL, I'm not sure what it would lead to in terms of roster improvement

most FAs re-sign these days and i can't think of who they could get, they could lose DLo too if he opts out and gets deal elsewhere

maybe doing that would allow them to add like bruce brown


i think all of them could win a title taking the absolute maximum or close to it in in theory, just probably not on their current teams

You're allowed to have your arm out like that on post defense though. I can legit see them calling that "marginal contact". Low post players play through that all the time. If that was someone just driving, it's different for sure.

They rarely overturn those kinds of calls though, but AD had all ball from the beginning, and stayed on ball. I thought for sure all the Jokic flailing though would cause the challenge to fail.

So once Ham cakes finally figures out to play his best 5 players as starters, and reduces reddish and Tauren minutes, Lakers finish out w/ 2nd best record in the league (better than Denver in that stretch).

Lakers lead 165 mins of that series compared to 59 for Denver.

Games are ubber close, and w/ any reasonable calls, Lakers likely win game 2 (want to talk about "marginal contact"?), and the series is 3-2 rn.

If you compare the rosters up and down, they compare pretty well. Denver has slightly better size, Lakers have a slightly better bench.

But somehow the narrative was Lakers had no shot.

It's a strange series when these two play each other. I can't see Denver playing a better team, so I think the championship is theirs to close at this point.

Denver did win 8 of 9 last 2 years playoffs and 4 straight regular season, I think when you have that type of success against a team that there is some complacency that sets in. Which i think it did at times during this series (some of the reason why they got down early in basically every game but still won)


Lakers had a chance to win the series, just like last year. About a 25% one. I'd say the series odds were pretty close to correct.

And if they played a series again next week, I think that would be about the odds again.



Agree w/ you the DLo/Reaves/Reddish/Prince rotation stuff from earlier in the year was absurd. I'd be checking box scores and thinking wtf, that 4-11 stretch they had after the IST is a big reason why they had to okay the best team in the West in rd 1.

As far as where the Lakers sit in the West hierarchy, probably an easier question to answer in 3 weeks since OKC/Minn are relatively "newish" teams

(obviously they had way more incentive to win last 2 months of the season than a few of those other teams)

lol whining about the refs when labald/the lolkers get the best whistle in the league by 10 miles. if the reffing was good and fair they would have lost every game by 20+

Porzingis soleus calf strain, same thing as giannis but severity of grade is what matters i guess

good thing for the celts they dont play a top 15 team in the nba for another 3 weeks

I don't think anyone is whining about the refs. If you're referring to my game 2 comment... ya, that Dlo call was the kind of thing that makes me think sportsbetting is going to ruin all the leagues. It was a nonsensical call that made a huge difference in the game, even if it was in the 3rd. I'm not the only one that felt this way. Lot's of ex pros had similar takes:
https://lakersdaily.com/richard-jeff...ut-basketball/

Lakers lead the league in paint points, and don't play good D. They are going to lead the league in FT difference. LBJ compared to other stars in the league gets the worst whistle. Anyone have that stat on the last 10 years - LBJ whistle compared to other top stars? Can't find it, but found this:
https://fadeawayworld.net/10-nba-pla...ees-in-2023-24

To balance out Jokic's bad whistle though, he's allowed to just man handle players w/ no calls
https://www.instagram.com/lebronslea...V/?img_index=1
https://www.reddit.com/r/lakers/comm...brons_whistle/

LeBron discount
D’Lo opt out
Trade for Young, send the 1st and Reaves
Use the LeBron discount to pad out around LBJ / AD / Young?

I dunno really. It’s a testament to LeBron that 45 - 50 per year hasn’t been a negative at 39. But if he signs the max 3 year the Lakers can offer it is going to be a negative for most of the duration. Everyone reaches the end, in the end.

Of course... they were all ubber close games though like I said.

I think w/ an NBA level head coach, the Lakers win at least one of these two series. Just my take. I'm not one to hate on coaches honestly. I get annoyed w/ fans saying things like, he sucks because his rotations suck... and other nonsensical things that show they really don't know what they are talking about.

I said from day 1 of the Ham hire, he is not an NBA level head coach. All the signs were there that he wasn't. And I'm not being hyperbolic when I say he will go down as one of the worst coaches in league history. He's really that bad.

Lakers need to reverse engineer all the bad decisions and who was involved over the last few years. I was always suspect that once Kobe died, Pelinka didn't have the sounding board he needed to find the correct pieces that would fit together. Because once Kobe was gone, 90% of the decisions after the 2020 championship were extremely bad.

Once they reverse engineer and clear house of the people poisoning the well, they need to set clear objectives on what type of team they want to be, and what kind of players fit that mold. The last couple of years have been a desperate hodgepodge of players, trying to salvage what they can from the Westbrook disaster.