The Los Angeles Lakers land Dorian Finney-Smith in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets. Dave DuFour, Zena Keita, and Es Baraheni breakdown the move for the Lakers, react to Mike Brown’s firing in Sacramento, and Pat Riley’s stance on trading Jimmy Butler. Then, the gang go through some “NBA New Year’s Resolutions” and reveal the new leader in the MVP award race.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Zena Keita & Es BaraheniExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodySubmit your questions to The Athletic NBA Daily mailbag: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5939460/2024/11/25/nba-podcast-mailbag-athletic-daily/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for December 30th, 2024. Coming up, we had a trade over the weekend. We also had our first coach firing, so we're going to talk about the Kangs and their interesting situation. And Pat Riley has said the Miami Heat are not trading Jimmy Butler. Also, the Raptors, I think, just turned the ball over again. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back.
We're back from our little break. A little bit of a programming note. We are going to be off for New Year's Day. That way, S and I can have personal lives for one holiday night of the year.
Have a little champagne or something.
Yeah, it's going to be nice. But man, we appreciate you guys sticking around during the break. Hope everybody had a great holiday and got some rest. I know it's tough because the kids were out for like two weeks. My gym has been packed with kids everywhere, guys.
Oh, damn.
You know what? All right, let's jump into the news because we got too much to hit. Guys, we have had a trade. The Los Angeles Lakers taking a swing to try to fix what I think is a team that's pretty good and fix some of the problems that they've got. And they made a big move. They go out and get a 3 and D wing in Dorian Finney-Smith.
They also pick up Shaq Milton, who can help their guard rotation a little bit. And they only had to send out D'Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis, and three second round picks. So they got to keep the first rounders. So the powder's a little bit dry. Zena, look, I want to start with the Lakers side of this because this is a move for a team that's trying to win.
What do you think about getting Dorian Finney-Smith out there? 3 and D guy. I mean, they needed him.
I love this for the Lakers. This is a significant upgrade to their defense. He's a sturdier, he being Dorian Finney-Smith is a sturdier defender. And I like this alongside Max Christie, who has kind of emerged as a great defender, an agile defender. He's a little bit smaller than Dorian Finney-Smith. So expect him to kind of be on the more agile assignments on the other side of the ball.
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