00:00Well, Brian, let's stick with the Lakers because we are going to get the first full year of Luka with the Lakers.
00:04And aside from their loss, when you look at his 43-point near triple-double, with LeBron being out,
00:11I wonder if it gives them a chance to see what it looks like to continue to have Luka lead this team.
00:16But how do you think that LeBron and Luka will mesh together in this season in terms of their roles and identities?
00:22Yeah. So for the first time, really in LeBron's 23-year career, you can say that he is not the primary focus of the franchise,
00:32nor is he the future of the franchise. And even when he was leaving teams, even when he was going to free agency
00:39and he changed teams three different times, those teams still viewed him as the future of their franchise.
00:45He just elected to move elsewhere. And so the future of the Lakers franchise is really two people.
00:52Luka Doncic and Mark Walter, who in some time in the next few months will take over as the owner of the team.
00:59Other than that, I don't know who's going to be involved with the Lakers or who will be with the Lakers in a couple of years.
01:05If you look at this team in particular, I believe eight of their players can be free agents at the end of the season.
01:12Some of them have options. They might not all be free agents.
01:16So I don't even know how many of these players will be Lakers next year.
01:20I do know that Luka, who extended his contract in the offseason, is committed to being the Lakers long term.
01:27And all of their decisions going forward will be based on supporting Luka.
01:32And so they're sort of in this in-between period.
01:35And in all honesty, I know that because they're the Lakers and because their fan base is so intense
01:40and because their history is so decorated, that the expectations that the Lakers begin every season as a title favorite.
01:48The truth is, while this Lakers team can definitely achieve, especially if LeBron returns to health,
01:55I have no idea how many of these Lakers are even medium-term players for them.
02:00And they're in this period where they're about to flip their whole franchise around from the ownership suite on downward.
02:07And so they're in a big period of change, but they've got to play this season out
02:11and try to get the most out of what could be LeBron's last year.
02:15So it's an odd situation to be in. LeBron's never been in it.
02:19Certainly, Luka's never been in it.
02:20The Lakers are in a situation that very few teams have ever been in,
02:24where they have an all-time great player that they've got to put their arm around and escort to the door
02:30while also building with their new franchise player.
02:33And this wasn't something that they had like a three-year plan on.
02:37This fell out of the sky to them last year when they were in the middle of another project.
02:41So they are in an awkward spot, and I know I'm in Los Angeles right now.
02:45I spend a lot of time in Los Angeles.
02:47There's just this intense interest from the Laker fan base who is so big and so passionate,
02:53and they want to be like, are we going to win tonight's game?
02:57When I think that the Lakers project is really a much more multifaceted, longer-term,
03:03unusual period that they're actually in here.
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