Los Angeles Lakers 2024-25 season preview: LeBron James, Father Time and a loaded West

The 2024-25 NBA season is right here! We’re breaking down the largest questions, best- and worst-case eventualities, and fantasy outlooks for all 30 groups. Get pleasure from!

LOS ANGELES LAKERS

2023-24 end

• File: 47-35 (misplaced within the first spherical to the Nuggets, however in addition they gained the in-season match, so, y’know: not all unhealthy)

• Offensive rating: 115.4 (fifteenth)

• Defensive rating: 114.8 (seventeenth)

Offseason strikes

The Large Query: Can LeBron + AD nonetheless offer you an opportunity?

Two seasons in the past, the Lakers’ fortunes turned after they ended the Russell Westbrook experiment in favor of surrounding LeBron James and Anthony Davis with extra gamers who might shoot and defend. (Which, you may recall, is how they won the 2020 NBA championship.) The consequence: an 18-9 near the common season, a top-seven point differential in that span and playoff victories over the Grizzlies and Warriors earlier than dropping to the Nuggets.

Final season, after sputtering at .500 on Feb. 1, their fortunes began to show when Ham surrounded James and Davis with Austin Reaves, D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura — three gamers who might shoot and (kinda) defend. The consequence: a 22-10 shut, the league’s No. 3 offense and a play-in victory over the Pelicans earlier than, um, dropping to the Nuggets.

We all know this a lot: First-time head coach Redick gained’t wait 50 video games to lean into what works, intending to start that lineup from Jump Street. For good purpose: LeBron-AD-Reaves-Russell-Hachimura outscored opponents by 6.9 points per 100 possessions final season, scoring at a top-three clip whereas defending like a top-seven unit. The lineup replicated that success within the playoffs, too, outscoring Denver by 14 points in its 96 minutes.

A lineup that includes a number of plus shooters and ball-handlers to lighten LeBron’s playmaking load that may leverage nice positional dimension on protection whereas pounding the paint on offense — L.A. completed second within the NBA within 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 superb start line. Assume again to how outstanding James seemed quarterbacking Workforce USA, and the way dominant Davis seemed defensively, and your mind starts tracing the outline of one other title push.

“To go on the market at my age, with the miles that I’ve, and to have the ability to play on the degree I performed at, it gave me … much more of a way of, ‘OK, I do have so much within the tank — so much,’” James told reporters on media day. “I can assist a giant a part of a crew win the last word, [whether] it’s gold or a Larry O’Brien Trophy or regardless of the case could also be. I can nonetheless get it completed.”

One nettlesome situation: The Lakers’ second unit doesn’t function Kevin Durant, Anthony Edwards and Bam Adebayo.

This 12 months’s roster largely resembles its predecessor — the pure outgrowth of a summer season 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, should come from inside: from the interior improvement of children like Max Christie and Jalen Hood-Schifino; from the hopefully salutary results of continuity; and from Redick plucking no matter low-hanging fruit he can find.

First on the listing: Get up way more 3-pointers. If the longtime NBA marksman has his druthers, the Lakers gained’t be ending 27th and 28th in 3-point attempt rate anymore. (Enter first-round decide Knecht, who shot 40% from distance at Tennessee final season whereas taking greater than 12 triples per 100 possessions.)

One other potential pluck? Tilting the possession sport. L.A. completed final season 29th in offensive rebounding rate and dead last in second-chance points; a schematic shift towards extra opportunistic crashing might pay dividends. (A wholesome Jarred Vanderbilt might assist. He’s still recuperating from multiple offseason foot surgeries; his return date remains uncertain.)

There’s a model of the Lakers that fields a top-flight beginning 5, will get development from its younger items and higher well being from its complementary vets, extracts extra productiveness on the margins and will get top-10 performances from its franchise cornerstones. That, as Hachimura said at the start of camp, “is a crew that may win the entire thing.”

It’s additionally an awfully optimistic view. Which, maybe, is why the game’s elder statesman struck a extra sober word.

“I don’t have any expectations,” James said. “And that is unfair to place any expectations on us proper now. The one factor that we will rely on one another is how we come to apply and are available to work day by day.”

Greatest-case situation

Redick injects newfound creativity and stability, leading to a roster able to being greater than merely the sum of its components. An “empowered” AD lastly will get his Defensive Participant of the Yr due and lands again on the MVP poll. After an up-and-down encore to his breakthrough season, Reaves turns into a constant 20-point scorer and high-efficiency pick-and-roll playmaker, incomes All-Star consideration. Russell both balls out in his contract 12 months or turns into the matching-salary ballast that enables normal supervisor Rob Pelinka — who lately stated he’s open to placing the crew’s 2029 and 2031 first-round picks on the desk in a deal he felt would help secure “sustained Laker excellence” — to tug the set off on one thing massive. The wager pays off. The Lakers high 50 wins for the primary time because the bubble title. And LeBron and AD get one other shot to show their partnership’s nonetheless potent sufficient to get to the promised land.

If every part falls aside

Father Time lastly comes for LeBron, and Davis can’t elevate his sport sufficient to compensate. Russell, Reaves and Rui stagnate; the kids don’t pop; Vando and Gabe Vincent won’t prevent. Pelinka takes a take a look at one other underwhelming roster 30-plus video games in and decides that discretion is the higher a part of valor, preferring to not throw good draft picks after unhealthy. Redick needs he’d simply saved calling video games with Doris and podcasting with Nekias and Steve, as his best-laid plans are dashed upon the rocks of the twin realities of a roster that doesn’t have sufficient expertise and a Western Convention that has tons.

Fantasy spin

Has Redick already reworked the Lakers right into a fantasy-friendly crew? It seems to be that method, as their beginning unit seems to be rejuvenated and motivated below Redick’s offensive schemes. Redick additionally admitted he needs to run a nine-man rotation, nevertheless it might get right down to eight sometimes.

Davis will value a mid-first-round decide, whereas James, the oldest participant within the league, is holding it down as a late-second, early-third-round decide. I would count on each to go earlier than the mid-second spherical for factors leagues.

Russell’s ADP is trending to a decent value within the seventh spherical. Reaves, nonetheless, is trending down regardless of coming off a profession 12 months. His ADP could also be mispriced at 86th general. Hachimura isn’t a must-roster participant, and it will take an harm for Christie to get off waivers. — Dan Titus

2024-25 schedule

The Lakers gained 47 final season with LeBron and AD lacking simply 17 video games whole, their fewest because the bubble title, and mixing to play greater than 5,200 minutes, by far probably the most of their shared L.A. tenure. Which appears extra seemingly: that well being, availability and productiveness persevering with, or at the very least a slight dip from one if not each of them? The latter, I believe — which, in a harder convention top-to-bottom, looks like purpose to go below.