Trevor Lane, Lakers Nation Host

Trevor, how you been? Hey, I'm doing well, Zach. Thanks for having me.

I appreciate you coming on. So, it's no secret, we know LeBron James is the Lakers' best player, but for them to win a championship this year, Anthony Davis needs to be their most valuable player. You saw that last night, AD going off 30 points and 23 rebounds. What did you see from AD, and how do you kind of describe that performance looking back at it a day later? I mean, it was just an amazing performance, dominant on both ends of the floor.

Absolutely phenomenal. And I'll tell you what, you look at the box score and 30 points and 23 rebounds and all the blocks and all the scoring, all the stuff that he did that shows up on the stat sheet, all of that was amazing. But watching the game, I couldn't believe how many times he shut down things that Golden State was trying to do just on the defensive end with his rotations, his ability to be protecting the paint while still free to roam out to the perimeter and contest shots at the three-point line.

It was an absolutely masterful game by him. Just one of the best performances we've seen out of AD, period, and a reminder of just how talented this guy really is. What are your expectations for AD for the rest of the series? Well, I think he's got to be the backbone of the defense for sure. That's what he's been so far in the playoffs and for much of the season as well.

But he's got to play at a high level, and I think that he needs to be the Lakers' best player moving forward here. It's what he's been so far. LeBron is still dealing with that foot injury.

He's managing that. You can see he doesn't quite have the same level of explosiveness as you would hope to see from him. The three-point shot hasn't been falling. He's been finding other ways to help out the team, particularly rebounding. He's been blocking some shots, doing some good things defensively. But Anthony Davis has been the main driving force. He's been the guy where when he's off the floor, things tend to really start to slip for the Lakers. So AD's got to continue to play at an MVP caliber level. We know that he's got it in him. He's been a little bit inconsistent. We even saw that in the Memphis series. But they need him to be the best player on the floor, and that's what he was in Game 1, and we'll see if he can do that moving forward. Trevor Lane is here with us.

We were talking about this earlier, Trevor. When it comes to the Lakers' retiring numbers, they haven't retired many numbers throughout their history, even with all the great players that they've had. Obviously, when LeBron retires, he's going to get his number retired by the Lakers. We were talking about Anthony Davis. What else do you think he needs to accomplish the rest of his career in the Lakers' uniform for him to get that number retired? Yeah, I mean, LeBron was talking about it last night, saying it was going to happen, and it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, Anthony Davis has been an All-NBA, he's been an All-Star multiple times, he's been one of the better players on a championship team.

He's done all those things. Obviously, a deep playoff run here would certainly help. If he were able to win a championship this year with the Lakers, that would obviously cement it.

But it does seem like it's likely to happen. He's been one of the best players in the league while he's been a Laker. His availability isn't always great, but when LeBron says it's going to happen, you tend to believe yes. It's probably going to happen by the time this is all said and done with Anthony Davis in the Lakers' jersey.

We don't know how much longer that's going to be. I mean, he's 30, so he still has plenty of years left to continue playing, but he's definitely on that trajectory right now, and a deep playoff run this year certainly won't hurt his case. I know perception is basically kind of the timer you ask the question, so the perception today of Anthony Davis is great.

I think a lot of people forgot how great of a player he could be just because the injuries, unfortunately, have been right at the forefront. With the Laker fam, what is the perception of AD these days? Obviously, it's phenomenal right now, but it was just a few months ago that people were asking the question, do the Lakers need to trade him? Is this the end of AD with the Lakers, and are they going to move on over the summer?

It was a very real question coming into the season. Can Anthony Davis be the guy that they brought him to LA to be, and that's the guy that would ultimately take the torch from LeBron James and would be able to carry the franchise moving forward. The availability was a big question there, and there were moments in the season where he was getting banged up, he got injured for a long stretch, and people were really starting to wonder whether or not AD was going to be long for Los Angeles or if they were going to need to make a move at some point. But right now, everybody's obviously really, really happy with what they've seen out of him. Defensively, he's been very consistent, he's been great the entire playoffs, and now on the offensive end, we saw him really get going against Golden State. It's a reminder of how amazing he absolutely can be, but that availability, you're always kind of waiting, you're holding your breath every time he hits the ground or anything like that because you just never know. But right now, fans are obviously thrilled with what they're seeing out of him at the moment.

Whenever LeBron is on your team, it feels like all we talk about is LeBron, LeBron, LeBron, and he gets all the praise and also gets all the criticism of things don't work out. I'll tell you though, I think an underrated storyline here with the Lakers this year or something that just doesn't get enough praise is Rob Palenka because he did a masterful job at the deadline. Yeah, I mean they were able to pull off some really, really incredible things at the trade deadline, and this was, it was a big, big risk. A big risk when, from all reporting, from everybody I've spoken to, they had the opportunity right before the season started.

Literally the day before media day. They had the opportunity to go get Buddy Heald and Myles Turner from the Pacers in a Russell Westbrook trade. It would have cost them both their first round picks to do it, 2027 and 2029. But they decided to wait and see if they could get something better in the season. And so that's a gamble, you know, that number one, you can keep yourself afloat enough to give yourself an opportunity to do something if you can make a trade later on in the season.

