The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the hottest teams in the NBA, and they kept the good times rolling with a win over the Dallas Mavericks last night. The shocking trade for Luka Doncic has deservedly soaked up much of the headlines around the team, but the truth is that the Lakers were playing really well even before Luka showed up.
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That’s a credit to first-year head coach JJ Redick. ESPN insider Jay Williams believes his fellow former Blue Devil should get some recognition as the NBA Coach of the Year.
Cleveland’s Kenny Atkinson is the current frontrunner for the fact that he won his first 15 games as Cavs head coach and has kept his team atop the Eastern Conference wire-to-wire. That’s fair, but Redick deserves some love too for doing such an excellent job as a rookie head coach in one of the most pressure-filled jobs in coaching.
Williams said, “I think he’s done an incredible job getting everybody to buy in to different roles.” Redick has turned Austin Reaves into a Ja Morant-like scoring threat, gotten the most out of Rui Hachimura, and pushed LeBron James to become a defensive force in the interior.
The Lakers are 35-21 and just two games back of the Grizzlies and Nuggets for the 2-seed in the West, and now they have Luka Doncic to help them climb even higher.
Redick has been smart in his usage of Luka, bringing him along slowly as he returned from a calf injury, then unleashing him against the Nuggets, a team that has had the Lakers’ number the past few years.
The arrival of Luka Doncic has made the Lakers true title contenders
Before Luka had even played a game for LA, he’d already greatly impacted their title odds. According to BetMGM, the Lakers were +2000 to win the West and +4000 to win the championship before the Luka trade, but those numbers immediately dropped to +900 and +1800 afterwards.
“He’s in the conversation for Coach of the Year in the NBA.”
—@RealJayWilliams on Lakers’ head coach JJ Redick pic.twitter.com/biJbFkzC78
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) February 26, 2025
Stephen A. Smith is here for all of it, from the Lakers being legit title threats to Redick being a serious Coach of the Year candidate.
“If that Lakers team shows up in the postseason, look the hell out,” Smith said after watching LA dismantle the Nuggets on Saturday. “JJ Redick is a candidate for Coach of the Year. He is just doing a hell of a job.”
This upcoming stretch will tell if Redick’s Coach of the Year candidacy has any legs and if the Lakers really can contend for the 18th NBA title in franchise history.
LA has the fourth-most difficult remaining schedule in the league, with dates against the Timberwolves, Clippers (twice), Knicks, and Celtics just in the next two weeks and back-to-back road games at OKC just before the regular season ends.
If Redick and the Lakers are for real, they’ll have the chance to prove it.
