January 29, 2021 - Nekias Duncan on the Lakers and Clippers, Adebayo rising, and legitmate Finals squads

The Late Night Happy Hour with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

The Late Night Happy Hour welcomes Nekias Duncan (BasketballNews.com, The Dunker Spot podcast) to the show, and he's bringing all kinds of insight.

We start with the Lakers. They've lost two straight - not a big deal - but every team has weaknesses, however relative. Has Nekias seen anything in these games that worry him? (Spoiler... no, not really.) In fact, he wonders if the Lakers haven't been playing with measured effort, meaning they have a lot of upside left to explore. We dive into Dennis Schroder and Montrezl Harrell. What do they need from each guy? Does it really matter if Harrell can't be a force in the playoffs?

Meanwhile, the Clippers are winning games and shooting the lights out behind Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Is it sustainable? Have they solved their point guard problem? What about Lou Williams, who has not performed well this season. Could he be a candidate for trading later in the season?

From there, we look at Anthony Davis, and whether fatigue from a short offseason might be impacting him more than expected, and use that as a jumping off point to explore Nekias' great feature story on the growth of Miami's Bam Adebayo. Is AD a good template for Bam, in terms of potential growth and upside, working with a varied (though admittedly different) skill set? How realistic is it that Adebayo becomes a top 10 player in the league? Could he go higher?

Joel Embiid appears to have made a leap this year. Does that make Philly a legit contender in the Eastern Conference? Is anyone in the West going to challenge the LA teams, when push comes to shove.

Great info, great insight from one of the best young basketball writers out there.