Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz examine the vibe around the Los Angeles Lakers after Luka Doncic’s historic 60-point game vs the Heat. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.
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Video Transcript
Oh, what a night for Luka.
Good God, 60-point night, the most by a Laker since Kobe’s farewell game in 2016.
I mean, LeBron adds a triple-double on a night that he ties Robert Parish’s record for games played.
but we’re gonna go through the Lakers and several teams now with our very scientific vibe index.
This is where we try and decide what the vibes are for different teams across the league.
We are gonna start with the Lakers.
My God, what, what’s, what are the vibes to you right now in LA, Carolyn?
I mean, what How do you describe the best possible vibes that you could ever even think of and could ever possibly conceive?
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Like, the vibes are not even just at a 10 out of 10.
The vibes are 11 out of 10.
The vibes are sky high.
The vibes are, “Who can stop us?”
The vibes are, “Oh, oh, you counted us out?”
I mean, when you’re on an eight-game winning streak and Luka drops 60 on a game after he dropped 40, whenever you have LeBron looking reminiscent of peak LeBron, even at 41 years old, when you have Austin Reaves doing Austin Reaves things.
Like, everything that gave us confidence at the beginning of the season that the Lakers could be a championship team are all coming to fruition.
Now, it was easy and I think fair to pivot from that thought because the Lakers were losing.
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You know, were losing games they weren’t supposed to lose.
They were only beating up on the bad teams.
They couldn’t stop a nosebleed.
But now all of the pieces are fitting together.
Now, I still don’t view the Lakers as a legitimate championship contender out of the West.
I’m gonna have to change my mind at some point if they continue to put up gaudy numbers like this, but if you’re a Laker fan, the vibes are absolutely sky high, and they should be.
Yeah, look, the, the vibes in LA are higher than I am at 8:00 PM on a Friday night.
Like, yeah, look, this thing is absolutely wild.
Word.
it is incredible to watch.
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It is incredible to see.
There’s a joy to what they’re doing right now, and Luka talked about it afterwards, everybody celebrating him, and that’s what great teams do.
They celebrate each other’s success, and it was fun just to watch everybody sort of take the move, get out the way approach with Luka and the way he was running the offense last night.
It was like, “Hey, Luka is going He’s hot.
Let’s let him be hot.
Let’s let him do the damn thing.”
It was electric to see, and Luka continues to remind us that he is Luka.
Like, I, I don’t wanna oversimplify here, but even afterwards, I think JJ Redick was the one that mentioned, you know, lightly the MVP candidacy.
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I don’t know whether Luka’s an MVP, but I do know this: Luka’s one of the best players in the NBA.
We all know that.
And d- while it hasn’t looked right for much of the year, over the course of the last couple weeks, it has.
And yes, you’re right.
Like, we’ve been really, really slow to turn the yacht around and make it a supporting of the Lakers as being upper echelon.
But man, when you watch what they did last night over and over and over again, you just gotta think, “Man, th- this is getting tougher and tougher to ignore.”
The, the Lakers might only be three deep, and I’m not sure you can win with a big three in the modern NBA, but man, they are trying to prove me wrong every single night.