In his first season leading the Lakers, JJ Redick—who has a fondness for analytics—intends to rely on a tried-and-true method.
Redick stated that he would start the five-man Lakers unit that had the most success collectively the previous season—Antonio Davis, Rui Hachimura, LeBron James, Austin Reaves, and D’Angelo Russell—in a recent interview with ESPN’s “The Lowe Post” podcast.
“Yeah. It will be the starting five that went 23-10 last year,” Redick confirmed.
Darvin Ham, Redick’s predecessor, frequently changed that starting five, most notably when he started the previous campaign by starting Hachimura off the bench. He used a similar approach with Russell and Reaves as the season went on, and didn’t start the latter player consistently until the following year.
Many believed that Ham’s frequent lineup changes disrupted the Lakers’ rhythm and hurt James and Davis, the team’s two permanent starters. Even worse, Ham received open criticism from his teammates—Davis and Russell in particular—for preventing the club from developing any kind of consistency.
Redick intends to experiment with his offensive strategies, pushing players like Hachimura and Davis to hit more threes, but he also wants to give the five-man unit more rope.
“In terms of what the offense looks like, there will be a decent amount of [ball] movement,” Redick said. “The shot profile will hopefully improve [from last season]. We’ve talked about ways to create more paint touches. We’ve also talked about ways to shoot more threes. We’ve talked about some of the leeway that you have to give certain players with their mid-range shots, whether that’s in the post or isolation.”
In order to assist the Lakers “create some margins” against high-octane offenses that shoot a lot of threes, Redick also intends to “emphasize offensive rebounding” and “corner crashes”. Redick is motivated to raise the Lakers’ three-point shooting percentage from last year, when they were rated No. 28.
On October 4, Redick’s Lakers will play the Timberwolves in a preseason game that will give fans a sneak peek at their new appearance. Before opening night on October 22, Redick’s staff intends to work out offensive and defensive strategies over the preseason and training camp.
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