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 bar 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? Welcome to the Laker Film Room podcast. I'm Pete, joined by Darius. So, Dee, there's a belief that I have that every season the Lakers should be working toward their next NBA title. And that's not always able to be accomplished that particular year,

right? Think of the young core years. We didn't enter those seasons going, Lakers are going to win

it all this year, right? But going into a season like that with a young team, it's like part of

building toward the next title is the young guy is getting better, the overall structure being

organized, as playing good basketball, kind of

building something similar to like what OKC has done, right? They were a bad team a couple of

years ago, and I remember they had a season where they could have tanked kind of toward the

end to get into the lottery rather than the play-in, and actually went for it. And I would argue

that they benefited as a team from just competitive experiences.

And so that's an example of a season that you don't think has any chance of ending up in a title,

but can help build toward a bigger goal, even if those players eventually get traded.

Now, that's why I'm very curious about this season from a Lakers perspective.

We have two guys kicking ass on Team USA in LeBron and AD.

There's also been two trade deadline or trade seasons, right, where no move has been made

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