Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers

So much of the summer has been a waiting game, with the league and the Lakers (and Russell Westbrook) in a holding pattern until the situations around Kevin Durant in Brooklyn and Donovan Mitchell in Utah. Well, both have been resolved, and Russell Westbrook is still in Los Angeles. So what happens now? What options are realistically remaining on the Russell Westbrook Trade Option Tree? There's Indiana, Utah's skeletal remains, and whatever's behind Door #3 - basically some future option we just don't know about yet..

(And, of course, you could hold on to him... but that's not something people like to talk about.)

So how good do these deals need to be to make them "worth it?" Is a trade pointless if it doesn't vault the Lakers into high end contention? Is there even a deal out there that could do that? Probably not. So what about legit top 6? A real, live playoff team (something, thanks to the depth of the Western Conference, that's not entirely guaranteed by the best deal currently in the rumor mill, which is Indiana, but becomes much, much more realistic).

Because if it's championship or bust, the Lakers have some really hard decisions to make.

They tie as well to comments made over the weekend by Jeanie Buss, noting how the Lakers won't ever tank. They owe the fans a better product than that, and will always try to be competitive. That opens up some really interesting questions about tanking vs. rebuilding. How competitive is competitive enough? And do they have a plan?

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

SEGMENT 1: The Russ Trade Tree is losing branches.

SEGMENT 2: Does the fact Utah made a deal without Westbrook for THT, then with Cleveland that didn't involve Westbrook/the Lakers, make another trade less likely?

SEGMENT 3: How competitive is competitive enough? Can the Lakers tank, even if they wanted to?

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