Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick has revealed the five players who will form the team’s starting lineup in the 2024-25 season to ESPN’s Zach Lowe on the ‘Lowe Post Podcast.’ The expected starting five will feature D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis.
“Yeah. It’ll be the starting 5 that went 23-10 last year.”
The Lakers looked like a Playoff team for the second half of last year when coach Darvin Ham settled on the starting five that Redick just named, going 23-10 as Redick mentioned.
He relied on players like Taurean Prince in the starting lineup for a good chunk of the season but was forced to pull him amidst declining results and unhappiness in the locker room, particularly from Hachimura, who was stuck on the bench.
Many of the Lakers’ problems last season came down to coaching, with coach Ham having inexact lineups and usually deferring to players like LeBron regarding high-stakes play-calling.
Coach Redick will hope to do things differently, with the entire Lakers organization betting that their roster is good enough to be competitive when it’s not held back by a coach who can’t identify its strengths.
We’ve seen too many teams fire coaches for bad seasons without fixing the underlying issues that caused the coach to fail, with the Lakers doing the same when they fired Frank Vogel and replaced him with Ham. However, anyone watching Lakers games closely last season could tell their lineups are inconsistent without a clear stylistic ethos, a big departure from how Ham led them to the Conference Finals in 2023.
The Lakers Hired JJ Redick For A Reason
The Lakers have made multiple coaching hires in the LeBron James era. While all four appointments in this time have been criticized, the idea behind hiring Redick is not the same as the one they had when they hired Luke Walton, Vogel, or Ham.
Team Governor Jeanie Buss opened up on why the Lakers targeted Redick, praising the former NBA player’s vision for the team, especially young players’ development.
“We wanted to kind of think a different way. Really, he’s got a vision. I’m not comfortable talking about the basketball stuff, but we were looking for a candidate who would bring something different and really invest in developing young players. JJ is the right person for us.”
“I just want to work to really speak for itself, so I don’t want to hype it and say it’s gonna be a home run. We have to give him time to establish what he wants to establish. I’m really impressed with his staff.”
Redick is completely unproven as a basketball coach, spending 15 years in the NBA and then becoming a media analyst. The Lakers will have to make the adjustment to NBA coaching easy for Redick, but nothing is easy in the NBA. If he has the support of key stakeholders in the franchise, he could end up crafting a turnaround with the same roster that was a Play-In team last season.
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