Lakers Lounge

Anthony and Mike Trudell talk Vikings, then some Lakers, then some Vikings again, but mostly Lakers.

Bill Simmons didn't sound exactly thrilled in his pod about the Lakers exceeding their over/under for wins this year so he asked a different question -- which has bounced around in Anthony's brain. So, Anthony asks Mike Trudell... what would he consider a successful Lakers season?

Anthony and Mike discuss the Lakers' approach to a position they knew they had to enlist a committee for. Also, Vikings talk. Yes. Vikings talk.

The Dodgers' season is on the brink. Anthony and Raj talk about the similarities to injury information between the two franchises and how no one actually benefits from this. From there, the guys talk about some of their top takeaways from preseason so far. They offer some grades on some players, then wrap with a Q&A with the live audience.

Anthony made the mistake of recording during the Dodgers game. This led to a(nother) rant about injury information/management as it may have ended the Dodgers' attempt at a three-peat. The guys segue from there to their impressions of training camp almost exactly one week from opening night.

Twitter jumped to conclusion about one of Anthony's tweets that has made him question humanity. He and Raj talk about what he actually meant. We know the Lakers are going to use Mamu at the five. Here's why Austin makes sense for those lineups.

Raj makes the case for the Wizards as a play-in team. Anthony outlines how deep the east is. A listener asks about Quentin Grimes' IQ, which leads to a fun conversation about his basketball IQ and the ideal role for him.

Anthony and Harrison really enjoyed what they saw from Walker Kessler. That's far and away the biggest story of the night. They do talk about Austin's best game of the preseason and what the Lakers need from him, too, the Lakers' weird handling of injury info and a couple other topics before diving into the chat for a few fun questions.

The Lakers have a lot riding on Walker Kessler looking exactly like he looked last night. The guys talked about his impressive debut.

The Lakers need A LOT out of Austin. They got a glimpse of it tonight. Anthony wants to know if we can see this Austin consistently enough to make the contract feel worthwhile.

After Anthony and Harrison had a little chuckle about the haiku a Shogun would write about that game, a viewer actually dropped one. The guys then talked about Ghost of Tsushima.

Anthony asked for questions and, as promised answer basically every question he got. He only got super frustrated once!

Walker Kessler is the Lakers' second-most important player this year, which makes it more than a little concerning/frustrated that we haven't seen him yet. When will that change? Anthony also shares what he's heard about Collin Sexton and explains why he is so important.

A listener asked what rule changes Anthony would start with and he gave an example, but then also discussed a zoomed-out approach concern he has with NBA refereeing.

Anthony explains why it makes sense for the Lakers to try to land a big via one of their two-way contracts but also gives context on what that is trickier now than it was even a couple seasons ago.

Anthony does this thing with content that he likes, where he asks himself to find things he likes, dislikes, is surprised by and learns over the course of that content. He brings that exercise to this episode with Pete to discuss Lakers preseason to this point.

Anthony and Pete start this exercise by talking about what they've liked about preseason to this point.

Collin Sexton has yet to play and Anthony has noticed his absence a little too much. The guys discuss the ball control from players not named Austin or Luka and how critical Sexton has already become.

The Lakers have started off preseason in fairly impressive fashion, all things considered. A listener still was curious whether some of the new additions are getting a little extra praise because of how new they are to the team.

Anthony and Harrison laugh at how annoyed Philly media already is with some of the extra stuff that comes with LeBron. They segue back to the Lakers by discussing how Vegas seems to feel about the team this season. Why is there such a disconnect with that and the preseason vibes/hype? The guys then discuss what they'd like to know about this team ASAP and wrap with a quick Q&A. Oh and Lanterns...

According to Harrison, Anthony gives one of his craziest analogies to date.

There is reason to believe the Lakers should be pretty good -- Anthony's skepticism notwithstanding. So why is the win total over/under so low (45.5)?

Anthony wants to KNOW how good the offense is going to be and gives his reasoning why. The guys wrap with a quick Q&A and some Lanterns thoughts.

The Lakers didn't play basically anyone in their second preseason game. It went about as you'd expect against a Warriors team that did play people. So, rather than spend time thinking about that game, the guys talk about what they've learned about the Lakers' intentions for this season by way of training camp and their first preseason game.

Anthony and Raj eventually are going to get to the game, but first, Anthony tells Raj how proud he is for taking ownership of his content, as un-condescendingly as he could. Then, well, yeah, that game happened.