His knees look cooked. It’s a shame this is how his career has turned out 

Embiid is not even a top 100 player anymore. The Sixers having to take on that contract for 3 more seasons is devastating

Cooked

Don’t worry, his new contract hasn’t even started yet, plenty of time to figure it out lmao

Nah, Flop Master Supreme is reaping in his career what he sowed

Suns fans must be pissed. Good thing they aren’t crazy

lol there were lakers haters saying he wouldn’t help us. They clearly didn’t watch Jaxson Hayes for 50 games

Honestly, ever since he was a Laker he just hoop and do his thing. No drama or any BS so far.

He just needed motivation lol, and lebron prob put the fear of god in him during their post trade talk and he got it. He’s gonna ball out n it’s gonna piss me off when he gets 30 in the playoffs soon 💀

I thought DA played great in Portland too when he was healthy. Glad to see him exploding like this in LA. Timely launch!

He would’ve been the #2 pick on the Kings. I don’t think his career would be viewed much differently if he had the same accolades but picked 2nd

imo hes judged for being so promising in that finals run then just not comepting

Monte Williams was awful for managing the interplayer relationships during his time with Ayton. That experience broke Ayton as a player and dude is barely recovering

But what would that have done for the father-son relationship?

Dereck Lively 2.0

But not even the trionof Luka, Reaves, and LeBron can help Hayes huh… Like no offense to him, but he really WAS bad during the time when he was the starting 5 for the Lakers. LeBron at 5 was somehow better despite being 40 years old with like 13 years of aging, and wear and tear.

Has anyone ever had three players like Luka, LeBron, and Reeves surrounding them?

He had one in Chris Paul, and that took them to the finals. It should be no surprise that he’s doing well now that he has three.

I don’t think AR belongs in that conversation. AR is a score-first guard. He always comes off screens with his head down looking to get his.

Ayton had a 40” vert? Holy shit

The Suns owner was also a UofA alum

Pause

has a Laker bench player done this before?

Dwight Howard, Tyson Chandler, Larry Nance Jr, and Kurt Rambis

Also, I’m now curious what non-Laker players have done this

139 examples, since 1981

Edit: players who have done it most. Deandre Jordan with 8, Gobert with 5, Tyson Chandler and Zubac with 4

I’m more surprised Wilt didn’t do it in ‘72. Though it might not be counted because TO’s weren’t a stat. Or maybe they were idk.

I’d add that he has actually been pretty great the handful of times we actually needed him to be a bigger force too. He was a big part of some of those upset wins when Bron and Luka were out.

His free throw line Jumpers are actually pretty wet.

It helps that the lob brings the ball one inch from the basket

Just to add to your final point, the Nets were offering him a contract when he was in his 50s lol

I think they are more like a darkhorse than a real title threat. They have some questions marks but with a good matchup and some small upgrade they can surprise people.

Suns fan here. He always had the talent. Freak athlete at his size. Showed his strengths more often than not. He just had a tendency to fade. I don’t think any reasonable Suns fan thought he was garbage. He just wasn’t consistent, for whatever reason. It seemed like an effort thing, but who knows.

I would say maybe it was coaching or the roster, but the Blazers got the same experience. He was serviceable in Portland. Showed flashes of why he went #1, but didn’t do it reliably. Whatever has changed in LA, it doesn’t make the past untrue. Maybe the coaching or roster there has motivated him. Maybe the lesser deal he had to sign woke him up. Who knows.

His contract with us was for over 30mil a year because he was the #1 pick and he was expected to play like it. His contract with you guys is 8mil a year. It’s easy to be happy with an affordable role player who is playing well enough. It’s harder to look the other way when he was supposed to be a centerpiece of your team but isn’t playing like it.

Mark Williams kinda quietly dominaytoned him a couple games ago.

In all seriousness few Suns fan would deny he’s fine value at 8 million and that he wasn’t going to give you guys some games like this. He’s also gonna have some games where he’s gonna make you want to pull your hair out.

Oh yeah, he has those nights, but then you remember he gets paid $8 million so we don’t really expect so much from him.

But yeah, Luka and LeBron definitely helps him elevate his game, all he has to do is catch the passes and dunk it or shoot it.

The entire team was doodoo. Ayton’s probably better with Luka playing but he was decent in the raptors game when we didn’t have Luka too.

Yeah definitely could be, he’s always been like that though. I remember watching him on the Suns and sometimes he’s just… there lmao. I’d be watching Suns players trying to grab a defensive rebound and Aytons just standing out of bounds waiting to inbound 😂

I think that was just a rough night. Weirdly AR had more immediate chemistry with Ayton than luka. Luka usually doesn’t need an adjustment period for centers. he found chemistry with hayes and gafford immediately for example. Ayton isn’t that athletic so some of it was throwing too high. but mainly Ayton pops, which AR was more used to because of AD. AR is simply not used to carrying this kind of offensive load for long periods, he’s been exhausted these two games.

So far only two bad nights from Ayton though, one of which was him injured. So far so good with all the warnings about him really.

Ayton haters are obsessed, we don’t expect him to be a star so we won’t get disappointed in him.