Who were the Lakers taking in the NBA draft? We're going to look at some of the options. Welcome in to the Lakers Nation.com podcast. I'm Trevor Lane. Really happy for today's show. We're joined by Bryce Simon. You may know him from the Game Theory podcast with Sam Vassini. They do a great job there, getting us ready for the NBA draft. Bryce, how are you doing, my friend? I'm good. It's a very busy time of the year, even though I'm a teacher and it is summer break. I'm very thankful that it is summer break right now for me. As we were talking about ahead of time, I come from a farming family. That's what my father still does. And so trying to help him with that hasn't gone so well. But doing that,

obviously the NBA draft. We're on Janus watch. It seems like essentially all day, every day right

now, free agency coming up. I'll be out at Summer League. All of these are very good things.

Like all things I'm very, very thankful for. But it is a very busy time, along with trying to be, you know,

father and husband and all of those things. As you know the dynamics of all of that as well,

as you do an incredible work and a lot of work in this space. You've got to wear many different hats.

That's for sure. I'm trying to try to live this life, but we certainly do love it. How are you feeling right now? As we're recording this, we are what, just over 48 hours until the NBA draft. Like at this point, you've put in a ton of work to get ready for it. How are you feeling about the draft coming up? I do get to the point, I think, every year, Trevor, where I'm like, I'm just ready for it to be here. I'm just ready for the picks to be made. Let's analyze the fits and the decisions. And man, why was I so much higher on this player than the NBA? And I don't think in the moment you go, oh, I was wrong because the NBA might have got it wrong, right?

We know at times guys have got drafted at the wrong spots. But, you know, somebody in my top 10

is going to end up probably late teens or early 20s. And I'm just interested to see who it ends up

being. I think it's happened multiple years. Dalton Connect, one where

I was much higher on Dalton Connect than where he ended up. And I know it's been a little bit up and

down early in his career. We'll see where that ends up going. Cam Whitmore was another one that

I ended up much lower. And I will say that is one thing. We don't have all of the information

necessary to make these decisions, Trevor, right?

We don't sit in these interviews and talk to players.

We don't see all the medicals.

We don't see all of those things.

And those are huge portions of the equation for the draft.

Yeah, and that's the unknown factor of all of this.

Since you brought them up, where is your faith right now in Dalton Connect?

Obviously, he had a great start to his rookie year, been pretty rough since, had the trade that wound up getting rescinded, had some opportunities to play this past season, was not able to capitalize on those.

Where are you out on him, he's got one year remaining on his deal this coming season, 4.2 million before we get into the draft prospects. Do you have hope in a bounceback or is it just kind of is what it is and it was another kind of busted pick here? So my hope for, I mean, listen, I would love for it to work out in L.A., right, Trevor? And I'm sure L.A. would love for it to work out. Like, to your point, it's not another pick that didn't, it didn't work out. I do wonder, and I do believe this to be true about some players, maybe a change of scenery would be good for Dalton Connect. And I'm not sitting here advocating for a trade. That's not my intention. I don't know. I don't know what would make Dalton Connect happy and all of that, right? But I do think there are times where it's like, man, this hasn't really worked out here. Expectations can be a lot. You know, I'm sure the fan base, some of it has turned on him a little bit. I'm not even like, you know what I mean? Maybe it's better if he gets to a situation that's just a little bit different in a bunch of different ways. And I do think that there is a talent there for Dalton Connect where it can still work in the NBA, I guess is my thought. I think that Dalton Connect is a guy who the team he was drafted to join is very different than the team that currently exists. And he made more sense as a fit with the team.

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