What do you think about the Laker team now?

You follow the box scores of the games every day?

Just the Lakers.

You're kidding.

That is really a compliment.

I was pleased to see you smile at the top part show because once the game starts, you have a game face.

You don't smile much out there.

I don't think you have to do things for money anymore. Correct.

What's up, Laker fans? And welcome to a new version of the Laker Film Room podcast. Very excited about

this new content style. There are oftentimes throughout the course of the regular season where

Darius and I are so locked in on the Lakers that it's easy to fill five pods a week with the things that we want to talk about just with the Lakers. But as that happens, there's all this stuff league-wide that flies by that we would love to talk about that we just don't get to because we want to prioritize the Lakers stuff. So once or twice a week this year, we're going to be making these little 20-minute pods, max. No more than that, there'll be like one break in the middle where we talk about one of those things. But today it's not Darius, who's joining me. It is one of my oldest basketball friends. He's one of the most observant people that I know and just has a talent for making you laugh while simultaneously saying that's a really, really good point. My old friend, Anthony, thank you for joining us, my man. How you doing today? What's going on, brother Pete? Appreciate you for having me on. You know what I'm saying? Me and Purpulini go way back. You don't know about that nickname. Oh, they don't know about Petty Purpleini. I would have thought about that in ages. Oh, good to have you on the pod, man. Thank you so much.

So we had a showdown last night, the first game of the night between the Rockets and the Thunder that sort of represent kind of the top of the conference.

And whenever we have that in a big moment with most of their guys available who are going to be available this season.

I want to zero in on that because that's always sort of a North Star for the Lakers, right?

Is can you hang?

Can you play with the top teams in the league?

It was a very different game than a Lakers Warriors game stylistically.

And so we wanted to talk about that a little bit and going to start in a place where we had a ring night in 20,

right, early 20, 20, 21 season. And I believe we lost by 20 to the Clippers at home in that game.

Those can always have sort of a funky vibe to them. I know you were looking for the resilience

that they had and fighting through that and just ring night in general because

there are some elements of just watching the banner go up that I thought it was beautiful the way

...