Media Day Incoming: Pelinka Talks Luka, ESPN Ranks Lakers 8th & Horry’s Reaves Take

Media Day Incoming: Pelinka Talks Luka, ESPN Ranks Lakers 8th & Horry’s Reaves Take

Hello and welcome to the Lake Show podcast. It’s our weekly deep dive into the biggest stories and news surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers. Ally, Chris, Mike. Chris, I’m Mike. Easy Mike Brettan. All Clifton. Good start. Great start. Very succinct. I think it’s fun challenging myself to remember your name. Yeah, it’s tough while you’re still big time now. How we doing? How we feel? It’s great. Feel good. Time’s ticking. Oh my god. Clock is We’re in the We’re deep in the fourth quarter of our off seasonason right now. Like we we’re in the two-minute drill. We are We are heading into season quickly. Media day is right around the corner. A week from today. Wow. Media day. Yes. Yep. Monday the 29th at 11 a.m. Live. Two hours. Two hours. Now, when do you two get together? because you’re always on the desk with Worthy and and Laker players. I’m always about like behind the curtain off off on my own thing, kind of talking to some of the second stringers and and new guys and stuff like that. When do you start crafting your questions? We actually talked about that today out at our desks about getting together this week and uh starting to, you know, formulate our questions and kind of the path we want to take it. You know, we don’t we don’t get together with James. James shows up that day and we let the big fella take it where he wants to go, but we work around that. I feel like at this part though, at this point, we have realized like, okay, he’s going to jump in here and he’s probably going to go here where in years past, that’s kind of for me, I’m like, plus here’s the thing, Brett. We get all these questions ready to go and the time goes so quickly and you don’t get to half of them, it makes you a little bit sad because you worked on it, you think they’re good questions, and then it goes somewhere and we’re having fun and next thing you know, that’s five minutes later. And LeBron especially, you always have like a lot of LeBron stuff. You don’t get too much of it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you must have like, you know, x number of questions for every player. Some players you just don’t get them. Sorry. Because you’re having too much fun. Or they take a question and they run with it or James jumps in and has something crazy to ask them, something fun to ask them. And you know, you got you got to prepare for the the uh the unpreparable. And last year, you had the huge viral moment on the desk at media day. The two of you and James got LeBron and Bronny. That was big. Big interview, father, son. Really the first time those two spoke together publicly. Y, it was awesome. And you know what LeBron always says? I don’t know if he’s just saying it to make us feel good, but he always says, uh, this the best part of me day. Yeah. He’s not excited to go to the rest of it, which always makes us, and he’s not afraid to say he’s not excited to go to the rest of it, which is really fun, especially 23 seasons in. That is the plus and minus though that comes with the preparation, only using 10% of it. But I would I would prepare my tail off and only use 10% then go into a situation unprepared. Oo, I don’t want that. Oh yeah. Now Dorthy can pull it off. James He’s just naturally glib. He’s And they all want to talk to James, of course. Yeah. He He’s like the celebrity beyond any other current Laker. He He’s like the guy that people want to talk to at media day. I mean, it’s amazing. That guy, he doesn’t need any preparation. Before we dive into all the fun Laker stuff, how was Jib summer camp 2025? Well, I’m learning. Did you learn anything? Yeah, today is the uh first day of summer, excuse me, the first day of fall. Summer is over and uh yeah, we had a little thing called Jib Summer Camp and Nacho and Brent and uh Justin, you know, a couple of us went down to uh San Diego for about a week and a half, spent a lot of the the company money, and uh it was great. Learned how to use cameras, and I give a I gave a few pointers to to Justin. The jib is the big camera that swings around just for those Yeah. gives you that sweeping look and it’s important for all of us to know what what everyone else does here. Yeah. You know, we we talked to Steph about her job and we talked to AJ about his job and you know, so we started jib summer camp this year and um a week and a half. Week and I think that was that was totally authentic Frontier Gibberish. That was an amazing babble right there. That was awesome. And if you didn’t know, now you know. Yeah, these shirts were created just for nonsensical purpose cuz Peter and I were always joking about, “Hey camera guys, you going to go to Jib summer camp?” And uh there was no such thing. And Spectrum higherups who are