Podcast: Will Talen Horton-Tucker finish this season on the Lakers?

The Los Angeles Lakers find themselves in a brutal spot, and they clearly need to do something about a roster that now sits two games below .500 with multiple weeks ahead of them before Anthony Davis returns. On the other hand, they also don’t have enough data to fully judge this roster because of injuries and COVID protocol absences.

Hell, their current five-game losing streak has all taken place with Frank Vogel in quarantine, so even a decision on that front is almost impossible to make seeing as one candidate to theoretically replace him (David Fizdale) hasn’t exactly set the world on fire with his decisions in the interim, even given lowered expectations with Davis out.

So, with all that framing for a really fun conversation, I welcomed Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report to discuss all the noise he’s hearing about the Lakers’ current predicament, and how they might handle it moving forward.

We started with the random noise that all of a sudden flared up following a disastrous Christmas Day showing from Russell Westbrook. A popular trade that was thrown out there a couple times was Westbrook for John Wall. Per Fischer, everyone might want to close the trade machine for a bit on that front.

We then zoomed out to discuss a interesting development across the league: Trade chatter has severely dissipated, given how many front offices are currently scrambling to field a playable roster with multiple hardship contracts.

Still, the Lakers have a lot of work to do, so Jake and I zoomed back in on any potential deals the Lakers might make, and whether Talen Horton-Tucker in particular will finish this season on this roster.

Finally, given how complicated trades can be — and yet how badly the front office needs to appear to be doing something about this situation — we looked at Vogel; who, before contracting COVID, was hearing his name in the news cycle more often than he probably would’ve liked. Interestingly enough, though, this five-game slide might actually help him keep his job.

You can listen to all those discussions and more on the full episode below, and to make sure you never miss a show, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.

And for a short-form recap pod, check out Lakers Lowdown, in which Anthony Irwin recaps the previous day’s news and gets you ready for the day ahead in LakerLand, every weekday morning on the Silver Screen & Roll Podcast feed.