 What's the word, y'all? NBA free agency is cool down. We like a smooth foe fad days and to it. Majority of the cap space is dried up. And the only big dominoes we have to wait for is James Sardis potential trade and Damien Lillis potential trade. But all the other signings are kind of done. We do got some restricted dudes like PJ Washington and Grant Williams, some unrestricted dudes like Kelly Ubrea or Christian Wood. I mentioned day one of phrase. He had no idea what Christian Wood's value is, but now that there's not a lot of money to go around, I think we kind of seeing that. And now we've got the transition to Summer League. I guess Summer League is already going on in California and in Utah, but everybody know Vegas is where it's at. Speaking of that, me and my boys doing a live show July 9th, the link will be in the description, completely free. If you wanna come watch us do a live podcast, we will have some NBA talent on set with us. Just a matter of how many people we already got. We know for sure we got one guarantee, but there could be multiple. So if you're gonna be in there for Summer League, it is the ninth at nighttime. So you can go watch games in the morning or in the afternoon and then slide over to the venue, completely free, link is in the description. I'm trying to look at free agency and a couple different lenses and we gonna make a bunch of videos talking about a bunch of different teams that made moves. What bad teams got into the good team tier? What good teams turned themselves into a contender? And what contender turned themselves into, they might be the favorite to be. And then you also got the opposite of that, a team that traded everything away and blew it up, but we haven't got any of that this off season. When you really think about it, like now that the Rockets spent all their money, we gonna make a video about the Rockets. What teams do you think are actively trying to be bad? It's not a lot of them. Like all 10 of the teams that made the play-in last season out East are still gonna try to contain whether they should or not. I'm looking at you, the Chicago Bulls. The Pacers got better. The Magic are gonna be better just by having another year under their belt. They weren't really super players in free agency. Wizards are the only team to probably take a step back, but like the Pistons made some adjustments and now they got shooting around K Cunningham. There's not teams out there that I look at and say, hey, that team is gonna 100% be off through this season. And that's just good football. I'm saying all of this to say that the LA Lakers went from a team that I saw as contender throughout the course of last season, and they had probably the best off season of any team. Maybe that's hyperbolic, but I'm just saying if I were to grade the Lakers off season so far, it would be like an A to A plus. Like they took this team that found its identity towards the second half of the season, brought back the important pieces and then brought in some more pieces to make this team mesh well. Obviously, the biggest thing that's gonna determine whether or not the Lakers are a championship team is the health of Braun and Anthony Davis, but they got the exterior things right. And Robin Lincoln spent the first half of last season getting punched in the face by all of us NBA fans who's waiting for him to make a move. He made the D'Angelo Ross, Sujira Vendor, Malik Beasley move. He made the Rui Hachimura move and most of those moves that turned out to now be long-term plays because Rui Hachimura went from a dude that you traded a second round pick for to being an actual player for your team and the playoffs, he was incredible. D'Angelo Russell, not so much of the playoffs stuff, but he was a very critical part to the turnaround, especially in the regular season. And he brought those moves back, Malik Beasley been in the play, didn't play in the playoffs, so you feel cool letting him walk. But at 2.7 million, which is what he signed for, I'm just like, why did Noah the team really call about Malik? He was, he's a high-valued, decent three-point shoot and do it. Anyway, he went to another championship contender. But there's a couple different ways this team could have went. And I vividly remember as we're walking into this offseason, there's always been rumors around Cary Irvin and the Los Angeles Lakers because let's be real, LeBron, James and Cary have had their ups and downs in their relationship, but it seemed like all of that is squash. And some people saw it as a real possibility that they used the cap space that they had that opened up to bring in the third star. And I hated the idea of that because then when you do that, you turn into a team that's calling up people on the veteran minimum. And realistically, if you're available for the veteran minimum, more likely than not, you're not really gonna be a super impactful player, especially once we get to the teams that are trying to win 16 games once we get to the middle of April. Maybe they did, maybe they did call Cary Irvin. Or maybe he did take a mean, I don't really know. But I love the idea of saying, hey, Bron, I don't know how many years you got left in them legs, but we trust what you did last season. We know that in the playoffs, you didn't elect yourself, but I'm assuming that's because of that foot. Anthony Davis, this is your time to shine. Are we gonna trust these two stars and surround them with pieces that make sense? It seems like a few of the years when, all day my words have not been working. It seems like a few of the years where LeBron has been in LA, the team didn't look like a team. It was a collection of players on the back of Bron, on the back of AD, and then the big old contract of Russell Westbrook, and you put that big three together, then the rest of the pieces didn't really fit because you're calling up an old mellow. You're calling up this old player here, and you're like, hey, we got a roster spot, and you don't have to go through that path anymore. For y'all that are not keeping up, they brought back Austin Reads on a four-year, $56 million contract, which is an absolute steal. Now I know some people are skeptical of Austin Reads because he's basically had one and a half really good seasons in the league, but I honestly thought because of the teams that did have cap space, and most of them being younger teams, and Austin Reads being a younger player, being what, 25 years old, and some of those teams are gonna throw an offer sheet that is four years, 80 million, the Dylan Brooks deal. I was almost positive that the Spurs, the Utah Jazz before they made their deals, the Houston Rockers, one of these teams is gonna call his agent and force the LA Lakers to overpay for Austin Reads, but to get him at this value is one of the biggest steals of the off season. That is a duh. You got Rui Hachimore on a three-year, $51 million contract. I have seen some people skeptical about that because Rui Hachimore's great play was basically a half a season once he got to LA, and then the post-season, they're trying to figure out is that really him or was the previous version of him, which was in Washington, which version of him was