JJ Redick is beginning to find his footing with the Los Angeles Lakers after starting his coaching career with back-to-back 50-win seasons. This year, L.A. secured home-court advantage as a fourth seed while dealing with injuries to Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, and countless others.
Despite missing Reaves for four out of the six games against the Houston Rockets and Doncic missing the entire postseason, Redick galvanized his team into a first round upset. But, roster depth outside of their stars caught up to them against the Oklahoma City Thunder and the sophomore coach spoke about the need to address that this offseason.
“I’ll repeat what I said [Monday] night, I’m just grateful for all the guys on this team and the work they put in and commitment to trying to win this year,” Redick said at his end-of-season press conference. “I don’t necessarily need depth as a rotation thing. Whether you play eight or nine, or whether you play 11 or 12, you need to have depth.
“That depth typically comes in roster spots 10 through 15. And whether that’s internal development, Draft, trade, free agency, whatever it is, we need to build depth beyond just an eight- or nine-man rotation because you’re naturally going to have injuries. You sit there and you plan all summer of how your team is supposed to play and look, maybe five games out of the 92 games we played, it was something I had planned over the offseason.
“A lot of the times you’re in a timeout and you’re looking like, ‘I never expected this lineup to be together.’ So it really is about just building that depth. As coaches we can figure out what a rotation looks like, but you look at OKC’s roster, you look at San Antonio’s roster, they have 13 high-level rotation players minimum. That’s a luxury to have in the NBA and it’s one of the reasons those teams are really good.”
In Redick’s short tenure, he has run into the issue of having a short rotation in the regular season and players seemingly running out of gas in the playoffs as a result.
Hopefully, the Lakers can add more depth this offseason to be able to overcome injuries and get through an 82-game season while staying fresh for the postseason.
JJ Redick finishes 7th in 2025-26 NBA Coach of the Year
In two seasons at the helm, Redick is beginning to climb the ranks as one of the more impressive young coaches in the league. When it came time to vote for Coach of the Year, Redick ended up finishing seventh, which is a step in the right direction of getting the recognition he deserves.
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