Darvin Ham needed roughly eight months between the offseason and regular season to land on his starting lineup. JJ Redick needed two months on the job.
Throughout recent years, Lakers head coaches have kept starting fives close to the vest, to say the least. Both Frank Vogel and Ham gained reputations for never revealing their starting lineups until it was absolutely necessary.
JJ Redick isn’t following that mold.
Despite being nearly a month away from the first game of the regular season and still a week out from even the start of training camp, Redick has already landed on his starting five. And on top of that, he’s already willingly sharing it publicly.
Redick appeared on “The Lowe Post” podcast with Zach Lowe on Tuesday and, when asked if he had settled on a starting lineup, he simply…revealed the lineup. What a novel concept!
“It’ll be the starting five that went 23-10 last year.”
Well, there goes a preseason storyline. And, to be clear, the lineup he is referring to D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
To be fair, there may not actually be much to debate about that lineup. The only realistic change that could be made is inserting Jarred Vanderbilt for Hachimura. However, if reports are to be believed, Vando might not even be ready from the jump this preseason, which pretty much makes the decision an easy one.
After spending last summer talking about continuity and then not leaning into that last season, the Lakers are, at the very least, going to ride that continuity this season with this lineup. In those final 33 games, only one other lineup — the Pacers starting five — played more minutes together in the entire NBA.
The Lakers found ways to leverage their size with that starting five and it really ignited Hachimura as well. The team also found success with that group in games LeBron sat out as well.
Now, the starting five struggled in the playoffs against Denver, but the likely hope is that a season of playing together and figuring out how to correct the weakness will only make them stronger.
And even when they struggled, the Lakers led for the vast majority of the series as well, so the struggles weren’t that great in context.
This is also just a general change for the Lakers, too, as it’s been some time since fans have known what the starting five would be heading into the season. You’d have to go back to the 2020-21 season after the Lakers won the title to have a year in which the team entered camp and the season aware of what it’s starting group would look like.
by WestVirginiaFan15
24 Comments
After the honeymoon season with ham i felt he had a touch of the tisms this past season
I’m not reading all of that but it’s hard to say what is in the title is true until you’re into the season with the same starting lineup.
Ham had a starting lineup on opening night too
Duh
Mediocrity it is.
Shitty ass defense returns! But hopefully Reddick can continue the offense that Ham was starting to create
Why is this giant man attached to this post
I like the idea of using the same guys so they can start working like clockwork.
AD literally says to play him next to a big and what do coaches do go against exactly what he says, fuck Reddick and all the coaches that come in and don’t listen to players
People are forgetting Reaves was struggling coming off a starter and instead flourished coming off the bench last year
Lowkey forgot that JJ is the coach lol
Another year of AD carrying 4 traffic cones on defense in the starting lineup. Vanderbilt better be healthy and starting if this team wants to be above a top 7 seed
Terrible for the defense. Rui is an offense first guy, not even a volume three point shooter, so really how beneficial is he as your 5th option on the floor?
It still might be best because the options are limited, but I hope either Vanderbilt/Christie can step up or they get another guy to play defense cause I don’t see this cutting it.
But JJ sticking with Ham’s starting lineup is actually a big compliment to Ham. JJ is supposed to be this forward-thinking genius, yet he’s basically saying, “I’m just going to use Darvin’s lineup.” No one really considered Darvin a savant like Redick, but Darvin still arrived at the same conclusion.
Ham’s use of this lineup last season influenced JJ’s decision because there was enough data to back it up. If that data didn’t exist, I’m not sure JJ would have gone with this lineup—he would have had the same concerns Ham had about DLo, AR, and Rui being major defensive liabilities.
JJ’s choice here kind of validates Ham’s approach.
nice starting 5
Team is cooked
A mistake IMO. This is not a contending lineup with 3 bad defenders as we saw last year. Need to incorporate Vando or move one of those guys for a two way player.
That lineup still has plenty of flaws. I give two weeks before the sub gives up on this lineup
No non-sense.
This team also makes sense on a very big Wolves team to open the season.
“It’ll be the starting five that went 23-10 last year.”
Redick is already better than Ham.
Theirs not a lot of D in that lineup. AD is going to get tired covering for everyone, which will mean either his offense struggles or he’ll get injured. Play in lineup.
Reaves was giving the team 15/5 off of the bench last season. I really think he should come off of the bench. Reddish or Christie are needed to fulfill that defensive role.
I still think Vando should slot in instead of Rui
Ok. This is dumb. This reads like it’s a big brain nice when it’s a move that anyone could make. It’s also a move that doesn’t show a ton of thought on the team he has. It makes sense, and it is probably the best lineup, but getting this fast isn’t always a good thing.