James goal is for the

game is four three in the win

oh it's got it's 20-n-N-B-A championship belongs to the Los Angeles Lakers

Hello me, copy, coffee, coffee, love me, zombie, welcome back to the lakersnation.com podcast.

I'm Trevor Lane.

You can find me on Twitter at

Trevor underscore Lane over on Instagram at Trevor Lane NBA. We are here at Blue Wire Studios at

the win in Las Vegas. We're out here for Summer League. It's going to be a lot of fun.

And the Lakers, man, they've been up to a lot this summer. We got a lot to talk about today, a lot

to break down involving Kyrie Irving, maybe a little bit of Kevin Durant mixed in there as well. We got to talk about our introductory press conference. And of course, we'll talk a little bit about the Summer League team and what they have been up to. Joining me, we've got, we've got Mark Dunnells and Jeff Spiegel, guys. Thanks so much for coming on. Jeff, how are you doing?

Doing good.

Can't complain in Vegas.

It's exciting.

There's players.

There's coaches walking around. So it's a good place to be. Mark, this is your first trip to Blue Wire Studios. What do you think? Hey, man, I can go a lot to you. It's a little intimidating at first. You know, I'm like, wow, this is a legit studio. We're in the win in Las Vegas, my first summer league.

I'm excited, wow, this is a legit studio. We're in the win in Las Vegas, my first summer league. I'm excited, man. It's big time. It's big time. Let's kick things up. Let's talk about what everybody's buzzing about. That's Kyrie Irving and the Los Angeles Lakers. Where is this ultimately going to wind up? Is he going to wind up becoming a Laker or not? It felt like days ago we were like on the brink of this happening and now here we are.

We're hearing that Sean Starania says there's no traction on a deal. Jeff, when I look at a situation like this, who is it that you think actually has the leverage? Because it feels like both teams are kind of negotiating through the media at this point. Yeah, it's such a fascinating thing because, you know, I hear people saying, hey, Kyrie only wants to go to the Lakers, nobody else is interested in Kyrie. And yet, if you're a Lakers fan, I think Russ is probably the worst contract in all of NBA. I mean, maybe Bradley Biel's newly signed deal is the new one. But so it's hard. It's almost like nobody has leverage. Both people have leverage and yet nobody has leverage at the same time. Both teams have a problem that everybody else in the league knows that they don't want to deal with themselves. And so I think it's just kind of who's going to blink first. And I don't know what the answer to that question is right now. Mark, when I look at this, I think Jeff's right,

that you can say, like, nobody really has leverage. But if the status quo remains, I look at that Nets roster, they're pretty good. Like, if it just stays as is, they're pretty good. The Lakers, if they keep Russ, can they get to where they want to go? I don't think so. I think it's time the move on from the Russell Westbrook experiment.

You know, you tried it out year one.

Obviously, there's a lot of injuries with LeBron and obviously AD, but just the style of play. I just think you need a guy that can create his own shot. And we know Kyrie's one of the best shot makers in the league. He's very skillful with the ball in his hands. He's already played with LeBron as had success. And they had Kevin Love, and we got an Anthony Davis who was much better than Kevin Love when he's on the floor. So we look at it from that perspective. I think you have to pull the trigger if you're the Lakers. So if that's the case, then that would suggest the Nets have at least a little bit of leverage here in these topics. The Nets can say, hey, worst case, if we stay as is, we can keep Kyrie, we can keep KD, and maybe we go win a championship. I don't know if the Lakers can say the same thing. And, of course, Lakers fans right now are hoping for some type of a trade. Dave McMedeman was on Windhorst podcast, the Hoop Collective. He threw this out there. He said, I think that Russell Westbrook, Talen Horton Tucker, a first and a second for Kyrie Irving and Joe Harris may be enough to get this deal ultimately done. And again, we know the nets aren't in any rush. Jeff, would you do that deal? If that's on the table, Rob Policka calls you up,

says, Jeff, what do I do? What do you tell him? Oh, Jeff. Let me pull this back to you real quick, because I want to ask two questions. One is, is Taylin Horton Tucker a plus asset in your mind, given age, contract, everything? And is Joe Harris a plus asset? Like, is, are you in your mind, Trevor, is one of those guys sort of like, who wins?

If the Lakers give up Talen Horton Tucker and get back Joe Harris, is that like all a win for the Lakers? Is everybody happy with that swap? I'm just curious where you land on that piece. Then I'll answer you. Okay. So I think that Joe Harris, the medicals will say a lot because Joe Harris, if healthy, is a much more accomplished player at this point than THD is. So I would definitely give the nod to him.

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