JJ Redick’s 5-Step Plan To Transform Lakers Into Modern NBA Franchise

As the 2024–25 NBA regular season finally kicks off, new Lakers’ head coach JJ Redick is implementing a stunning and dramatic 5-step plan to finally transform the Los Angeles Lakers into a modern NBA franchise.

The decision to hire JJ Redick despite his lack of coaching experience was part of an overriding decision by owner Jeanie Buss and GM Rob Pelinka to refocus Lakers’ team building around player development and continuity.
With the new CBA’s financial and competitive challenges and looming retirement of LeBron James, Lakers’ ownership and front office realized the time to modernize the team’s offense and defense was long overdue.

The Lakers ended up bringing back most of the players from last season’s roster, drafting Dalton Knecht and Bronny James Jr. and adding Christian Koloko but losing Taurean Prince and Spencer Dinwiddie via free agency. Unfortunately, efforts to upgrade the roster, including adding a starting quality center to pair with Anthony Davis, have been hindered by the lack of open roster spots due to multiple players accepting player options.

Despite struggles to upgrade the roster, expectations are soaring as the Lakers have enthusiastically embraced Redick’s elite basketball IQ and detailed 5-step plan to modernize the Lakers offensively and defensively.

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1. Embrace Advanced Analytics

The first step needed to modernize the Lakers is for the organization to fully embrace advanced analytics. Embracing analytics means changing your identity, how you play, what you prioritize, who you want to be.

Make no mistake, transforming and modernizing a LeBron James and Anthony Davis led Lakers’ team that finished 2nd in the NBA last season in points-in-the-paint and made-free-throws will be a major challenge.
For four years, the Lakers have held onto their old school offensive and defensive tendencies, forcing them to offset a negative deficit from 3-point shooting by over-relying on points-in-the-paint and made-free-throws.

Whether JJ Redick can successfully convincing the Lakers to embrace analytics and modernize their game will obviously depend heavily on how superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis buy into the new direction.
Lakers’ ownership and front office are convinced that Redick has the coaching chops and personal charisma to pull off what Luke Walton, Frank Vogel, and Darvin Ham were unable to do as former Lakers’ head coaches.

On offense, embracing analytics means shooting more threes, crashing the boards, and playing 2-bigs and 4-out. On defense, it means switching 1-through-4 to better prevent paint penetration and wide open 3-point shots.

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2. Increase 3-Point Shot Attempts

Last season, the Lakers were the 8th most accurate 3-point shooting team in the league, hitting 37.7% of their 3-point attempts. Unfortunately, they took and made so few threes they finished 28th in 3PA and 24th in 3PM.

Last season, the Lakers under head coach Darvin Ham averaged 11.8 made threes per game while allowing 14.7 made threes per game, resulting in a negative 3-point differential of -2.9 made threes or -8.7 points per game.
The Lakers were able to offset +6.9 points per game last season by winning points-in-the paint by +5.1 points (55.8–50.7) and made-free-throws by +1.8 points (15.1–13.3) but leaving them with a deficit of -1.8 points per game.

Strategically, the best way for the Lakers to continue to win the battles over points-in-the-paint and made-free-throws is to increase their 3-point takes and makes to dramatically improve spacing and wide open paths to rim.
Traditionally, the Lakers have used the old school path of dominating the paint in hopes of opening up outside shooting. The smarter path today is to use volume 3-point shooting to create spacing to attack the paint and rim.

Redick wants the Lakers to shoot 5 more threes per game, which would have increased their 3PA per game from 31.4 3PA per game to 36.4 3PA per game last season, which would have ranked them as #9 in the league.

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3. Increase Offensive Rebounds

Besides attempting more threes, JJ Redick also wants this season’s Lakers to focus on grabbing more offensive rebounds. Last year, the Lakers ranked 30th out of 30 teams with a meager 8.2 offensive rebounds per game.

The challenge faced by teams looking to improve offensive rebounding is figuring out how to attack the boards while still being able to get back on defense in time to prevent easy fast break points by the opposing team.
Unfortunately, the Lakers allowed 16.2 fast break points last year, ranked 27th out of 30 teams and extremely disappointing considering they were obviously not prioritizing offensive rebounding or transition defense.

Redick wants the Lakers to commit to offensive rebounding, especially by corner shooters crashing the glass with a goal of generating so many offensive boards that it forces opposing teams to defensively rebound.
The simplest way to prevent opposing teams from leaking out for easy transition buckets is to force their defensive rebounders to stay and fight to prevent the Lakers from dominating the boards and getting easy putbacks.

Ideally, the Lakers want to have a top-10 offense and defense. To do that, they need to increase offensive rebounds from 8.2 to 11.0 per game and reduce transition defense from allowing 16.2 to 13.5 points per game.

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4. Switch 1-Through-4 on Defense

Defensively, Lakers have always been a team that prefers their perimeter defenders to stick with the players they’re defending and fight over picks, which often allows opposing ball handlers to put our defenders in prison.

Refusing to switch on the perimeter ends up allowing easy midrange jumpers and lethal floaters by opposing ball handlers who have their defenders on their hips over our centers who are playing drop coverage.
Redick’s new strategy of switching everything one-through-four is a major change in how the Lakers plan to handle picks by guards and forwards. Importantly, the change to switching is a better fit with drop coverage.

Switching one-through-four makes it dramatically easier for our perimeter defenders to stay in from of the players they’re guarding, prevent any penetration into the paint, and challenge any attempted 3-point shots. Considering neither Austin Reaves or D’Angelo Russell are elite perimeter defenders, switching one-through-four will definitely make it harder for opposing teams to target and take advantage of them as weak defenders.

Finally, switching one-through-four not only is a better fit for Lakers centers playing drop coverage but is also perfect for playing two bigs with Anthony Davis able to roam free to provide elite defensive help.

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5. Deploy 2-Bigs 4-Out on Offense

In addition to switching everything one-through-four, JJ Redick wants to pair Anthony Davis with a second big, believing that a two-bigs lineup is essential to the Lakers having championship caliber size and physicality.

While Rui Hachimura will likely start the season at small forward, it would not be a surprise if the Lakers opted to trade Rui in order to open up a starting spot to pair a second big with Anthony Davis in a two-bigs lineup. One of the Lakers best performing lineups last season were lineups where Christian Wood was paired with Anthony Davis. While Wood did not have a good shooting season last year, Chris could see lots of action alongside AD.

Finding a starting quality center who can be paired with Anthony Davis will be a major focus of the Lakers’ front office heading into the trade deadline next February. This should be the Lakers top midseason priority bar none.
Whether it’s Christian Wood or Christian Koloko or a trade for a starting center like Robert Williams III, JJ Redick clearly wants to move to a two-bigs lineup where Anthony Davis is paired with another elite big man.

There’s no question that the Lakers view their greatest need right now as finding a second starting quality big to pair with Anthony Davis. There’s a good chance that Christian Wood or Christian Koloko could be that big.