The 2024-25 NBA season is here! We’re breaking down the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and fantasy outlooks for all 30 teams. Enjoy!
LOS ANGELES LAKERS
2023-24 finish
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Record: 47-35 (lost in the first round to the Nuggets, but they also won the in-season tournament, so, y’know: not all bad)
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Offensive rating: 115.4 (15th)
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Defensive rating: 114.8 (17th)
Offseason moves
The Big Question: Can LeBron + AD still give you a chance?
Two seasons ago, the Lakers’ fortunes turned when they ended the Russell Westbrook experiment in favor of surrounding LeBron James and Anthony Davis with more players who could shoot and defend. (Which, you might recall, is how they won the 2020 NBA championship.) The result: an 18-9 close to the regular season, a top-seven point differential in that span and playoff victories over the Grizzlies and Warriors before losing to the Nuggets.
Last season, after sputtering at .500 on Feb. 1, their fortunes started to turn when Ham surrounded James and Davis with Austin Reaves, D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura — three players who could shoot and (kinda) defend. The result: a 22-10 close, the league’s No. 3 offense and a play-in victory over the Pelicans before, um, losing to the Nuggets.
We know this much: First-time head coach Redick won’t wait 50 games to lean into what works, intending to start that lineup from Jump Street. For good reason: LeBron-AD-Reaves-Russell-Hachimura outscored opponents by 6.9 points per 100 possessions last season, scoring at a top-three clip while defending like a top-seven unit. The lineup replicated that success in the playoffs, too, outscoring Denver by 14 points in its 96 minutes.
A lineup featuring multiple plus shooters and ball-handlers to lighten LeBron’s playmaking load that can leverage great positional size on defense while pounding the paint on offense — L.A. finished second in the NBA in the share of its shots that came at the rim, first in field-goal percentage at the rim and second in free-throw rate — is a great starting point. Think back to how remarkable James looked quarterbacking Team USA, and how dominant Davis looked defensively, and your mind starts tracing the outline of another title push.
“To go out there at my age, with the miles that I have, and to be able to play at the level I played at, it gave me … even more of a sense of, ‘OK, I do have a lot in the tank — a lot,’” James told reporters on media day. “I can help a big part of a team win the ultimate, [whether] it’s gold or a Larry O’Brien Trophy or whatever the case may be. I can still get it done.”
One nettlesome issue: The Lakers’ second unit doesn’t feature Kevin Durant, Anthony Edwards and Bam Adebayo.
This year’s roster largely resembles its predecessor — the natural outgrowth of a summer spent in a staring contest with the apron after Russell, a vital regular-season bellwether and postseason millstone, picked up his $18.7 million player option. Salvation, then, must come from within: from the internal development of youngsters like Max Christie and Jalen Hood-Schifino; from the hopefully salutary effects of continuity; and from Redick plucking whatever low-hanging fruit he can locate.
First on the list: Get up way more 3-pointers. If the longtime NBA marksman has his druthers, the Lakers won’t be finishing 27th and 28th in 3-point attempt rate anymore. (Enter first-round pick Knecht, who shot 40% from distance at Tennessee last season while taking more than 12 triples per 100 possessions.)
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Another potential pluck? Tilting the possession game. L.A. finished last season 29th in offensive rebounding rate and dead last in second-chance points; a schematic shift toward more opportunistic crashing could pay dividends. (A healthy Jarred Vanderbilt could help. He’s still recuperating from multiple offseason foot surgeries; his return date remains uncertain.)
There’s a version of the Lakers that fields a top-flight starting five, gets growth from its young pieces and better health from its complementary vets, extracts more productivity on the margins and gets top-10 performances from its franchise cornerstones. That, as Hachimura said at the start of camp, “is a team that can win the whole thing.”
It’s also an awfully optimistic view. Which, perhaps, is why the sport’s elder statesman struck a more sober note.
“I don’t have any expectations,” James said. “And that’s unfair to put any expectations on us right now. The only thing that we can count on each other is how we come to practice and come to work every day.”
Best-case scenario
Redick injects newfound creativity and stability, resulting in a roster capable of being more than merely the sum of its parts. An “empowered” AD finally gets his Defensive Player of the Year due and lands back on the MVP ballot. After an up-and-down encore to his breakthrough season, Reaves becomes a consistent 20-point scorer and high-efficiency pick-and-roll playmaker, earning All-Star consideration. Russell either balls out in his contract year or becomes the matching-salary ballast that allows general manager Rob Pelinka — who recently said he’s open to putting the team’s 2029 and 2031 first-round picks on the table in a deal he felt would help secure “sustained Laker excellence” — to pull the trigger on something big. The wager pays off. The Lakers top 50 wins for the first time since the bubble title. And LeBron and AD get another shot to prove their partnership’s still potent enough to get to the promised land.
If everything falls apart
Father Time finally comes for LeBron, and Davis can’t elevate his game enough to compensate. Russell, Reaves and Rui stagnate; the youngsters don’t pop; Vando and Gabe Vincent will not save you. Pelinka takes a look at another underwhelming roster 30-plus games in and decides that discretion is the better part of valor, preferring not to throw good draft picks after bad. Redick wishes he’d just kept calling games with Doris and podcasting with Nekias and Steve, as his best-laid plans are dashed upon the rocks of the dual realities of a roster that doesn’t have enough talent and a Western Conference that has tons.
Fantasy spin
Has Redick already transformed the Lakers into a fantasy-friendly team? It looks that way, as their starting unit looks rejuvenated and motivated under Redick’s offensive schemes. Redick also admitted he wants to run a nine-man rotation, but it could get down to eight sometimes.
Davis will cost a mid-first-round pick, while James, the oldest player in the league, is holding it down as a late-second, early-third-round pick. I’d expect both to go before the mid-second round for points leagues.
Russell’s ADP is trending to a respectable price in the seventh round. Reaves, however, is trending down despite coming off a career year. His ADP may be mispriced at 86th overall. Hachimura is not a must-roster player, and it’ll take an injury for Christie to get off waivers. — Dan Titus
2024-25 schedule
The Lakers won 47 last season with LeBron and AD missing just 17 games total, their fewest since the bubble title, and combining to play more than 5,200 minutes, by far the most in their shared L.A. tenure. Which seems more likely: that health, availability and productivity continuing, or at least a slight dip from one if not both of them? The latter, I think — which, in a tougher conference top-to-bottom, feels like a good reason to go under.