real? I don't know, I like this as a worthy gamble because he was really good. Like, these are his statistics from the playoffs. He just is a playoff player because I didn't remember in 2021 he averaged 15 points per game with seven rebounds and he shot 60% for field, 60% for three. They lost a five to Philly, but in the first round he was electric shooting these splits. Second round, electric less minutes in this one, maybe just a bad match-up going against the Warriors. Definitely a bad match-up going against the Warriors, but still when he did get the opportunity, he did knock down all of his shots and then we get to the conference finals, he still was good. He may not have been a 50% three-point shooter, but he showed you in these 16 games in the playoffs that he played, he was really good. If you look at his overall stats, once he got to the Lakers a little less consistent from three, once he got there, but still was a good player. So boom, you bring back that. The Angelou Russell game, we're talking about two years, 31 million dollars. That's not bad value for the Angelou Russell. I know that everybody's gonna talk about the fact that he could not play in the playoffs really, but you do have to remember that there is 82 games leading up to that and with LeBron being dirt old, see my words in that word, with him being as old, the Angelou Russell is the type of player that could give you really quality minutes in 82 games where you can feel like you have a chance to win no matter what when he's your point guard. And the Gabe Vinson signed to be a three years, 33 million dollars is a really good pickup. Now it's, it is a bit, it can be iffy, right? Gabe Vinson has the makeup of a knock down, no matter what three point shooter he hasn't been that in his career. Of course he played a huge part in what the Miami he just did. Their season kind of turned around once he was inserted to the starting lineup and obviously you saw what he did in the playoffs. He was extremely streaky, let's be real, because especially when we got to the finals he couldn't hit a shot, but the series before that, he was Michael Jeffrey Jordan. So like for the value that you got him in three years, 33 million dollars, this is a guy that can play for you. But believe it or not, I'm in love with a course to also re-sign and I lied to these other signs but the one that made me super excited and surface level when it first happened I think we were on our live stream. I didn't really think about it, I didn't really compute it. Toria Prince signing for one year 4.5 million dollars is an absolute steal. Toria Prince is one of those dudes that has just always been on mediocre I guess is the word, teams where you don't really recognize him unless you really, really locked into the NBA. And now he's going to the biggest market that is possible and a lot of people are gonna realize how good of a pick up Toria Prince is for the entirety of his career he's been at what? 38, let me, I guess I can check it. 37% three point shooter. Last year he was a 38% three point shooter. He gets him up, that's three attempts per game with 22 minutes. He is one of the type of players you wanna put around LeBron James. I feel like the best version of LeBron, the reason why you won a championship back in 2020 is because you had LeBron and you had shooting and immediately they shipped all that shooting away and brought in Russell Westbrook and then everything kind of closed up. I'm not blaming Russ, I'm just saying they had a lack of shooting then. And Toria Prince and the idea of Gabe Vincent and Rihachi Morphe's gonna shoot similar to what he did in the playoff. Those are shooters that you could put around Bron and Toria Prince is a plus defendant. Like, again, LeBron does have this like, I don't know, effects sometimes on these role players where they become a part of LeBron James' team and they immediately forget how to hit a shot when they've been hitting shots for nine plus seasons in the NBA. So I'm just going based on the track record, you know what I'm saying? He might get the, I don't even know. He might fall off like some of the other people do when they play LeBron, the pressure's too high. Cause once you play LeBron, you're playing for championships at the end of the day and maybe that pressure's too much. But just going based on what Toria Prince has been throughout the course of his career, he is an amazing picker for them. And now that their roster looks like a genuine, genuine rotation that you can trust a starter and a backup. Cause I think that there is maybe some, some holes to be placed with the backup center position. They did bring in Jackson Hayes, take a fly on a young dude who was allowed to pick, who can be a highlight reel, but never really found his footing in New Orleans. You did the same thing with Kim Reddish, but I would like them to show up that backup center position, especially when you consider Anthony Davis is the starting center of the team. You definitely want at least a decent backup center there, there's time to do that with the B, signing somebody who's available. And I don't know who is it, Christian Wood? No, signing somebody that's available or making a trade later down the line, the bio market. There's going to be a world where they end up with a solid backup center regardless. Center still available, Christian Wood, Mo Bamba, they, they wave bro, he ain't, he ain't coming back. Busy, busy, Beyambos available, Blake Griffin, Montrez, Harold, Frank Kaminsky. It's a slim pick, it's for show slim pickings out there, but you know what I'm saying? You just, you need something. If we could get the version of Anthony Davis, this AD, if you could get this AD for a full season, because we've been waiting on Anthony, we've been waiting on him to take the torch away from Braun, if you could get this version of AD for a season, and you could say, Braun, chill out, bro. We know you're very, very good at basketball. We kind of want you for the playoffs because it's been a few years in a row now where you feel like, you know, you raced to the finish line just for you to be injured when it mattered the most. Take a step back, we got you. You know that picture that everybody mean? Where it's Master Splinter and the Ninja Turtles when they young, and then eventually the old Ninja Turtles are with the old Master Splinter walking into whatever, that's what, you need these younger players to step it up for Braun so he can do his thing when the 16 games that need to be won. But again, I really, really love this off season. You took a flight on Kamritis, and at this point, if it doesn't work for KM, I don't know what to say. It's been Atlanta, it's been New York, it's been Portland, and obviously always shows us flashes. There's a reason why he's a 10th overall pick. There's a reason why these scenes won't give up on him because he shows you those flashes. This is an opportunity more than any to like make it happen. So let me know what you think. Do you think the Lakers won the off season or one of the winners of the off season or are we just blowing smoke because the Lakers? That's not normally something I do, but maybe I'm changing, I don't know.