Nick Smith Jr.

They had, who else was in the bottom here? They had Portland in the bottom, Toronto, Detroit was 18th, So again, because they're trying to project out into the future and say, what are your assets? What are your young players? And so when you look at the write-up from last season that Bobby Marks had, my baby boy Bobby Marks, he mentions that Charlotte was focusing on its five players on rookie contracts.

Brandon Miller, Conn Knipple, Tijon Salah, Nick Smith Jr., Liam McNeely.

while accumulating draft assets and having financial flexibility.

Well, the draft assets grew, the financial flexibility grew, and Brandon Miller and Conn Knipple grew as players.

Maybe it happens, and then the team gives up on him before he has another opportunity to show you what he could do.

Jimmy Horn, Nick Smith Jr., those are the vibes I'm getting.

I mean, we're kind of almost there with Tijon, too.

Unfortunately,

crazy thing to me.

There's a big difference in my mind, and you may argue with me on this, but my mind always thinks about football in this way of Jimmy Horn muffs a pint and he gets cut.

And basketball, because we get comments all the time, oh, Nick Smith Jr. didn't get a shot.

Or Book Knight.

It was a lot of support from, obviously, a lot of players.

Nick Smith Jr., Brandon Miller, Grant Williams, Lamola Ball, of course.

And I believe one other person, if I'm not mistaken, was celebrating in terms of the comment section on Instagram.

It was great to see Nick Smith, obviously, on the Charlotte Hornets uniform.

Nick Smith Jr. did a great job.

Solid job as a guard for the Charlotte Hornets team, but otherwise than that, ladies and gentlemen, that's pretty much it for your quick news, as I said, or quick notes for everything.

Pretty much former players getting hurt, unfortunately, with Mark Williams and then pretty much signing on to an international team, which we do wish them the best, of course.

Now, technically, a- and I like to make this point every time we talk through the depth chart, positions, et cetera, like guys can play multiple positions, so just because you list a player at their primary position, and even then some of these primary positions are debatable, that doesn't mean they don't have a secondary or even a third position that they can play.

So loosely comparing 2026 to 2027, I have at point guard, uh, for 2026, Luka, Bronny and Nick Smith Jr.

And then for 2027, I have at point guard Luka, Collin Sexton, and Bronny.

Uh, right off the bat, we're looking at the offensive positions here.

Uh, we'll, we'll call that a wash for now.

Bronny versus Sexton, clearly the edge goes to Sexton.

Then you have Nick Smith Jr. versus Bronny, which is close, but clearly the, the biggest edge here, the biggest advantage for the 2027 team is Sexton versus Bronny as the primary backup.

So I give the point guard position to 2027.

Luke Kennard, also no longer a Laker.

He signed for... six million dollars with the phoenix suns jackson hayes no longer a laker he signed for six million dollars with the utah jazz i forget if it's a player option or a team option on him but regardless he's gone and then you're gonna really need to hold on to your seats for this one tommy maxi kleba is no longer a laker no And then on top of that, Nick Smith Jr. and Drew Timmy are no longer Lakers.

All three of these last players are TBD.

We're not sure where they're going to play next year.