listening to this, don’t worry, we did not have a week and a half excursion on your time. Although I’m still waiting for my lying, everybody. All right, let’s get into it. Good talk. Coming off Eurob Basket, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka really loved what he saw from Luca Dodge. Josh Pika told Dave McMenan of ESPN, quote, “Lucas play in Eurob Basket made it clear to the entire basketball world that he’s on that incredibly short list of best player on the planet candidates if not at the top.” Which is a uh very profound quote. ESPN dropped their NBA future power rankings for each franchise. Um, and we’re going to get to that in a second because I think I want to first touch on that quote and then I’ll kind of bring this in at the backside. I think it’s great for the Laker organization to have a player that everyone considers to be at the top of his game and still considered one of the greatest players on the planet and a top two candidate for MVP, top three, whatever. And uh also the relationship that the Lakers have with Luca has been a big part of this summer. The synergy on being on the same page. Um Luca being very appreciative of the Lake organization and how they handled it. The fans, his teammates, he wants to be here. He is now living here and he’s all in. I think that’s a big part of it. Um and the Laker brass going out to Poland to watch him play. Uh proves that point. But yeah, when when you get to Luca, like we all know Luca is one of the best players in the NBA, but when you miss all those games last year, you get traded, you come into a new situation, you lose in the first round of the playoffs, you weren’t really healthy, even though he had good numbers, he wasn’t himself. Um, he had great moments in a Laker uniform, but to have a great off seasonason, play for Slovenia, uh, the work that he did on his body, his conditioning, the, uh, the way he feels coming in, the positivity around him, and the way he feels, how confident he is coming into this year, Brez, to me, that’s everything when I’m talking about a top player in in the league. the fact that he feels great and he’s ready and he’s ready to lead, it’s great for Laker fans because you can start to think about the future like this guy is our guy. When the Laker brass said, you know, let’s all hang out in Warsaw for for a a few days or I’m not entirely sure where it was in Poland, but that’s a big deal, Ally. That is not Hey, let’s let’s go uh let’s go to Vegas and support them in the preseason game. We’re going to go to Eastern Europe for for for a little while. Um that that’s a huge deal and I think that set the table for what is going to be a really good relationship and of course Luca, you know, promoted that relationship by signing on the dotted line for three more years on his contract. He’s going to be here for a while. So I I just sense really good vibes between the Lakers, between Luca. Um everyone’s doing the right thing. You know, it’s it’s it’s been impressive so far. It really has been. I think a reflection of this on the big picture scale. Um you mentioned he’s one of the best players in the league. So, when you look at it from this standpoint, from a team perspective, I just kind of got into it. ESPN dropped their NBA future power rankings for each franchise. And here’s a look at the top 10. If you remember entering last season, the Lakers, they fell out of the top 10, dropping 11 spots to number 21, which was the worst ranking since LeBron joined the franchise in 2018. This season, ESPN ranked them eighth. The considerable jump is largely because of the trade for Luca and then extending him in August. Listen, I don’t always agree with those rankings, but the fact that they dropped the Lakers to 21 was fair when you looked at where they were considering LeBron and AD. LeBron especially, you know, wherever how many years he has left getting up there in age, even though he is still one of those guys in the league that dictates how it’s played, he’s still one of the best players in the world. AD as well, like but they they were like, what is what is that with the futures? what’s happening past that and now you have your centerpiece, you have your face of the franchise, you have your future star. So that jump from 21 to8 is warranted to me. Yeah. To me, it’s the okay, what what is future power rankings? You know, first of all, how young is your team and how good is your team? And when you go from AD, a very gifted player in his own right and a champion who’s who’s 32 now. When you go from him to a guy who’s 26 in Luca Donuch, you’re picking up six years in in uh in youth. And you know, and some people obviously a lot of people are saying Luca is the more complete player than Anthony Davis. So yeah, so you get a player who’s to me is is indeed, you know, a neck ahead of AD and six years younger. Boom. That’s going to help your ratings