Is there anything Russell Westbrook can do that would make fans OK with the Lakers running it back next season?

Literal minutes after Harrison Faigen and I recorded the first iteration of this week’s “Lakers Lounge,” news dropped that Anthony Davis is dealing with a mid-foot sprain and will be reevaluated in four weeks. Seeing as the first 20 minutes of said episode were originally Harrison and I reacting to the lack of news, we had to re-record.

(Full disclosure: I also realized in those five minutes or so that my mic was not on for the first iteration of the episode but the content was too good to try and re-record the second half. Apologies for how that might sound.)

Davis is set to miss at least a month until he’s reevaluated, and, to be absolutely clear, that by no means whatsoever is reason to believe he’ll be back at that time. So if/when we find out it might take longer than these four weeks, please keep those “street clothes” tweets in the drafts.

What this news did do was ignite a bit of a rant from me on how the Lakers wasted the first part of this season with poor rotation management. They have operated under the assumption they have the margin for error to mess around, but it’s become crystal clear these last two seasons they can’t. The hope is they learn that from this season so as not to make the same mistakes next year.

In the second half of the show, Harrison and I tried to find a scenario in which we’d be okay with the Lakers sticking with the core of Russell Westbrook, LeBron James and Davis. As you might expect, Harrison approached this with a little more nuance, as I pretty much outright decline even the hypothetical.

The back-and-forth on the subject is interesting and leads to a few other flaws of the Lakers organization that have been brought into the light this year.

Oh, and to wrap things up, Harrison detailed how he hurt his tooth and it led to legitimate hilarity that might get him in a bit of trouble at home.

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.