Podcast: Are the Lakers fully utilizing their young core?

The Los Angeles Lakers haven’t played a game in what feels like forever (they’ve been off three days) so the cupboard was pretty barren in regards to topics on today’s show. The good news was: It gave us the excuse and some time to open up the mailbag and let Pete answer some of your questions.

We start with the young core, and whether they are being used correctly. To answer the question plainly, no, they are not. But it’s for a very good reason. LeBron James should be the top priority as the Lakers design their style of play, and while James obviously has to help make everyone better, it’s also on his teammates to figure out ways to fit around him.

Pete explained this really well, and I added to it a larger point about sacrifice in the context of playing for a winning team. We then took a more general conversation and applied it more specifically to a couple guys: Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram.

Ingram showcased how successfully he could manage a team in Sunday’s impressive win. Lonzo has also shown flashes of his own potential in this regard, but it’s about how willing they’ll be to sacrifice for the betterment of the team that will probably determine how successful the Lakers will be throughout their careers.

We spoke a bit about a specific way Lonzo might take the next step forward: Utilizing his positional size on offense a little more than he has previously. The Lakers are actually doing this a little more of late, as Pete will explain.

We wrap up the show by talking about the Anthony Davis situation, and where we think it’ll go. Pete and I actually kind of disagree on that front, so that makes for an interesting conversation. Listen to the full discussion below and make sure to subscribe on iTunes to catch every episode.

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