Are the LA Lakers good now?

This is the Adam Gold Show. We will do the best we can I like both sides here. I mean, I enjoy watching both. I prefer France over Morocco tomorrow. But I am in love with the story that is Morocco. But honestly, anytime you get a chance to see Mbappe and the rest of that team too, it's not just Mbappe.

But to have him advance and keep playing and maybe do something. When was the last time somebody won back-to-back World Cup? Is that Brazil? Never, I don't think. No, because this is the first time France is the first country after winning to actually make it to a Final Four.

Most of them don't even get out of the group anymore. You'd be lucky to even get to the round of eight. I want to see France and Argentina in the final.

That would be awesome. The defending champ. And I'm not even going to say the best player in the sport because the best player in the sport might be killing Mbappe.

But it would be Mbappe versus Messi. Teammates for PSG. That's right. Yeah, teammates for PSG. All right, we've exhausted all of our international football knowledge. Oh, okay. Now it's time for the Wall of Sound.

The Wall of Sound is a function of this studio. There's no doubt about it. I'm telling you, it's got World Cup on the brain.

World Cup on the brain. All right, let's start with a little bit of a tribute to Mike Leach. And we will start with ESPN's Ryan McGee. Look, he covers a lot of sports. Covers college football. Covers NASCAR. He's a great writer.

He's just a super dude. And McGee, who also works on the SEC Network, talks about what college football will miss. What I love about college football is the uniqueness of it. And no one to me was a better example of that than Mike Leach. It's the characters and it's the people.

And ultimately in college football, you're rooting for laundry, right? Because you only get these guys for a few years and then they move on to the league or they move on just out of football. But the constants are the coaches. And no offense to most of the other guys, it gets a little cookie cutter, right? You're dealing with kind of the same guy that learned from this guy who learned from that guy. And everybody in that Mike Leach, how mummy air raid tree, they're all kind of goofy.

You know, they all kind of do things their own way. And so to me, Mike Leach was kind of the ultimate example. You didn't have to agree with him. He certainly was not without his controversies. He certainly was not without his detractors, but no one didn't enjoy talking to him or debating with him. Everyone enjoyed talking football with him.

There's no question about just whether it's talking football or just getting his opinions on the goofy parts of life. Like the whole candy thing from before was hysterical. The fact that he knew enough about like nerds, gummy, what? The fact that he knew enough about it. Like I can't have a conversation about that other than gummy bears or gummies, gummy worms, gummy spiders, all of those things.

All of that. I mean, they're good. Gummy fish. Are you a Swedish fish guy? No, I like gummy bears though. Gummy bears are good. Gummy bears are good. Gummy bears are Sour Patch Kids.

What'd you like better? Gummy bears. I don't like sour candies. Oh, I do. I do like sour candies, but gummy bears are better than Sour Patch Kids.

Of course. The problem with Sour Patch Kids is that once you start, it's really hard to stop. Yeah, I don't have that problem. It's really hard to stop. Well, if you don't start, you don't have a problem stopping.

All right. Now to the football side of it. Todd McShea on Mike Leach's offense. If you talk to any of those quarterbacks about the system, he found a way to make a new offense and something that was so high powered, so simple on the quarterback. It wasn't like 15 words of verbiage in every play call. It wasn't these complicated full field reads, even though they had some of those things. But just for the quarterback, it was like, if this is here, go there.

If this is not there, go here. It was really simple and that allowed them to go fast and allowed them to kind of shock defenses with the tempo and pace and how spread out they were. And it was, you prepare for all these offenses, but then you know, you can kind of circle.

All right, we got air raid this week and we've got to kind of change everything we're thinking and doing to prepare for that. It was a unique offense. It was, it's funny. We talked to Ruffin McNeil earlier. And again, we're going to bring back a good chunk of that conversation in the rewind because Ruffin worked for 10 years with Mike Leach. And he brought it up and actually was having a conversation with Steve Logan today. This was earlier today, this wasn't on the show, but I was having a conversation with Steve Logan about Mike Leach's offense.

And it was funny how Logan referred to Leach's air raid. He says, essentially it's the, it's the same principle as the wishbone and Ruffin McNeil mentioned the option offense, right? Now, one is heavy run, obviously, where a lot of different people touch the ball. And the other is heavy pass where a lot of different people touch the ball. It's just at opposite ends of the offensive balance between run and pass spectrum.

