The Lakers have not settled upon their starting lineup.

Sources told ESPN the shooter would consider, UH, they would consider him starting at the point guards, but he also could be asked to fill in off the bench.

Sources have said that as well, Max, I'll start with you here.

How much pressure is on the Lakers to repeat?

I think there's more pressure on the Lakers this season.

Yeah, I didn't hear either.

I'm sorry.

I'm assuming you said me, but I don't know because Stephen A didn't okay, all right.

I think there's more pressure on the Lakers to start this season toe win this season than there was last season.

Like, do you remember before last season?

That survey of GM, right?

But I think it was right before the season started.

It was late October or November.

Who is most likely to win GM right?

So they survey 30.

GM is all the GM in the league and they ask who's most likely to win the championship.

These people they're living is dependent on knowing this kind of stuff, of evaluating talent.

Number one was the Clippers.

Number two is the Bucks Lakers finished a distant third.

They turned out to be wrong, but the perception was going in.

The Lakers may not win it this season.

And why not?

Like this is the third time LeBron has formed Ah, super team in a location.

The first time is he went to Miami, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bott and then Miller and all these guys.

Yeah, we wanna play there, too.

They lost the championship year one.

They got there, but they lost.

Same thing happened in Cleveland.

Oh, they got They got Kyrie and the number one pick.

They can flip Wiggins until Kevin love, I'll go to Cleveland.

There's another super team year one he lost.

True.

Everyone got hurt, but he still he didn't win the championship year.

One.

LeBron usually figures that out year to because you've got to get the details just right.

It's hard just to throw guys together and have them win a championship.

So I would say the expectation among most who knew was not that the Lakers would win.

Yet They did.

But how about this season, guys, what's the expectation.

Now a lot of people would say the number one and number two players in the world are both on the Lakers.

They just won the championship.

And I think everyone agrees They improved, at least on paper in the offseason.

Montrose, Harold and and Shrewder and Marc Gasol.

So, yeah, there's more pressure now, especially Stephen A.

As you know, you spend enough time in L.

A have covered the league long enough and have been alive long enough to know Lakers fans who they get greedy.

You know the reason they wanna win a championship is because you can't repeat or threepeat without winning the first one.

Now they expect it.

So do the oddsmakers, and I think there's more pressure than ever right now.

Well, for me personally, when I think about when I think about three peat, that's the only time that I'm interested in applying any kind of pressure to LeBron James at this stage in point in his career, he's never done that in his career.

He won back to backs in Miami.

He won one in Cleveland.

He won one with the Los Angeles Lakers, but he's never three Peter, like Jordan He's never three Peter like Kobe, and so because of that, I would like to see that.

I don't think that will happen.

But then again, you never know with the arsenal that they put forth.

The bottom line is, I don't think this is much pressure on the Los Angeles Lakers.

To quote unquote repeat.

Outside of that, I think there's pressure on LeBron James to win another chip before he departs from L.

A.

Since he'll have Anthony Davis on.

And by the way, speaking of Anthony Davis, congratulations to Clutch Sports and Anthony Davis, I don't know why the hell they in the news.

For him, not signing it's a two year deal is a three year deal, or it's a four year deal.

Either way, you slice it, you're getting the max.

What the hell is all the drama about?

Sign the damn contract telling you, Really leaving Southern?

Are you really leaving Southern California to Goto, Windy, the windy city of Chicago, or to the New York Knicks under Dolan?

Max Kellerman?

I mean, is there really some suspense as the with Anthony Davis is going to go?

But they're in the news.

I mean So hey, you know, more power to Rich Paul and clutch sports major props and that he's been doing a good job.

Here's the bottom line.

At the end of the day, when you look at all the moves that the Lakers made, Certainly they're the favorites there, the prohibitive favorites.

But Max, I was of the mindset.

If you remember, I said the Lakers had toe win last year.

I'm not trying to say there is no pressure, because, of course, there's pressure.

I'm saying there was more last year than now.

The reason why is because I firmly believed if they had lost last year and somebody else say the Clippers had knocked them off, all right or, God forbid, Denver okay than what would have happened was it would have been that much harder for them to ultimately overcome, You know, get over the hump because there would have been even more pressure to bear on LeBron and Anthony Davis.

They would not have won together.

Everybody would have been like, What's up?

What you gonna dio?

Meanwhile, those other teams knew how toe win.

But the fact that that has not happened and the Lakers ended up handling their business.

It relatively dominant fashion, I might add.

The bottom line is because they handled their business the way that they did, and they won the chip and they already know how toe win together and they've gotten that off now.

They could just go and play basketball.

May the best team win.

They should be it again, this pressure, because they're the prohibitive favorite.

But it's nothing compared to what it was last year, because if they had not won last year, it would have been significantly more pressure this season and beyond.

But But the reason is, see, I think there's a problem with that kind of thought experiment.

The reason that that there's more pressure now is because they didn't lose to the Clippers.

They never met the Clippers.

They didn't lose to the Nuggets.

They didn't lose to anyone.

And Stephen A.

The truth is, they never really came close, brother.

They never really came close.

That was kind of an easy championship win, not the end.

Winning any championship is easy, but we've seen teams get to a nail biter.

Game seven along the way, right, right.

They made it look easy cause someone even take him to a game seven.

No, no, that was like Jordan on the Bulls type stuff, right?

Like y'all can't even take this dude to a Game seven.

Those might be the two best players in the world.

So the fact that we now know that that they were that much better than the rest of basketball last season, and we all believe they got better.

But we don't look at any other team and say, See that team right there?

That team was knocking on the door and they just took a giant step forward.

We don't think that about the Clippers.

You may think they got marginally better or marginally worse.

The Bucks got a little better, but they didn't even get out of the East.

Did the heat get better?

Maybe if certain guys improved because they're getting a little older.

But no one, we don't see anyone on the, you know, not like the Nuggets acquired some major star or something like that was like, Okay, now what are they gonna dio?

So for that reason, there's more pressure now because we know what the Lakers were supposed to dio the expectations are higher.

Well, again, I disagree.

I mean, because the expectations are higher because we're looking at them and some of the moves that they made in their the prohibitive favorites.

But I look at Denver.

One could argue that there is addition by subtraction, even though we all like Jeremy Grant, he can ball.

The fact that he's going to be gone bar is going to come back.

But you got Michael Porter Jr That's expected to ascend.

Who knows how interesting that could be.

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