Austin Reaves to be the 2ND OPTION for the Lakers in the future?! 👀 Shelburne details | NBA Today

Austin Reaves to be the 2ND OPTION for the Lakers in the future?! 👀 Shelburne details | NBA Today

and the Lakers last night across the street hosting the Heat. Luca entered the day averaging 45 points over his first three games. First quarter, look at this shot. A circus shot by Luca. I mean, just incredible. And then it’s time for some Luca darts. All right, check this out on the spin over D’von Mitchell across the court to Ruie. Three ball is good. Dangerous but great pass, huh? And now you know side by side you see all LA Matt Stafford doing something similar on the look away. And then here the long ball for Luca. Wow. Jake Larabia finishes. A little air under that one there. Stafford does this one to Puka. Hey man, leave the Saints alone man. Leave the Saints alone. Yeah. Second quarter. Was close for a couple quarters. Watch Luca with the D. Reads it the whole way. A little pick six for Luca. finishes with the layup. Then in the fourth, Lakers in transition again. Watch Reeves to Laravia up top. Hey, Loravia with 25 off the bench. They know what number 12 is now. Under two to play. Reeves sizing up Pella Larson. Hits him with the step back. Footwork. Look at that footwork. Yeah, Reeves finish that. 26 and 11. Under a minute left. Finishing touches here in LA. Luca goes to work inside. Gets the and one. Donic finishes with 29 points, 11 boards, 10 assists. Lakers win by 10. Luca and Reeves are both putting up video game numbers this season. Donic at 41 points and eight assists a game. Reeves averaging 31-9. They are two of the three players across the NBA averaging at least 30 and8 along with Tyrese Maxim. All right, welcome inside here. The Lakers won this game despite a rough shooting night from Donuch and Reeves. I’m here with the Hall of Famer Mark Spears, our NBA front office insider Bobby Marks. Ramona Shelburn of course in the house, senior uh writer as well. So Ramona, we’ll start with you. Yeah. What did this win tell you despite the fact that Luca and Austin did not necessarily have an efficient game? I think Austin Reeves is making a point and a case for himself to be the number two player behind Luca Luca Donich on the Lakers going forward. He’s a free agent this this off season and I know LeBron is in I’m I’m talking about in the future. Okay, LeBron’s still on the team, but the question is can he be Luca sidekick? And he is making a case that he can. You’ve seen Luca play very well with Jaylen Brunson when they were in Dallas together. They went to the Western Conference Finals. He played very well with Kyrie Irving. They went to the NBA finals. You he likes playing alongside another creative guard. The question I had coming into the season was how they could do defensively because it’s not a strong defensive back court, but right now both of them are just good enough to where you can get away with what they do on the defensive end because they’re so good together offensively. Well, and I think the defensive point that you made when you add a player like Marcus Smart who kind of do a little the dirty things here for me last night uh and certainly sitting there 21 assists between the two players which is remarkable. But I said this last year when we watched him play against uh New York in March, you just forget how great Luca is. I know my friends in Dallas don’t want to hear that right now, but watching his brilliance on the court and how he can just control the game throughout here. Um and then of course the big question is how him and Austin Reeds can play off each other. And I I didn’t see anything that would basically make make a red flag last night. I I thought he competed on the defensive end as well. I thought that stood out to me beyond just those steals. But Mark, let’s talk about LeBron. You know, we know he’s coming back. What does that look like then when you add LeBron into this mix? I I think the what does that look like is a great question because it could look like a variety of different things. Do they adjust to LeBron? Does LeBron LeBron adjust to them? Wow, you took the glasses off for me. That means it’s serious. Yeah, that is to be determined. And and Ramona knows this a lot better than most of us. like when this new ownership comes in, what is his relationship with LeBron’s relationship with them? Do they have an allegiance to him? Do is what we’re seeing now worthy of maybe exploring trades that make both people happy? This is an amazing start for them. Shocking start without LeBron. Um, where do they go from here is is intriguing. Yeah, I I think they’ll be just fine when LeBron comes back. That’s just me personally. But anyway, speaking of the James family, did you see Austin Reeves’s lob to Bronnie? Well, he’s of course thrown plenty of these to LeBron, but this is the one to Bronny last night. And check this one out. In 2023, it stuck out cuz Bronnie was in the stands when dad did that. Yeah, Dad was better. Going crazy. Dad was better. He did the one hand. So, after the game, Reeves posed