Purple Blood Lakers Podcast

The Lakers ended the season on a high note, in spite of injuries to Austin and Luka. The trade for Luke was Rob's finest stroke. Bronny looks ready, with some risks. Marcus IS ready. Rui may not be dat dude. All that matters for Jake and Vando is limiting KD. DA tends to come through in games against skilled centers. The King will lead us to the Promised Land.

The Lakers have gone on the most exciting win streak in the past several years. Donna who is always Wright wanted Marcus Smart to start and that changed everything. Bron has made adjustments to his game to fit in with Luka and Austin and the results have been devastating for our opponents. The Lakers look good!

The Lakers had their best game against a quality, hot opponent. Controlling the ball gives the Lakers a chance. Marcus is working out. What happened to Jake? Hillbilly Kobe is back. He and Rui are thriving in Bron's absence. But the Lakers have had a real sustained excellence run this season. Oh, and Luke really is that dude, and y'all need to get off of Ayton.

The Lakers had a boring January basketball stretch, getting enough key wins to maintain the 6th spot. Here we go for a playoff run. Nice to end the pre-all-star season with a tripple double from the old man.

We dropped 3 in a row. Again. But we were down several starters during a rough stretch and Lakers fans shouldn't panic. Donna doesn't panic. Ever. Sure enough, we came back with a masterful first half against the re-constituted Hawks. LeBron James deserves his flowers. He had a gigantic genius-level game, and has been on a tear.

First, we dropped a game to the Pistons, which we ignored in this podcast, because what more can be said about the Lakers' struggles against aggressive, athletic teams? Our trade target remains as specified. But we bounced back with a 3 game winning streak, 2 against the Grizzlies and one against the Pelicans. The Lakers formula against struggling teams appears to be keep it close, then domina...

Though we love the effort after the 3 game skid and not-so-uncomfortable practice, this is the Kings so we can't learn much about the team from this beat down. Lebron played nearly perfect ball, Nick is that dude, Vando helped us on D, and Luka actually played some nice D. Marcus Smart deserves mention too, nice game from him. We'll take the win, but this team still has a ways to go before...

We beat the Jazz, but nobody cares. Then we went on our first 2 and then 3 game losing streak. Lakers nation is panicking. We have to do something. And none of the ideas (start Smart, Jake, or Vando) are sufficient to win us a ring this year, so the pressure is on to make a trade, but for one of these pieces we need, we cannot miss.

The Lakers suffered a loss to the Wemby-less Spurs, wasting the best game of Marcus Smart's Laker career thus far (8 threes!). They came back to barely beat the Dillon-Brooks-energized Suns, who engineered a 20 point comeback that the Lakers ultimately pushed back. The Laker bench won the game with an off night for Luka and Austin resting a strained calf. Vando played particularly well in his...

The Lakers lost to Boston. A travesty made worse by them shooting lights out. So as has become out tradition, we ignored Episode 22, and just moved on to Episode 23 in which we discuss the great game Lebron had, just how bad Embid and George are, and Rich Paul's comments on Lakers readiness.

Austin Reeves once again takes up the slack from a Luka absence due to childbirth. Bron makes the right play and finds Luka in the corner for the game winning 3. Nick the quick brought instant offense, Adou progressed, and Jake had a good night.

The Lakers avoided a trap and pretty much beat down the injury-plagued Pelicans in the first half. Austin is crazy good. Ayton really is that dude. Luke scored 34 while bored. Missing Bron and Smart, we played on to victory.

Lakers beat the better-than-advertised Mavericks. The big 3, on an efficient night from Bron, were lead in scoring by Hillbilly Kobe. Ayton continues to impress, and the bench, lead by the highly professional Gabe, is showing an awareness of what the Lakers are doing.

The Clippers are a horrible team and thank goodness we beat the snot out of them again. Luka is happy here. Bron is still amazing and adapting his game to make this work. This offense is unstoppable. To get past OKC, we need to figure out how to play better D for entire games, but we DO figure it out in spurts.

We barely beat the lowly Jazz. Take away Maxi Kleber's energetic 13 minutes and we lose this game. Still, we'll take the win. The Jazz are just weird. Lakers fans: watch Gabe play D against bigs!!

The Lakers get a win against a lesser team. In Bron and Gabe's first game back, the Lakers adjusted to the presence of the King, while Ayton showed off his exquisitely efficient big man game.

The Lakers secure a robust victory against an eastern threat. Jake goes 1-10 with a +/-26, highest on the team. Luka just casually ended up with 41- 9 - 6, Austin was Austin again, and DA continues to dispel the notion that he isn't any good. He is EXTREMELY good. We had an Adou Thiero siting, and he looked as good as promised phyically, and showed off his hops on a dunk from a Bronny assist....

The Lakers got back to their winning ways with a nearly end-to-end beatdown of a diminished team without their stars. Austin got back on track, Rui was solid, Ayton played well, Jake played great D, and Luka was Luka.

The Lakers got their tails whipped by the dominant OKC Thunder. No one had a good game. Moving on.

The Lakers return to their winning ways. Austin and Luka have a bromance going, Rui and Ayton light it up, and after turning up the D in Q3 (thanks Marcus Smart!... 7 steals!!), the Lakers cruised to victory.

The Lakers drop a game to the under-manned Hawks and we decide not to panic.

DeAndre Ayton cut Wemby down to size, the Lakers contained the league's 2nd hottest team, lead by Luka's 35 and Marcus Smart (10 for 10 from the line).

Nick Smith Jr. Goes. Nuts!!!! DA puts in a solid day's work against his former team, Rui steps up, and the Lakers steal a win with half the squad ailing against a dynamic young Portland squad. Bronny contributes 6 assists ad is starting to find his niche.

We continue our discussion with a deeper dive into the role players.

Luka continues his blistering start, Austin comes down to earth, but barely, Jake goes nuts, and the Lakers beat the hot Heat with an excellent team effort that included a promising cameo from Bronny.