Three rotation changes JJ Redick should consider

The JJ Redick era is off to a great start. The new head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers has breathed new life into his new team, a welcome change after last year’s team too often felt flat and uninspired under the former coach Darvin Ham.

Redick pushed all the right buttons Through the first two weeks of the season, and despite a tough early schedule, the Lakers are a decent 4-2 after blowing a big early lead against the Raptors on Friday night, then holding on in the fourth quarter.

Lakers fans must like where their team is at as only the Suns and Cavs have beaten LA so far. These two teams are 10-1 combined, with the Suns’ lone loss coming to the Lakers in the second game of the season.

Redick has the Lakers playing good team basketball, but despite positive contributions from much of the roster, Anthony Davis has still stolen the spotlight thanks to the strongest start to his career. Davis has undoubtedly been the team’s best player and his average of 30.6 points per game ranks third in the league behind Nikola Jokic and Tyrese Maxey.

Each new N.B.A head coach tinkers with lineups to build a strong rotation, and Redick was no different. He’s only six games in, so we’ll likely see a lot more experimentation, but before then we have some suggestions he might want to put into play.

Max Christie is only 21 and is under contract until at least 2027-2028, with a player option that can extend for another year. He’s a player the Lakers have invested in and has room to grow, but those aren’t enough reasons to give him more than eighteen minutes per game on a team that appears to be a contender.

The Lakers need willing and able shooters Le Bron James. Even with a new coach, that fact is and always has been irrefutable. Christie shot 41.9 percent from three in his rookie season, but that’s looking more like rookie luck every day. Last year he dropped to 35.6 percent, and this season he is just 3-12. Until he finds out his exterior has blown out, he doesn’t have to eat up that many minutes.

According to NBA Advanced Stats, every Lakers two-man duo involving Christie has a negative net rating, with the exception of the nine random minutes he has played with Cam Reddish. Gabe Vincent hasn’t blown anyone away either, but he has certainly done well in combination with Dalton Knecht or Austin Reaves.

Christie has a good defensive reputation, but he’s no Tony Allen or Marcus Smart. If he were, we might be able to apologize for the fact that he’s averaging just one made basket per game. As it stands, he just doesn’t bring enough to the table to warrant that much playing time. Give Cam Reddish a chance, or better yet…

I know I’m not alone when I say that I kind of love Dalton Knecht. The former Tennessee Volunteer was one of the most impressive players in the country as a collegiate player, and then won many NBA fans with his gonzo scoring performance against the Suns in the preseason.

Knecht is still just a rookie, but Redick already trusts him enough to play him more than 16 minutes per game. That’s a start, but it’s not enough. Knecht’s ability to go straight into attack off the bench should make him the team’s starting sixth man, and the more minutes he gets now, the more they will yield later in the season.

We’re still working with a small sample size since the season is only six games old, but Knecht is in six of the top 10 Lakers five-man lineups by net rating. He has played the most minutes with LeBron James, D’Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura and Jaxson Hayes next to him, and that lineup has excelled on both ends of the court.

Knecht plays less than Max Christie, but he has had a much bigger impact when he has been on the field. Give him some of Christie’s minutes and watch the second unit take off.

This suggestion might turn some heads. Is anyone having an MVP-caliber start to the season? Yes, that’s what I’m suggesting. Redick has made Davis the focal point of the Lakers’ offense, and it was clearly the right move. The Brow knocks down jumpers, gets to the line and finishes in the paint. He does it all, so why would we want to take him off the field?

Davis stayed remarkably healthy last season. The 76 games he played in were a career high, and he looks even stronger this year as he has increased his minutes per game slightly to 36. That’s all the more reason not to overload him.

Davis hasn’t averaged that many minutes since the 2017-18 season, and don’t forget that he played for Team USA in the Olympics this summer. All that basketball takes a toll on the body, especially on a big man with a problematic injury history.

The Lakers don’t want to win the regular season, they want to make a real run in the playoffs. Burning out AD is not the way to achieve that goal. Redick needs him fresh if he wants to be at his best in the postseason against Nikola Jokic, Chet Holmgren, Rudy Gobert and Dereck Lively II, and that means getting a few extra minutes of rest every game until then.

Fortunately, Jaxson Hayes has proven that he is uniquely qualified to step in and hold down the fort. Hayes likes to do the grunt work when surrounded by the rest of LA’s starting lineup, which is fine because LA has more than enough offense with LeBron, Reaves, Russell and Hachimura. Hayes can lock up his man, clear the boards and put back a few dunks while AD catches his breath.