this question to the media in the house. I’ve got to be the first person in NBA history to throw a a father alive and a son alive. I don’t know. Sky got to be right. Only this one. I mean, we’re still on the same team. Well, the same. Y’all want to do all these statistics? You been on Stad. It It was It was cool. Um I told Brian that as soon as I checked out after that, it was a pretty special moment. All right, Austin, I’m glad you asked. So, we asked Elias Sports Bureau, and yes, Austin, you are the first player to assist an alleyoop for both a father and a son, at least in the last 25 years. Banyama has been virtually unstoppable this season until he met the Phoenix Suns. If you’ve been following WBY this season, this may be a bit of a shocker here. Look at this. But let’s start with the second quarter. Scary situation. Dylan Harper playing defense underneath. comes up limping, leaves the game, would not return. Meanwhile, the Suns were doing a great job guarding Wemby. A trend we saw where 63 Jordan Goodwin was on Wemby here. The Spurs bring or the Suns rather bring this the double to Wemby as he gets the ball. Then they get it back. He tries to fling it to the corner on a tip. No good on the shot. All right, so Suns defense is working. They try it again with a late double and Webby misses the jumper. Sunday marked the third career game where We Wy had fewer than 10 points and more than five turnovers. So not good by Webby standards at all. Third quarter, Devin Booker gets inside, seals the deal. Book finished with 28. Suns get the victory 130 to 118. It’s a great time for us to to take away a lot of things from this game and because I mean we we’re going to see this again and again. So it’s every single game it’s a a battle to prepare you know as much as the players as the coaching staff to prepare the next game and you know I know our next opponents watch this game tonight you know and they’re they’re going to take some things away from this game as well. So we have to like the preparation starts now. All right, WBY struggled on the offensive end, scoring just nine points on four 14 shooting with six turnovers. Five of his shots came from three-point distance, as you can see here. So, I I don’t know, man. Th This is the best job I’ve seen certainly on Victor Wimbeyama this season. I don’t think there’s any question. So, Bobby, do you think teams can replicate this? I I I think they can. I think what I saw last night, it’s almost like when a we’re using baseball analogy here, when a pitcher sees a batter for the first time and then you once you get through through the fifth inning or seventh inning, you adjust differently here when you’re basically sending small guards at him. Last night was the most I’ve saw him uncomfortable with that when you look at the turnovers and then the ability the threes that when you see an uptick in threes that means that he’s forcing shots here. Well, I think coach may have seen something in the previous game. I was watching the Miami game and they were doing something similar, throwing Andrew Wiggins at him late and then he was passing out of it. So maybe it is something. Look, if he’s dribbling, he’s bringing the ball down, which gives the smaller guard a chance to get their hands on it and to to pester him a little bit. And I But this is Webby. He’s going to adjust. I mean, they’re going to throw a lot of different looks at him over the course of his career. Same way with Joic. You throw some at Jokic, he’ll adjust. But for right now, it had some effective. Yeah, he’s only 21. But I liked how Bam guarded him the other day in a bio. I thought he was really really physical, which might be another way. I think that teams guard him. This is where like where you see Bam right here. Excuse me. Ouch. Okay. But how many Bams are there, right? Like how many Bams could I do that, right? There’s not too many of this. So, I think more are going to lean toward the Suns. And then this is where you say, “Hey, I’m we miss De’arren Fox.” Boy, if De’Arren Fox is out there, she going to need De’ar Fox coming back soon. Especially, we don’t know what the Dylan Harper calf injury here. You’ve relied a lot on Stefan Castle. He’s been great. Who else? Phoenix did their work when Victor was off the court last night. Yeah. And now, how do you sustain it when he is off the court and now you if you if you don’t have Dylan Harper for a little bit here? Let’s take a look at these numbers here real quick. These are onoff numbers. Now, okay, to your point, I didn’t know I didn’t know about this graphic. So, right. You said they did work when Wendy was off the floor. Man, did they do some work. Okay, let’s just say 156.3. That’d be a record. Let’s just leave it at that. All right. Still [Music]

On NBA Today, Ramona Shelburne, Marc J. Spears and Bobby Marks react to the Los Angeles Lakers’ win over the Miami Heat and Victor Wembanyama’s 9-point game against the Phoenix Suns.

0:00 Reaction to Lakers’ win vs. Heat
3:39 When LeBron James returns
5:37 Wemby’s performance vs. Suns

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