overnight. Um, what the Lakers don’t have is a lot of like young first round players, first round talent. Why? Because they jettison a lot of their first round picks in trades. So, you know, we’ll see how that goes over the next few years, but it’s not like they have a great lottery pick or two great lottery picks who who that’s going to help out these future franchise power rankings. I truly am just like to kind of put a bow on this um kind of conversation around Luca because we’ve talked about it all summer long and rightfully so, but I’m just kind of excited to see yes, we get to cover him every single night being a part of the Lakers, but I think this clean slate is like almost bigger than just Luca and the Lakers. It’s big for him on so many levels that I kind of am excited just to see it all come to fruition for him. Listen, you’ve moved from where you grew up. I’ve lived here my whole life. I don’t ever want to leave home. Y if I was to move because I had to or I was forced to. I don’t know how I would feel. Right. But we’ve seen it in life so many times where someone makes a move in their life, whether it’s in their careers, which I’ve done that before, whether it’s location, and it’s this whole, you know, you’re rejuvenated. It’s it’s refreshing. It could be the second part of your life, the journey continues, all that stuff. So, in sports, it’s the same exact thing. I mean, a fresh look, a fresh start without whatever you want to call it, memories and baggage, all that stuff to come with it. It can be great memories, but a fresh start is so valuable, and it’s rare that you get it in your prime. Yeah. And Luca, it’s starting to come out a little bit more the more you talk to him. Came out a little bit on the day that he signed his extension in early August. He’s starting to be pretty realistic about his initial feelings. And and hey, you get ripped out of Dallas, spending almost a decade there, you’re in LA, and it’s not fun. It’s not easy. The NBA, in fact, has a plan in place where if you’re traded, they pay for a hotel for you, I think it’s two months, so you can just kind of get your bearings. That that’s any team, any trade. All right. Thanks NBA for doing that. Um, it’s not exactly a Motel six either, if you know what I’m saying. But the transition is tough and and the more interviews Luke has done over the last month or two, the more he’s kind of letting out a little bit more and more. Yeah, I was shocked. I was stunned. Like I I felt like a fish out of water. You’re not at your house anymore. Yeah, 100%. Family, whatever you And G, we’ve talked a lot about Luca coming off the injury. He hadn’t played in a couple months by the time he did come and play for the Lakers. And now now you’re starting to hear a little bit from him about the mental side of it. Did we didn’t get the complete Luca physical guy because he missed a third of the season or more than a third of the season and he’s starting to kind of leave little clues. We might not have get gotten we might not have received that’s a little better grammar the full Luca mental Luca uh because he was so what is happening? A lot of things coming at me so quickly. So I’m eager to see him a physical peak and b mental peak. He he looks and sounds a lot more settled in now. Yep. Good stuff. Good insight there. um transitioning guys to a running mate of his. Reeves is set to enter his fifth season with the potential to hit unrestricted free agency for the first time next summer. Our friend and former Laker Robert Aie believes the Lakers should trade Austin Reeves. Listen in. If the Lakers were smart, they would do a sign and trade. Okay? And the reason I say that is because when you have a team with two players who are pretty much the same, meaning Luca and AR, and I’m not saying they have the same skill set, they play the same position. They pretty much do the same thing. It’s a wash. And this is me being GMBB. I know, and don’t get me wrong, I love AR and I think he could play, but you don’t need two of the same players. This of course uh done on his podcast, Big Shot Bob. What’s your reaction, your thoughts to his suggestion? Who wants to weigh in first? You It’s always fun to listen to Rob and he’s he’s one of my favorites. Kidding. Totally kidding. Rob, we love Rob. He’s one of my favorites on on our shows. Um yeah, I see what he’s saying. Look, Austin Reeves is an expiring contract. He’s already made it clear he’s going to be opting out next uh June. So, you know, I do I think he’s going to be gone? No. I I think that he’s probably there’s probably a 20% chance he’s not back with the Lakers, as in he signs with someone else. So Rob’s saying, “Hey, um Rob didn’t say this part. I’m saying, you know, the Lakers might need to say he’s an expiring contract. Let’s, you know, what can we do with him now in case we don’t want in case we don’t bring him back because he will be