Podcast: How will the Lakers fill out the rest of their roster?

This week, in the relaunching of “I Love Basketball,” Sabreena announced that I would be joining her on a weekly basis — at least until either Avery learns how to speak or literally anyone else becomes available.

From that exciting news, we turned out attention to the Los Angeles Lakers roster as it currently stands, and what to take from the reports that Marc Gasol and Alex Caruso were somehow going to be salary dumped to the Minnesota Timberwolves even though the cap machinations in play wouldn’t make any sense.

Still, if we are to believe those reports, it struck both Sabreena and I odd that the Lakers would entertain this in the first place given the important roles both Gasol and Caruso have played, either in spurts in Gasol’s case or consistently in Caruso’s.

No matter what you think of Caruso the player, that the Lakers undervalued him after years of watching his impact up close and weren’t willing to pay the luxury taxes necessary to keep up with the Brooklyn Nets, Golden State Warriors or even crosstown Clippers is quite the indictment of the organization.

Even beyond that, this was also a missed opportunity from the Lakers to flip a player who obviously held value across the league for some kind of asset either now in a sign & trade or later on in the season once he is eligible to be traded if they were so intent on not keeping him.

Luxury taxes also came up as Sabreena and I shared our frustration that literally anyone at all would care about how much it costs Jeanie Buss to own the team. Sure, she isn’t as wealthy as some of the other owners across the NBA and no, she doesn’t have income streams from anything other than the Lakers, but at the end of the day, all fans should really care about is that she is willing to make the financial commitment necessary to compete with other owners even if they have deeper pockets.

We also had some fun with the team the Lakers sent up to the California Classic, including some analysis on Caruso heir apparent Mac MacClung.

You can listen to 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. Follow Sabreena at @sabreenajm.