Every new season presents an opportunity to improve from the year before.
The Lakers will attempt to do just that under the leadership of JJ Redick, the franchise’s new head coach.
Plenty of aspects impact winning, but everything boils down to one of two categories: offense or defense.
Regarding the offensive side of the ball, Redick made some comments during the Lakers’ Summer League matchup against the Rockets regarding how he could improve the team on that side of the court.
“One of the things last year with this team, they played a lot of random,” Redick said. “If you look at the efficiency numbers, when they played random versus when they played out of sets, the sets had a much higher efficiency.
“It’s not that we’re going to call plays every time, but we’re going to put them in environments where they can make reads. Look, we have LeBron and AD on our team. Those guys are obviously going to be offensive hubs, but we are going to play with more movement, more cutting and we have to certainly get buy-in from all players to play that way.”
You don’t bring in a new coach to keep things the same. Redick consistently prides himself on utilizing modern basketball ideologies.
We are unlikely to hear motivational phrases from him and already, in his limited time as the head coach, he’s made comments like, “I’m going to use math” when discussing how he will make decisions.
The math shows the Lakers struggled offensively in the 2023-24 season. They had an offensive rating of 115.4, which was 15th in the league and struggled to get 3-point attempts off, shooting just 31.4 shots from deep per game, the third lowest in the NBA.
This isn’t the first time he’s discussed using Anthony Davis as a “hub” offensively.
Running an offense through LeBron has been done plenty of times and proven to work. An offense through AD has not, but it’s something fans have clamored for.
Far too often, Davis does not get shots at the basket late in games as the ball suddenly no longer finds him. His fourth-quarter numbers back this up: He gets up 3.3 attempts, tied with his second quarter as his lowest shot attempt average last year.
Davis also scored fewer points in the final 12 minutes, averaging 5.4 points, which is far fewer than his 8.5 points during the first quarter and 7.1 points in the third.
With the production matching the shot-making, if Redick can ensure Davis doesn’t disappear in the fourth quarter due to a lack of touches, that could simultaneously raise Davis’ offensive production and the Lakers’ ceiling.
There will be plenty of areas to improve, but optimizing LeBron and AD will be Redick’s top priority. If he can do that, it can bring back aspects of the 2020 Lakers and we all know what that team was able to accomplish.