unrestricted, GE, anyone can jump in and and take a crack at it.” Um Rob saying duplicity a little bit, which is interesting. Um yeah, I get a little bit. He’s basically saying two highly powered offensive guards and maybe he’s thinking maybe get someone who doesn’t score as much but plays a little more defense like a Drew Holiday a few years back perhaps. You know, for me like listen I I I get what Rob’s saying. The future as LeBron has told us in the podcast that he just went on like it’s coming. Retirement I’m not I’m not ready for yet but it is coming. So the Lakers have to look at that and I think where LeBron goes and what he does and does he play another year with the Lakers? retiring kind of matters a lot in in their future right landscape. But to me, I I would debate, Rob, that Austin’s a big part of those plans. Uh I think in this day and age in the NBA, you need multiple ball handlers. You need multiple playmakers. You need a guy like AR, homegrown guy who the crowd loves, who’s a great team guy who fits alongside Luca. I listen and he’s also one of my favorite players, Rob. So I he’s he’s staying. He’s staying. He’s staying. Good thought. Good. I get what Rob is saying. But my I would also debate that I don’t think you can get val equal value back. It’s going to be hard or like if you’re going to trade someone like Austin Ree, I want, you know, I I want examples of of who you’re trading him for. And and then I can look at it and say, “Okay, that makes sense because of the pieces and the fits.” But I don’t know, man. To have someone like Austin Reeves on your team is is very valuable to me. Yeah, it it’s going to be really hard. You know, if the Lakers do decide this is the the avenue they want to go, a lot of people will be sad. But sometimes franchises if they want to keep appearing in the future franchise rankings, you you do need to make smart basketball moves and and if it’s kind of if they’re getting kind of back channels, maybe Austin really wants to explore free agency. Um not that a ton of teams have cap space, so that’s good. It’s not like, you know, there’s 20 teams with 40 million in cap space. That just doesn’t happen year to year anymore in the NBA. there might be five or six teams that have enough cap space to sign just just off top of my head have enough uh space to sign Austin. Another reason why personally I think he’s back uh for next season uh with the Lakers. That decision is quickly approaching, so only time will tell. Someone else who’s pretty valuable, LeBron James. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a member of the 20 2008, excuse me, US men’s national team, the redeem team. He’s the first active player to achieve this while still playing, of course, as well as Chris Paul. Um, you guys know how crazy it is 17 years later that LeBron is still considered one of the best players in the league. So, just for Yes. Yes. Yes. Ridiculous. No, it’s just nuts. It’s It’s nuts. I mean, 2008. Yeah. That was so long ago. Go with what’s coming next cuz this is No, I’m just going to bring you some fun trends that happened. Yeah, that’s what I mean. Oh, you want Yeah, I cuz this is how long ago it was. Some people will be saying that are listening, what what does that even mean? Right. The release of the movie Twilight. Twilight one. This was a popular trend in 2008. Uh, rise of pop stars like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry. Getting going. I thought she’s always been since she came out of the womb, but whatever. Growing popularity of MySpace and Facebook people like say, “Oh my god, that reminds me of MySpace. Makes you feel so old.” Most Google the guy Tom was always your friend on MySpace when you signed up for it. That Tom. Tom, he was always Googling YouTube. That was the people try to fail. Literally the thing that I hang on to the most right now is YouTube. I couldn’t imagine the fact that it didn’t exist. Or were they doing a Yahoo search for YouTube? Because remember Yahoo was bigger than Google for for a minute. Alli had an AOL account in 2000. Never never had an AOL. I had a hot mail Earth. I had Hotmail. Um and then the election of Barack Obama. Yes, I remember that uh fondly. Yeah. Yeah. That’s crazy. More on LeBron. We’re not done. He is entering an unprecedented campaign being the first player in NBA history to play 23 seasons. And as you may have heard, he’s taken up a new hobby. It’s called golf. Um, and apparently he’s pretty addicted. Many have thought that’s a sign of him preparing for retirement. Um, here’s what he had to say about before we get into the golf swing. Sorry. I’m not hinting at anything. I mean, obviously I know I’m on the other side of that hump. The hump for sure. They’re like, come on now. Like I’m not I’m not about to play another 23 years. That’s for damn sure. and I’m not about to play another 10. So, I’m definitely gearing up to where the end is. I’m