But theoretically, they are both designed to create confusion and, and be very one-dimensional while being multidimensional at the same time. It's just all pass or all run. But Logan told me a couple of stories about the, his, the one time he coached against Mike Leach that maybe we'll, I'll relate a little bit later on. All right, one of Mike Leach's proteges, a former quarterback of his, who also followed him at Texas Tech, Cliff Kingsbury, now the coach of the Arizona Cardinals.

Unfortunately, at the very beginning of their game last night against the Patriots, his quarterback, Kyler Murray, tore his ACL. Yeah, it's tough. There's no doubt. You see teams go through every week, but usually just start on third play of the game, you know, kind of a deal non-contact. It's just, just tough to watch and see.

And you got to be able to rebound and continue to play the game though. And I thought they were in really good shape for a while with Colt McCoy. They had some opportunities. They went for it on fourth down a couple of times, didn't get it. It led to points for New England both times. Field goals, I think, actually the first one might've been a touchdown. No, it was field goals, I think both times. But one time McCoy was a little short on a screen pass and the other time Hollywood Brown just dropped a pass, should have been caught. Did he, he, he sort of dove for it, but it was a catch that good NFL wide receivers make. And the, if he makes that catch, the worst that happens, I think, is that the Falcons kick a field goal and probably extend to a 16 to 3 or 16 to 7 lead. Yeah, so it wasn't a touchdown the last time. I think that's the worst thing that happens, but he didn't catch it.

New England kicked a field goal at the end of the first half and it ended up being 13, 10. Either way, Kingsbury's not done an amazing job there. Falcons are, rather the Cardinals are not going to make the playoffs. And even though he signed a contract extension, I can absolutely see Cliff Kingsbury not being the coach of the Arizona Cardinals after this year. And real quick, as an aside, I'm not a hundred percent sure that Kyler Murray is that good an NFL quarterback.

He's going to be out for a while too. So there is that final thing. One more thing. Christian McCaffrey is now with the San Francisco 49ers. They just beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers badly while the Panthers were beating the Seattle Seahawks and Christian McCaffrey after the game is noticing, Hey, look at this. We're helping them. They're helping us.

It's it's like, we're all big. One team had a lot of good years. You know, I, I really enjoyed my time in Carolina. I know we didn't have the results, but obviously they're, they're killing it, man. And I'm happy for those guys.

Obviously beaten Seattle's big for us, us beaten Tampa big for them. So it's kind of hats off to those guys, man. I'm proud of them. And I love everyone in that locker room. Oh man.

Isn't that nice? I think Matt rules taking credit for both wins. Oh man. Matt rule is taking all that cash. He got from Nebraska and investing it and thinking about life on a beach, buying corn, plenty of it.

They got plenty of it. All right. When we come back, when we come back.

Are the Lakers actually. Good. I don't even know the answer to that.

We'll ask somebody next. The J. C. Penny mystery sale is back for the holidays through Thursday, usher in huge holiday savings with our in store coupon giveaway. You can get an extra 30, 40 or even 50% off while they last simply find an associate for a coupon, then peel to reveal now to discover the savings you've been wishing for. We got your holiday JC penny coupon valid on select styles through 12, 15 exclusions apply. Giveaway in-store only must be 18 years or older.

See store for details. It's the Adam Gold show. I am Adam Gold that is Cox on the ones in Tuesday.

V to the Victoria will be back tomorrow. She's at her, I believe 14th baby shower of the, of the season. It's a record. She's going for her own Guinness record. I don't know, at a baby shower, would you put on 19 pair of underwear?

Maybe I'd like to, I'd like to see a list of available world records that I could break. Okay. So we'll just pass that along at some point.

All right. I believe they started Oh, and six, but not that the Lakers are a playoff team at this point, but I mean, are they Russell Westbrook's plan? Well, the bronze doing his thing. Anthony Davis is like stepped into the way back machine.

Let's find out my man, Brendan Whitted league pass layer at H U Co cell on Twitter. And there he is, if you're watching at WRAL sports, plus all right, Brendan, I'll start with the Lakers. We got other things to talk about. We're going to talk about the Brooklyn nets. I'll give you a chance to say I was right. Meaning you were right.

Not me. And we'll talk about the new Orleans Pelicans, but yeah. Are the Lakers good?

Man, good is probably too strong for them. They're better. They were bad, right? Like that, you know, everything is relative. So they were bad for you a really long time going back to last year. Yes. And it started out so badly where it was like, man, this is, this could get ugly, kind of bad.

