The Los Angeles Lakers have employed JJ Redick because the franchise’s new head coach for the 2024-25 season. That ended a two-year stint for Darvin Ham, who went 90-74, making the playoffs twice and advancing to the Western Convention Finals. Nevertheless, the stats do not totally inform the story of his two years main LeBron James and the Lakers.
Ham preached consistency whereas making routine modifications to the beginning lineup round James and Anthony Davis. He continuously performed multi-guard lineups that have been dropping factors and wouldn’t be constant offensively. And whereas a lot of the blame may simply be positioned on the higher-ups who made the roster, there have been some fairly easy lineup pairs that Ham refused to show to.
And apparently, one of these fixed change and a scarcity of rotation group led James to lose religion in Ham in the course of the 2023-24 season and finally led to the choice to half methods and rent Redick as a substitute , in line with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne:
Those that know James greatest say he craves construction and duty. It thrives in disciplined, extremely organized methods. He does his greatest when everybody on the group understands their function. These are all components he misplaced confidence in below the earlier Lakers regime, in line with sources.
The Lakers had 19 totally different beginning lineups final season, with none taking part in greater than 24 video games collectively in line with Basketball Reference. It took Ham till midway by the season to appreciate that its greatest beginning lineup was the identical one which reached the convention finals the 12 months earlier than with James, Davis, D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura.
That is not the form of consistency that normally comes from a James-led group, particularly in a season the place he and Davis have remained extremely wholesome.
Hopefully Redick is the particular person to seek out one thing that works and keep it up so long as doable. If that is what James is on the lookout for in a head coach, he’ll adhere to what Redick preaches if it entails that stage of consistency.
LeBron James explains why he signed with the Lakers
When LeBron James selected to signal with the Lakers in the summertime of 2018, many individuals questioned why, provided that the franchise was within the midst of a rebuild and had younger expertise however no different stars in place.
It turned out that there was certainly causes past basketball for James to come back to the Lakers. The truth is, the group’s remedy of fellow Corridor of Famer and franchise legend Kobe Bryant in the course of the ultimate years of his profession performed a major function for LeBron, in line with stories.
Nevertheless, James took to social media to make clear that coming to the Lakers meant wanting to assist Jeanie Buss restore greatness to the franchise.
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