Hello, everybody. Welcome in to the Lakers Nation.com podcast.

I am Trevor Lane.

And today we've got a special guest.

It's Jason Tim of Hoops tonight.

Jason, thanks so much for coming on here to talk some Lakers basketball.

Trevor, it's good to see you.

Unfortunately, last time I came on your show, I was the Lakers Optimist.

You were.

And I actually predicted on my show that get off to an 11 and 4 start. And they were 10 and 4 and about to beat Orlando. And then all hell broke loose. And now I'm the Lakers pessimist. So a lot has changed, buddy. But I have excited to be back here to talk some hoops. Have you, deed, you know, I saw, what was it, a week or so ago, maybe a little bit more,

who knows, time has no meaning at this point, that you were out on the Lakers.

Is that still inaccurate?

Are you just out on this team at this point?

Well, so here's the thing.

I was the classic Laker fan that was clinging to the optimism surrounding

like, oh, the ceiling, the potential ceiling that this team has. Oh, if they hit a trade, that sort of thing.

And one of the big sources of optimism for me was I did think that they were just a, you know, starting lineup upgrade role player wise

from being a legitimate championship contender. And I thought that bringing in JJ Reddick would,

through bringing in competence at the head coach spot, would breed a certain amount of buy-in on a daily basis.

And I think that that buy-in is completely non-negotiable to win a title.

I think that when you look back through NBA history, there just aren't any examples,

except for defending champions of teams that coast a considerable amount of the

season and then win the title. And they did come out the gates, those first three games,

...