Particularly for a team that doesn't have his first round pick. Right. They were two and nine. Yeah, they were, yeah, they were two and nine and just looked like nothing was going to work.

It looked like this pretty obviously poorly constructed team was, was even going to just, it was just going to completely go off the rails. And then you mentioned the biggest thing is Anthony Davis. Well, two things. One is Anthony Davis. And it's not the fact that he's just scoring more.

It's his shot profile. When we talked about him at his Zenith, it was him in the bubble and he was shooting the three ball, not at a great percentage, but at a better above average percentage. And it just made him so difficult to guard that it was just like, you can't have him and LeBron and it was just too much.

They would just strangle you defensively. And then late in games, they pull away. Yeah. The thing that on top of his injuries, that, that, that really hurt his game was the fact that he kind of fell in love with that jump shot. He fell in love with three pointer and what he did was just like cut out a lot of that stuff. He's rolling harder to the basket now, not popping out as much on those screens. And he's just, he's just closer to the basket and he's shooting better.

And sometimes it really just does take changing your shot profile to change your entire offensive makeup. And that's what it's meant for them. Now they dropped three of their last four. This road stretch has been really rough for them.

They finally got one against Detroit the other night. And LeBron's dealing with an ankle injury. Anthony Davis is still doing, doing some back stuff, but, and this is a huge, if, if they can stay healthy, but they might be players at this, you know, at a trade deadline stuff. They've been, they've been mentioned with, with the, the New York Knicks team about picking up Evan Fortier's contract. Looking a little rough right now. He's falling out of the lineup.

He's old 18 million, not only this year, but next year. And so they might package, you know, might do a package with none and, and, and Beverly who really kind of hasn't really worked out for them that well either. And maybe they, they pick up 48, he goes on the run or, or maybe Cam Reddish gets thrown into that deal.

And a guy who I've had, I, you know, I know he hasn't worked out with him in Atlanta and now with New York, but I still think there's something there. And if he could have a consistent and defined role, I do think he could help a team maybe, right. Maybe this team is good enough. Now we're not talking about contenders. We're not talking about Todd contenders, but maybe they're good enough to like make it into the original first round of the playoffs. Not necessarily the play in maybe, maybe they can kind of squeak their way into that if everybody stays healthy.

Uh, but good, good is probably too strong, but I'm at least appreciating that I'm not having to watch LeBron, uh, like the last few years of LeBron on just a tragically bad team. The JC penny mystery sale is back for the holidays through Thursday usher in huge holiday savings with our in-store coupon giveaway. You can get an extra 30, 40, or even 50% off while they last simply find an associate for a coupon, then peel to reveal your deal.

Hurry and now to discover the savings you've been wishing for. We got your holiday JC penny coupon valid on select styles through 12, 15 exclusion supply giveaway in-store only must be 18 years or older. See store for details. It's Macy's gifts. You'll love to give sale with great deals for everything on their wishlist. Like 50% off cozy coats, jackets, and vests for her perfume and cologne gift sets for $50 and under and shop specials like 20 to 50% off the season's hottest toys from Bluey, Melissa and Doug and more.

Plus everyone gets $10 in Macy's money for every $50 spent now through Thursday at Macy's savings off sale and clearance prices exclusions apply. Right. Well, the other element you didn't mention there, and I think is worth mentioning, but before you, before I get to that as a sort of Knicks fan, I'm not really a Knicks fan anymore, but if I was going to root for any team, it would be the Knicks. I kind of like the future of reddish and I would hope that they don't give up on cam reddish. I mean, a guy of his size with his ability to stroke it from deep and who can defend also just give that guy some time. I think if the Knicks ever become something legitimately good, then reddish is a guy you want. And I don't think it's not like they're going to get anything spectacular for him. So there's more value to me to keep cam reddish than there is to deal cam reddish, but let's get to Russell Westbrook, who has essentially been scapegoated sometimes justifiably for what has ailed the Lakers. But in this run where the Lakers are now nine and six in the last 15 games, Russell's been really good. Like he's not the old Russell, but he's not asked to be, and it doesn't have to be, he's been a pretty good version of Russell Westbrook though. Yeah, he's been really good off the bench.

And that, you know, that was, I think one of Darvisham's first questions that he got in the press conference. Once they announced that he was going to be the head coach was, Hey, is Russ going to come off the bench? And he was like, you know, we were planning on having him start and play the starters minutes.