And number two, that anything's even going to come around, that you're going to find that deal. And so they took the risk, they went into the season with a roster that didn't make a lot of sense. And Rob in the Lakers' front office, they managed to find a series of moves.

Getting Rui Hotramura, getting DeAngelo Russell, getting Jared Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley's in that deal. You know, they made these moves that just turned around their entire season. After the trade deadline, they had the best record in the Western Conference, so got to give that front office credit.

They did a tremendous job. I didn't have a problem with the pool shot last night. It was great defense by the Lakers, where you get the ball out of Steph Curry's hand. How did you kind of look back at the ending of that game last night? Yeah, I mean, it's always, you hold your breath anytime the Warriors get an open look for three, you know, you know how good they are at hitting those. But Jordan Poole shooting that deep of a shot in that situation, I think you live with it if you're the Lakers, so I wasn't too upset with that. If anything, if the Lakers are critical of themselves, they're probably looking in the film room at the shot that they took before that that led to Poole getting that open look. LeBron settling for a three after running out much to the clock rather than getting some action going that would have got them more to the basket or something like that. I think they were okay with giving up that look as long as it wasn't Steph getting that open look in that moment.

You just, you got to live with it. I know it's the Warriors that could happen just out of nowhere, but what the heck happened in the final few minutes of the game or just out of nowhere, they went on that 14-0 run of the Warriors and tied things up. Yeah, so I think some of that, some of that was some poor decision-making by the Lakers. They settled a couple of times for some deep shots and whenever you do that, you can give up some long rebounds and that puts your opponent into at least semi-transition and can get scoring opportunities for them.

So we saw that happen a little bit there and the Warriors do a great job of capitalizing on opportunities like that. But we also saw, it almost felt like the Lakers to themselves were saying, nope, we're not going to do this again, we're going to get the ball to the basket, we're not going to settle for jumpers. And they did and still missed and they just couldn't get the ball. Even when they were right at the rim, Anthony Davis, LeBron, they had offensive rebound opportunities right at the bucket and just couldn't get anything to drop. They went on about a four-minute stretch where they just couldn't score and I'm sure it was frustrating because they couldn't get the jumpers to fall and they also couldn't get anything. Even when they said, hey, we're not going to continue to settle, we're going to get to the basket, they still couldn't get shots to drop.

It was just bad timing. I think if they had to do it all over again, they'd probably employ the same strategy, get to the rim and just rely on the odds that ultimately those shots are going to fall. But that stretch, they did and the Warriors got themselves right back in it and tied the game up. Wrapping up with Trevor Lane, what has the coach brought to the team this year for the Lakers making a change? Darvin Ham came in with a very different mentality than Frank Vogel. Vogel does a tremendous job, the previous coach, as a defense-first head coach. Darvin Ham brings that element.

He does a good job on the defensive end, not quite the same level of defensive coach as Vogel is. But the big thing for Darvin Ham is just he's a leader that people want to follow and he has that ability to inspire and he gets guys just wanting to run through a brick wall for him. It's that type of environment that he's fostered. It's created a little bit more positivity. They were able to withstand some tough times earlier in the season and come out the other side of it simply because of Darvin Ham.

He's that guy that you'll run through a brick wall for. He's brought that to the fold and I really think he's grown as a coach over the course of the year. When you look at scheme-wise and tactics and timeouts and substitution patterns and everything that he was doing at the beginning of the year, we've watched him progress and get better and better and better as the year's gone on as he's really honed in on everything.

So that's been very cool to watch as well. It feels like this series is just destined to go seven games. Do you agree with that?

Yeah, it seems that way. These teams are so close and wouldn't that be a treat? To get to see players the caliber of LeBron and Steph Curry and Anthony Davis to see this go seven, it would be absolutely epic. It would be a historic series.

But yeah, it does feel like that. That may very well be where this is ultimately headed because there's zero chance that the Warriors are looking at that Game 1 and saying, Well, uh-oh, we're in trouble now. They've been in this situation.

They know exactly what they need to do. I think this is going to be a long series. What do we see from Anthony Davis?

Tomorrow night you get Game 2 in that series, hit a great Game 1. What does Anthony Davis do in Game 2? I want to see how he adjusts to the adjustments.

That's the key in playoff series. How do you adjust from game to game and then how do you respond to the adjustments that your opponent is making? You know, the Warriors are going to throw some different things at him to try to not let him get into a rhythm, to try to limit his impact. So how does he adjust to that? How does he manage to maintain his aggressiveness? We saw in two games in the Memphis series where he wasn't as much of a factor on the offensive end where teams have been able to, even towards the tail end of the season, sort of take him out of the flow offensively.

They know the Warriors will try to do that. They'll probably put Jerramond on him for some stretches. They'll throw some doubles at him and things like that. So how does he respond in those moments? Does he counter those situations appropriately? That's what I'm going to be watching for because that's what's probably going to determine how effective he is.

Does he read the change defensively that's being thrown at him and then what does he do to counter it? That's a great job, host of Lakers Nation. Also check out the front office show. He, of course, is Trevor Lane. Trevor, great to catch up with you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.