New Los Angeles Lakers head honcho JJ Redick is an unknown commodity in the coaching sphere, as he had never coached at the NBA, college, or high school level before taking over the job. There has been a lot of intrigue about what the Lakers will look like under Redick, as a result, so during an appearance on The Lowe Post, he shared some details on what one should expect from them next season.
“In terms of what the offense looks like, there will be a decent amount of movement,” Redick said. “The shot profile will hopefully improve. We talked about ways to create more paint touches, we talked about ways to shoot more threes, we 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. But hopefully the shot profile improved.
“From a possession standpoint, one of the margins this team created last year and historically with this group, has been free throws,” Redick continued. “Outside of that there hasn’t been a lot of margin creation, so we’re going to try to create some margins.
“One of which is, we’re really going to emphasize offensive rebounding, corner crashes,” Reddick added. “… I’m not comparing that to any previous coach or previous system, but those are some of the things that will look like a team that I coach.”
So for starters, we should expect more movement on offense from the Lakers next season. They were a bit too rigid at times in 2023-24 and more motion certainly won’t hurt.
As for the three-pointers, well that is something Redick certainly had to address. The Lakers attempted 31.4 threes per game last season, which ranked 28th in the league. In today’s NBA, you have to shoot more threes and the two teams that went to the Finals last season, the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks, were the top two in terms of threes attempted too.
Redick also brought up that he’d want more touches in the paint, but that was an area the Lakers already excelled at last season. They ranked second in the league in points in the paint per game at 55.6 and you’d expect them to have success inside once again.
While the Lakers were great at getting to the paint, they weren’t all that great when it came to crashing the offensive glass. They averaged just 8.2 offensive rebounds per game last season, which was the worst in the league.
So, Redick has certainly identified some of the problem areas for the Lakers from last season and the question is if he can fix them. They ranked 15th in offensive rating at 115.4 in 2023-24 and it will be interesting to see how far further up the 40-year-old takes them. I don’t foresee a big leap but if that does happen, they will make a lot of noise next season.
During this episode, Redick also confirmed the Lakers’ starting lineup for the 2024-25 season. D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, and Anthony Davis will be the starters and the team had gone 23-10 last season when all five started. Redick will be hoping they can replicate that success in 2024-25.
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