Lakers Lounge

The conference finals matchups are set and, now that we're two rounds in, Anthony offers up a take on what it takes on offense and defense to enjoy postseason success -- and how it runs contrary to what is valued across the league. From there, he brings the conversation back to the Lakers by answering questions from the iTunes, Twitter and youtube mailbags.

As much as teams have focused on efficiency through shot selection, Anthony found a notable trend across most of the conference finalists over the years and their ability from two-point range. Between that and the defense we're seeing from the teams left, the Lakers have their work cut out for them this summer.

A listener wanted to know what it would take for the Lakers to play the kind of defense we're watching from the remaining teams and, well, we have some bad news...

After years of trying to find some way to record a regular pod together, Anthony and Pete finally have that opportunity and will be recording episodes of "The Hook" every other Friday or so. This is their first such episode and in it, they talk about the potential for a quieter summer than fans may expect, what that would mean and what's on the line in this first transaction window since the Luka trade -- plus any number of topics in-between.

Given how little the Lakers have to work with, Anthony is concerned the team will probably look pretty similar to what we saw this year. If so, and if the Lakers want to compete for a championship, then any improvement will need to come internally. Anthony asks Pete about this notion and... Pete isn't sold.

One thing that's become impossible to ignore is that, outside of keeping his job, it's pretty difficult to figure out what Rob Pelinka's top priorities are in building a team. The organization has lacked much of an identity and this is probably a reason why. Anthony and Pete discuss this and more.

Anthony and Raj break down what they just watched as the Nuggets extended their series to a game seven in OKC thanks to Julian Strawther stepping up. Identity matters in basketball, turns out. From there, they have THE DEFINITIVE AUSTIN REAVES CONVERSATION as so much attention has been paid to his trade market. They also hold THE DEFINITIVE CHRISTIAN KOLOKO CONVERSATION which doesn't exactly have the same ring to it.

The guys discuss everything they saw from Nuggets-Thunder game six and how frustrating it was to watch the Lakers wander away from their identity in their series against the Wolves. That can't happen again.

They also discuss the differences between regular and postseason basketball and why Anthony was always skeptical of OKC.

Arguably the best case for not trading Austin is how much it would suck to trade him at maybe his lowest value following that disappointing playoff run. Raj makes that case, then Anthony plays devil's advocate.

Raj has a quite frankly weird amount of things to say about Christian Koloko and what he considers a wasted opportunity from the Lakers to grab the $100 bill they saw floating down the sidewalk (Anthony's analogy).