not there yet, but I’m super blessed to be able to, you know, sit here. Like I said, you said year 23, another signature shoe. I picked up golf. Listen, guys, every time I pick up something new does not mean retirement. It’s like, oh, I see with chopsticks. Oh, he’s retiring. Oh, I see you wear a t-shirt that’s too big. Oh, retirement. Oh, he picked up golf retirement. It’s like it’s just something I want to do. It’s just a little hobby. Just a little hobby. Competitive juices. And it’s something that is tough to play. And it is very addicting because we can see yourself getting a little bit better. You make that great shot once around. It brings you back. And uh by the way, his swing, it has gotten a lot better. And I can’t wait for James to break it down on media day. Maybe he took some tips from his son because Bronny swing, Bronny swing is buttery. And I want to bring that up to LeBron like, “Yo, man, what’s going on?” I know you’re the greatest basketball player, Bronny. Ronnie’s number one in the family in golf. Sorry, but LeBron’s getting better. I I could tell. I haven’t been invited to play with him yet, but I could tell by those swings right there because I watched the early and I watched that. Yeah. And I I’m I’m sorry, but are people actually reading into this saying, “Oh, he’s going to retire because of golf.” I mean, I’ve been doing that for seven years. I wore a LeBron jersey from 2006. I remember this on July 4th this year and I was a part of a trend on Twitter that he was returning to Cleveland because he seconded it. Yeah. And he he said he said something like, “You know what?” Yeah. Like Yeah. She’s got the answer. She’s got Yeah. He likes that her and her brother wore Cavs jersey for Jersey day on July 4th. A theme that I created. By the way, the Cavs are my hometown. She’s from there. Yeah. No, that doesn’t mean he’s retiring. Oh man. Not to mention I’m not going to know before anyone. So, no. Keep going. By the way, if you actually look up Savannah had a really good swing, so maybe Bronny gets a swing from his mama and we’re going to talk about that on media day. L show fans, we got to go to break. Remember, you can be part of the show each week. Feel free to send us your questions and comments. We’d love to hear from you. We’re taking a quick break. What if you identified LeBron as a sci-fi thriller when he stepped on the court? We’re breaking down which movie genre fits each Laker. Might get wild. That That’s next. Child’s Play. Welcome back to Lake Show podcast. If you’re enjoying the show, you can check out more original podcast Spectrum News journalists in the Spectrum News app. Just head to the podcast section to listen to the latest episodes. You can download the Spectrum News app on the App Store or Google Play. All right, this is fun. Time for if the Lakers were series. This category for this episode is movie genres. If you’ve been following along at all, you realize that why would I be given this? Because I’m the host and I don’t have to comment on it. If the Lakers were movie genres, who would each one be? Let’s start with Wilt Chamberlain. I’m going to go bre with romcom, short for romance comedy. I knew Wilt later in his days. He would sit and play cards while we were all playing beach volleyball in my 20s. He showed up to one of my best friends 20 21st birthday party. He was funny. He was engaging and Wilt loved the ladies and the ladies loved Will. Rom. That’s It’s tough to match that. I’m going to go with martial arts because because he was a huge martial arts fan. Um I’m not going to mess with him period. even if you only had a white belt. But he’s a guy that uh woo we I I uh I was always a huge fan of his uh his his his martial arts guys. Moving on. Jerry West. Jerry West for me is a western. Uh Brez, I’m thinking Outlaw Josie Wales. Just one of those old school westerns where he was just a bad man. Just smooth, just drizzled. I wonder if he and Clint Eastwood ever went out for some whiskey. I don’t know. I’d like to be a part of that. from West Virginia. I’m going to go history. Uh good history uh story here. The logo, that’s all you need to know. He is the NBA logo. Unofficially, no one’s ever uh no one’s ever said that, but uh just a good historical context. Jerry West, George, I’m going to go silent movie. I’m going to go the old days, black and white, because that’s the only videos I’ve ever seen is just him just dominating like the Charlie Chaplan films. That’s that’s what I remember from George Mike, just black and white videos of him just working people, getting buckets, getting five titles. Yeah, I’m going to go with this is a nice period piece. It’s going to be the black and white video. It’s kind of like, all right, so that’s how it was back in the day. Um, I mean, what a dominating player. And one of my favorite covers ever. