JJ Redick has gotten off to the best possible start as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, with the team sporting a 3-0 record. The Lakers have especially impressed on offense under Redick and a video recently went viral on X, showing some concepts he has introduced into the system.
7 PASSES IN 11 SECONDS???
FLARE SCREENS???
BACKCUTS FOR POCKET BOUNCE PASS???
WHO THE HELL IS THIS TEAM??!! pic.twitter.com/nbkjNCUly7
— 🏆LakersGuru🏆 (@GuruLakers) October 26, 2024
Lakers fans weren’t all that happy with the kind of offense that former head coach Darvin Ham was running and are thrilled by what they’re seeing now. It’s a very small sample size, but this team does seem a lot better offensively, especially in the half-court, under Redick than under Ham.
The Lakers had an offensive rating of 115.4 last season, which ranked 15th in the NBA. Under Redick, that rating has jumped up to 120.1, which is good enough for fourth-best in the league. If they end the season that high up, their record is going to be much better than what I had envisioned.
Redick has made his doubters eat some humble pie with how well the Lakers have played under him. He sure isn’t operating like someone who hadn’t even coached at the high school level prior to this, but it’s still early days. The real test of any coach or player is when they’re facing some adversity and it’ll be interesting to see how Redick does in those situations.
JJ Redick Had Outlined What The Lakers Offense Will Look Like Before The Season
With Redick not having coached at a high level before taking the Lakers job, no one knew what to expect from his team when he was hired. We finally got an idea last month on the Lowe Post podcast, as Redick shared some key details about the Lakers’ offense.
“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,” Redick 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.”
To Redick’s credit, we have seen improvement in some of the areas that he mentioned. For starters, there is more motion, as evidenced in that clip.
The Lakers also lead the league in points in the paint, with 60.7 per game. They ranked second last season, so there has been some improvement. As for offensive rebounding, they were bottom of the league in 2023-24 with 8.2 per game but are 15th now with 11.3 per game.
The one area where there hasn’t been an improvement is long-range shooting. The Lakers are attempting 30.3 threes per game thus far, which is lower than last season, in which they attempted 31.4 per game. That’s clearly an area where Redick still has some work to do and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that number go up as the season progresses.
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