Jovan Buha

speaker

326 appearances 10 recordings 3 series first heard Nov 2024 last heard 26 Jun

Jovan Buha’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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The Athletic NBA Daily · Cavaliers lose 3rd straight + When will LeBron return? · 20 Mar 2025 podcast

Zion Williamson had a really nice game, but the Pelicans are not a good basketball team, and the Wolves are supposed to be. The Wolves now statistically are the eighth seed. They are one game back of the Warriors for that sixth spot. They're tied with the Clippers. And, S, look, man, they were on this nice winning streak. Yeah. Now they're stumbling a little bit.

This is kind of what they've done all year long, where they have these nice runs and then –

Yeah. The Suns win. The Mavs lose. The Suns are now in that 10th spot. The Trailblazers are only two games back of the Suns after beating the Grizzlies. This is starting to sound like basketball when they're talking about the tournament. But the Grizzlies now have fallen to the five spot.

in the west right the nuggets are the four spot and the lakers are uh back in that in that three spot um actually the lakers still oh you're right you're right they are yeah the standings just updated for us while we were recording it was very nice um so as you know we're looking ahead a little bit we're thinking about playoff time yeah Who has nothing?

They have to play like there is nothing to lose. They have to win every single game for the rest of this week. We're thinking the Wolves here, the Suns are really on the precipice. The Blazers, it seems like they kind of want to make the play in.

Yeah. The Lakers took care of business over the Nuggets. No Jokic, no Murray again for the Nuggets. No, no miracle. Although Aaron Gordon had another really nice game. But the Lakers took care of business and we caught up with Yovan before the game. So Yovan Buha, our beat writer that covers the Lakers over at the Athletic, caught up with him before the game.

And he mentioned this team needs to shoot. And they shot the ball extremely well. What did they put up in the first quarter? I mean, I thought they were going to score 60 at one point. They wind up with 46 in the first quarter. And here I am thinking, wow, Jovan, just so prescient of mine here. He really understood what was going to happen tonight.

huge win when it comes to the standings right yeah and another big game for austin reeves 22 points eight assists i mean again the lakers look good uh guys stick around after the break jovan will be here to let us know when lebron is coming back The Lakers are still playing without LeBron James for now, but he's back soon.

Here to talk about when he's going to come back and hopefully give us an actual date, Jovan Buha, who covers the Lakers for us at The Athletic. Jovan, I'm putting you on the spot. I want to start there because, look, this team, since the Luka Doncic trade,

They feel like a contender, and when LeBron was out there with Luka, I mean, we got a new version of Showtime, and I think it was bringing out the best in both of those guys. Obviously, he's been out for a minute now. What's the latest on LeBron, and when can we expect to see him back out there?

Yeah, so he's technically day to day, but he's been day to day for over a week now. So maybe it seems more like week to week, but it seems like philosophical there. Exactly. I think the soonest we will see him is Saturday against Chicago, but probably more likely at some point on that road trip that they're about to go on. They're going to Orlando and Indiana and Chicago and Memphis.

They got a four game trip next week. So I think most likely at some point on that trip, but there is a slight chance that he is back Saturday against Chicago.

Yeah, exactly.

Seems like Chicago is in play for Rui to make his return. He started doing some three-on-three action, so that's their ramp-up process. I think the Lakers, with both players and in general, have been a bit cautious with injuries this year. They are trying to prioritize health over seating. So I think Rui's on a similar timeline to LeBron. He's a little bit closer to returning.

So I think that's probably more of like a 50-50 for Saturday and then, if not, at some point early on the road trip.

I think it's more the latter. They just feel like in any series they play, they're going to have two of the three best players, if not arguably the two best. I think if you put them up against Memphis, you put them up against Houston, they're confident they have the two best players on the floor.

So I think regardless of kind of how the seating plays out, I think the two exceptions would obviously be OKC and Denver because of how great Shea and Nikola Jokic are individually. But Outside of those two matchups, which it doesn't seem like the Lakers are going to drop to eighth. I think LeBron would have to have some type of setback or maybe like a re-aggravation upon returning.

And even the Denver matchup, I guess they could match up something like 3-6. But that's seeming unlikely for now. Seems like Lakers will probably finish in that top five. So assuming they're in that top five, they like their matchup against Memphis or Houston or potentially Golden State. So I think for now... Of course, they want to be the two or three seed if they can secure that.

And they're still in that mix, to be clear. But with this Denver-Milwaukee back-to-back, they have the third toughest remaining schedule the rest of the way. And you look at it, two games against OKC, two games against Houston, Memphis. It's a pretty tough schedule down the stretch. Eight of their final 12 games are on the road. So realistically, I think the two seed is probably a long shot.

Even the three seed is probably the best case scenario. And I just trend more toward like being rational about this. So I think they're probably going to be in the four or five mix. And whether they have home court or not, I think that they like their odds against anybody in that kind of range.

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