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we had Shaq, Kareem, and George Mike on the cover of Sports Illustrated not long after Shaq became a Laker in uh in 1996. I would have failed at all of these. Michael Cooper, flatout comedy. Yeah, he’s a comedy. You’ve all been here with him. Yeah, it’s not even a question. I’m not even sure you can go with anything else, Brett. Did you? Um I I think I now comedy I think I save comedy for a little bit later. Oh, okay. Um what did I do for Coupe? Um Oh yeah, animation. Same thing. I mean the guy is just like good one. I mean the guy he he’s so funny. He should be in like the Simpsons or uh South Park or something like that. I love South Park. That’s amazing. Uh Michael Thompson. It’s for me it’s it’s the history. its historical genre because if you ever listen to MT on the radio or if you follow Champagne Nuts on on Twitter, he just is always throwing out facts and stuff about things and every single thing that’s ever happened in history. It’s pretty amazing. He does make you think. Comedy. He’s one of the funniest interviews you’ll ever have and if you listen to him on his radio show like we all do, just cracks me up. Always always fun around Laker games, too. And on the rare chance, we’re on the team flight. He’s also uh he’s got kind of cracking people up where he sits. Phil Jackson, I am actually excited to hear what Brez is going to say about Phil because that’s his guy and they’ve known each other for so long. For me, Brez, I just kept thinking about spy thriller. Like, I just feel like uh you know, he’s just figuring things out and all that kind of stuff, you know. I actually went western with him. I mean, he went to school in North Dakota. He’s from Montana. Still got a place in Montana. Kind of a cool hand Luke kind of guy. Never let anything bother him. Um, have no idea if he can shoot a gun or not. Don’t really care. But I I feel like that worked for him. Rick Fox, come on. Pretty Ricky romance. You’re that handsome. Easy easy done. Easy done. I mean, he’s actually the only guy who is an actual actor on anyone we’ve talked about or will talk about. To me, he can do whatever he wants. I mean, he is he is an actor and an athlete. Sometimes an actor, a little bit more than an athlete based on what he’s done since his career was over. Andrew Bayham. I went fantasy because I just don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Like I loved him as a player, but it was always tough to figure out sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. I think I did that, too. I mean, he’s one of my favorite players ever. His nickname was socks. Yeah. Why socks, Ally? Because he wore his socks in the shower. Yeah. After games. And players are like, “Why are you wearing socks?” What’s that? We got to go fast now. Kobe Riot. Epic. Because when there’s an epic genre is like when the biggest movies ever come out. That that’s that’s Kobe. Budget everything. Yeah. Yeah. For me, it’s drama. Like Kobe, you know, it’s it’s like what what’s what shot is he going to do? You know, what what uh what what crushing team is is is going to be heartbroken because of his antics and his his onc court uh mantras. JJ Reic. JJ J Re was science fiction progress forward thinking. Like it romance. He’s still getting the Lakers. Ry I went with um animation for me with his dog. Oh yeah. Yeah. I like that. Marus went action. Marcus Smart action. We’ll see you next week.

Less than a month left before Lakers basketball tips off. On this week’s episode Rob Pelinka has high compliments for the new face of the franchise. Plus, with Luka’s extension signing in August, the Lakers have jumped several spots up the ranking board – as the franchise’s future looks promising. Allie Clifton, Chris McGee, and Mike Bresnahan discuss Lebron James preparing to enter his 23rd NBA season. Former Laker Robert Horry weighs in on Austin Reaves with a hot take of his own. Plus the crew plays a little “If the Lakers were” series. Catch all the Lakers action this season on Spectrum SportsNet+ with the NBA app when you add Spectrum Internet and at least one Mobile line. Plus, get a free Xumo Stream Box for six months! This offer is a slam dunk(total value of $194.99). Learn more: spectrum.com/getlakers
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*About the Show*
Want to know everything happening day in and day out with the World Champion Los Angeles Lakers? Spectrum SportsNet’s Lakers hosts Allie Clifton and Chris McGee, along with Lakers Insider, Mike Bresnahan, have covered the team for a combined 30+ years and give you all the details on the Lakeshow podcast. Our hosts bring you an entertaining weekly discussion about all things purple and gold. Stay on top of the latest Lakers news, hear in-depth conversations about the latest team stories, and get your questions answered by our hosts every week, only on the Lakeshow podcast!

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