Podcast: A closer look at Lakers’ draft options with Ricky O’Donnell

The Lakers have some major questions facing them this offseason, starting with the NBA Draft.

The NBA Draft is just weeks away, and the Los Angeles Lakers have begun their pre-draft process — which usually nets pretty great results (we just won’t mention Anthony Brown). On this week’s episode of “The Anthony Irwin Show,” I welcomed Ricky O’Donnell — who covers the draft for SB Nation — to preview some of that process.

Ricky and I started the show with a discussion on how he evaluates shooting in particular. The Lakers are desperate to add that ability to their roster this year, so it’s worth looking into what Ricky thinks makes a good shooter coming out of college — even if we all know this is no definitive science.

After that, we discussed whether a rookie the Lakers take 22nd overall has any chance of helping them win a championship next year. This is not remotely fair to whoever it is the Lakers draft, but this is an important factor in whether they use the pick in the first place. And I have to say, Ricky’s answer here surprised me.

Then, we got into some of the prospects specifically, starting with Cam Thomas, who Ricky has the Lakers taking in his first mock draft thus far. In short, the dude is a bucket, and given the way the Lakers struggled to score this postseason, he might make some sense.

Other names we discussed: Isaiah Jackson, Jaden Springer, Chris Duarte, Kai Jones, BJ Boston, Usman Guruba and a couple others.

Ricky is really, really good at analyzing this stuff, so you’re going to want to check him out. We also shouted out my good friend Mike Garcia, who has some great draft analysis of his own, with a magnifying glass on the Lakers specifically.

You can listen to the full episode below, and to make sure you never miss a show, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.

And for a short-form recap pod, check out Lakers Lowdown, in which Anthony Irwin recaps the previous day’s news and gets you ready for the day ahead in LakerLand, every weekday morning on the Silver Screen & Roll Podcast feed.