And he still plays a major role on that team. It's just that he's not the starter. And then there was this thing where they were trying to start him and Beverly back to, and it's just, it just didn't work. It just was not working in that way. You have to stagger Russell Westbrook's minutes with certain guys because he needs the ball in his hands, even though he's not a great shooter.

Right? So like when you have a guy that needs the ball in his hands and it's not a great shooter, you got to kind of manipulate their minutes for the people that are around them. Cause you are only allotted a certain amount of non shooters on the court at any given time in today's NBA.

And so what they've done is they start staggering his minutes and he's played really well. And to his credit like that, this could not have been, and I can't imagine how many or how, how, how, uh, how loud some of those conversations were with him about trying to convince him to do this, because people can tell, Oh, you can just come off the bench and you'll still play big minutes. It's not a big deal. That's not the culture of basketball. The culture of basketball is I'm one of your best players. I'm going to start. If I do not start it, then this is, this is, is, is a demotion.

Yeah. And, and, and so to have a guy that's had as much individual and still team success, cause this guy has been to the finals for him to be like, you know what, I'm not going to, I'm not going to sulk about this. I'm not going to like completely take it or, or kind of hold my breath and act impetuous and wait until, you know, they, they, they trade me.

I'm going to be a contributing member for this team. And a reason, as you mentioned, that the team has gotten better, that they are performing better. Uh, I still think if they're going to like really make the playoffs, I still think they have to do something to this team. I don't think the roster is currently constructed is enough. I like Austin Reeves and Russ off the bench, but there's just not a lot of talent. You know, once you get past LeBron and AD and stuff, but it kudos to him for, for being able to do it.

Cause some stars couldn't or wouldn't. All right. To, uh, to where Brendan was apparently correct, the Brooklyn nets who have been a, uh, a walking back page in New York city. Actually, I shouldn't even say, even say a walking back page. That's just the sports page. They have been a walking page six for those people who know about the New York post page six is the gossip section. So what do you make of what they've been? Ben Simmons just came back. I think they're just as good with, without Ben Simmons as they are with Ben Simmons, but because they started to play well without Ben and Ben played last night and played very well.

I mean, doesn't, doesn't put up big numbers, but, uh, they don't need him to put up big numbers. Uh, what do you make of what they have become over the last few games? They, well, they had so many moving parts, like Simmons was kind of the lightning rod because he didn't play last year. They made the trade for him. They think that he's going to play during the post-season and just doesn't, and then has back surgery later.

Still one of the weirder things. They had the coaching change. They had everything that went on with Kyrie.

Uh, and throughout, throughout all of this season, Katie has been phenomenal, right? Has been lights out. And, and as you mentioned, you talk about page six, it got over it all completely overshadowed his great play. He's been great this year.

Yep. Uh, both sides of the ball, actually like this, this looks like a really vintage, like going to stay warrior sort of levels, 30 points, almost two blocks a game for K for K. He's been insanely good and incredibly efficient. I think he's still top five in terms of percentages in all three levels of scoring terms of three mid range and paint.

Nobody else is anywhere near that efficiency wise. So it's very stupid about how good he's been, but all the other stuff you had, you had Russell Neil, that's a new player. Kyrie Irving wasn't playing and then was playing, but there was a whole bunch of other stuff going on with him. And I, the whole time I was just like, wait, just wait, just, just wait on all the crazy. There's going to be plenty of crazy. I didn't know it was going to be to this extent. There was going to be plenty of crazy though. And I was like, just wait, just, I think I said, give me until December, January.

And if they're still in the same place and I will completely I'll pull out and be like, bro, I was wrong. You have, there's just too much talent on that team. They're starting to get like TJ Warren's starting to come back. Like there's, there's, there's so much, this team is, is all uptown. I think they are the most talented team in the NBA in terms of just talent. I'm not talking about they're the best just in terms of their individual players. John Bond has done a really good job of kind of getting this team together. And I, I said this from John Nash was not the right guy for this job.

No, he just wasn't. It's the same reason that you don't give your 16 year old a Ferrari for his first with you wouldn't do it. Right. Cause you're like, nah, I can't trust you with this much power.

You're not going to know what you're going to drive off a cliff with it. That's precisely what Nash did because you can't, this can't be your first head coaching job at any level and think that you're going to be on a championship caliber team. It's not realistic. And so now they started coming together, an actual team now, and you're seeing that talent kind of shine through.

I think by February, we're going to have them in the discussion of, Hey, this is a title contending team. Wow. Okay.

