How nervous should potential playoff teams feel about a matchup with LeBron James, Anthony Davis?

Heading into the final 10 games or so of this brutal Lakers season, optimism is somewhat on the rise for what they might be capable of in the play-in and maybe even postseason. In some corners, that is.

This week on “The Hook,” Aaron Larsuel couldn’t quite come to an agreement on how teams atop the Western Conference should feel about the Lakers potentially moving on from the play-in for a matchup against, in all likelihood, the perpetually disrespected Phoenix Suns.

Speaking of those Suns, Aaron and I actually started the episode with a conversation about Devin Booker apparently demanding flowers for... well on that front we’re just not quite sure. They had a good run last year that involved some incredible injury luck, but got boat raced when they played a somewhat intact team.

To Booker: Of course people are somewhat skeptical of your team. It came out of nowhere, now looks legit, and people want to see how things play out in the postseason against healthier opponents.

You want flowers? Earn them the same way every other team has.

After that, we also spent some time also discussing player/fan interactions of late and what the league might have to do about it. Finally, after a brief recap of where things stand for the nine and 10 spots, Aaron and I had it out about how opposing teams should feel about the Lakers. He thought teams should want to face better opponents that don’t have LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the rosters. I, well, disagreed.

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.