Which former Lakers do you miss the most?

The premise of “I Love Basketball” is to enjoy Lakers basketball, but the present iteration of the team has made that seemingly simple tasks very, very challenging for your hosts Raj Chipalu and Sabreena Merchant. That’s why, for the third episode in a row, Raj and Sabreena are dipping into the recent nostalgia well. This week, they decided to draft Lakers who left during the 2020 and 2021 offseasons based on which ones they’d want on this year’s squad.

Yes, there are still 13 games left to play.

But before they get to the fun stuff, there’s business to take care of. Raj’s rewatch gave him some questions about Russell Westbrook’s role in the Lakers offense, so the two hosts started by discussing why the Lakers haven’t figured out what to do with Russ nearly 70 games into the season. They also get into the functional roster construction issues that have reared their ugly head in recent losses, in particular against the Raptors.

They then discussed the declining attendance numbers for the Lakers this season, and whether that means the fans have already given up on this current iteration of the team. Finally, they wrapped up with a discussion about where the pride has gone for these Lakers, and if it ever even existed at all for this group.

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.

You can follow Raj on Twitter at @RajChipalu, and Sabreena at @sabreenajm. 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.