Uh, I've a lot of people I talked to say they're good to a point. We'll, we'll, uh, we'll see if you're right because you're correct about the talent when you're talking and we're talking with Brendan Whitted, uh, from the league pass layer at HU Co cell in Durant, you have a top 10 all time player in Kyrie. You have a top 10 all time talent, just physical gifts. I mean, Kyrie might be the most physically gifted point guard we've ever seen. I mean, just in terms of physical gifts, the ability to handle, get in the lane, finish, shoot from deep.

I mean, it's just, it's, it's stupid how talented he is. He hasn't always been available and he's obviously not durable. Um, but they've, they do have lots of P you have Joe Harris, and then you have what Warren could bring them with. Right. True.

They have so many ways to beat you. They just need to put it together. Remains to be seen.

All right. Final thing for Brennan Whitted while we were asleep, the new Orleans, pelicans have won seven in a row. I believe Zion Williamson is averaging 25 and seven and just doing Zion things, including a three 60 windmill dunk at the end of the game to really tick off the Phoenix suns, which get over it. It's just entertaining. Exactly.

Like when we were out here trying to entertain people, would you stop it? The game is over. They didn't disrespect you. Um, what do you make of them? Because they haven't been healthy all year either.

Yeah. Uh, there's, you, you talked to earlier when it, when I came on about the, I told you so with the Brooklyn nets. No, the, I told you so for me is the new Orleans pelicans. I picked them to go to the Western conference finals this year.

Like I think the first week of the first week of the season on the show, uh, because I just saw their talent and it was just so overwhelming. And then the fact that you were bringing on a person like Zion, it's not just that he's, he's a capable score. It's not that, that, that he, uh, has these athletic gifts. It's his efficiency. He's I think he's had six games of a 70% shooting or better this year, uh, on like a high, on a high usage sort of clip. It's his ability to play alongside guys. Now I know Ingrid's been hurt, but play alongside guys like McCollum and Ingram who need the ball in their hands to be as effective as they can be. And you can fit him in and it's not a problem because he doesn't, he doesn't have to hold the ball. He doesn't, he doesn't do a lot with the ball. Now they're asking him to do a little bit more. You can play a little bit of kind of point forward. He's been great in these dribble handoff situations, operating at a nail.

And the thing that people from North Carolina know that maybe other people did, he's a great pastor. Like he really, he has a mind for the game. You see the body, you see the athleticism, he's got a mind for the game. And now that he's, and he admitted a defensively, I was not doing what I needed to do on that side of the ball.

I wasn't moving the same way that I would have. Otherwise you're starting to see that guy, the guy that's playing passing lanes and help different help defender. And now they're a top five defensive team in the league.

They were 20th last year. Like, I don't want to put all that on Zion. That's a whole bunch of guys digging in and playing better on that side.

But that a lot of that, considering the minutes that he's playing, a lot of that is Zion and shout out to Willie Green for getting that team together. That is a legitimate title, contending team. They're too good.

Cause you mentioned it. They are Jones's mistime. Yeah. They've had a whole bunch of guys that are caught the important cogs in that particular machine that mistime and they've kept on rolling. This is a really fun team to watch. If you haven't had a chance and you can catch them on lead paths, do so they're going to get plenty of national games next year. But like, yeah, this is, this is a fun, fun team.

And they West, I feel like it's pretty wide open. They are tremendous to watch. And look, I said this when they got CJ McCollum last year in the trade, they brought an adult into the room.

And I don't mean, I'm not trying to disparage it. It's just so much youth on that team. They brought an adult into that mix and like McCollum's not putting up enormous numbers. He's good. Really good. But man, he just lends so much credibility to that team. All right, Brendan, I appreciate your time.

A man at H U Co cell on Twitter. Next time we talk, you could tell me more about how you were right about something. This is fun. I like that.

It's my favorite thing to do. So all right, who you got Argentina or a, or Croatia, a dumb man, Morocco taking that all baby. Shout out to Africa. They might, they might first, uh, first African team ever in the world cup. Semi-finals.

They have been an awesome, awesome club to watch. Appreciate your time, man. Absolutely. You got it.

Brennan witted. This is the Adam gold show. The JC penny mystery sale is back for the holidays through Thursday usher in huge holiday savings with our in-store coupon giveaway. You can get an extra 30, 40, or even 50% off while they last simply find an associate for a coupon, then peel to reveal your deal. Hurry it now to discover the savings you've been wishing for. We got your holiday JC penny coupon valid on select styles through 12, 15 exclusion supply giveaway in-store only must be 18 years or older. See store for details.