All right, this is a bonus and won.

This is my take that I couldn't get to in my episode with Michael Shear.

We talked about Jason Tatum and how that was the best thing that had happened in terms of his Achilles injury to the Boston Celtics. We talked a little bit more about Pascal C. Yakum's All-Star Candidacy and how the Timberwolves can make it back to the Western Conference finals in our episode of Good Take. because Mike won the last time we did it,

our good take game,

he was able to share his second team. conference finals in our episode of Good Take. Because Mike won the last time we did it,

our good take game, he was able to share his second take. This was my final take that I couldn't

get to in that one, but I'm going to get to it here. LeBron James should waive his no trade clause

and go to the Eastern Conference and specifically reunite with the Miami Heat. It's not working with the Lakers. It's Lucas team. They're going in a new direction. That team won a bunch of games at the start of the year. They have not been good, and they are not good enough this year to really compete for something meaningful. At best, I think this Lakers team is a first round playoff team, probably a first round out.

Maybe can push a team, but the West is so stacked at the top that, like, they're not beating OKC, Denver.

They're not going to beat Minnesota.

We saw that last year.

It's a bad matchup for them.

They probably aren't beating Houston, right?

Like, this is kind of going nowhere for the Lakers this season. And if everybody's being really honest, despite the presence of LeBron James on that roster, this is a gap here. This is a rebuild. This is first offseason after trading for Luca Donchich in the middle of last season. We're trying to rebuild this team around Luca. It's Lucas team, and they're going

in a new direction, and that has been clear by the moves that they've made, by getting a little

bit younger here, and they're just going to keep adding to a Luca roster, not a LeBron

roster. And so I don't know what LeBron James is playing for right now with the Lakers. And if the Lakers are going to move on, I think LeBron should get ahead of it. They didn't extend them this past summer. We saw the statement from Rich Paul, from LeBron James, all this stuff, everything that they were saying, acknowledging, hey, it's been real. I guess it's Lucas team now. We'll see what happens.

And then that just goes away at the start of the season.

I don't think that just goes away. I still think that those feelings are there.

I think LeBron sees that this team is Lucas team. And I think he sees now more than ever that they just don't got it this year to compete for anything.

And LeBron has this year, maybe next year left in his career, and that's it.

Like, if I'm LeBron, if the Lakers are going to move on, I'm trying to get ahead of this. Not just for the narrative part of it, but also the fact that LeBron's still a top 25 guy in the NBA.

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