LOS ANGELES — When Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick arrived at the team’s practice facility for a meeting with his coaching staff Friday morning, he had an idea he wanted to run by them after thinking about it for a few days.
With the Lakers amid a 1-4 stretch, Redick considered changing Los Angeles’ starting lineup. His idea: move D’Angelo Russell to the bench to bolster a lackluster group and replace him with Cam Reddish to provide better perimeter defense for the starters.
It was a bold suggestion considering the Lakers were 22-9 with those starters over the past two regular seasons — a 58-win pace over an 82-game season. Redick named Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Austin Reaves and Russell his starters before training camp, citing their success and collective offensive firepower.
But his staff agreed with the proposed change. The starting lineup was asking too much of Reaves and Hachimura defensively. It needed a primary perimeter stopper. And Russell had been marginalized as the fifth option, mainly only contributing through his passing. The Lakers’ bench, ranked 30th in the league in scoring entering Friday’s game, needed some juice.
And, with the caveat that it was one game against the Philadelphia 76ers sans Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, the Lakers’ starting and bench lineups looked much more balanced in their 116-106 victory at Crypto.com Arena on Friday night. The win bumped the Lakers to 5-4 and 4-0 at home.
“I thought both those guys starred in the roles that they had tonight,” Redick said. “Cam took one shot in 27 minutes, but had a huge impact on the game defensively. Paul George never got going at any point in the game. … And then for DLo, I thought he starred in that role as well. Big-time pop for us off the bench. A really efficient night for him. And he just played really good basketball.”
Davis led the way with 31 points, nine rebounds and four blocks after returning from a one-game absence because of plantar fasciitis in his left foot. James posted his second triple-double of the season: 21 points, 12 rebounds and 13 assists. And Reaves, unburdened with taking on the best opposing perimeter scorer, had one of his best games of the season with 20 points, six rebounds and seven assists.
Russell scored 18 points, his second-highest total of the season, and tied for the most by any Lakers player off the bench this season. He did so efficiently, making 7 of 12 shots, and playing with a level of aggression and he was infrequently able to with the starters. The Lakers outscored the 76ers by 13 points in Russell’s 25 minutes, the fourth-best mark on the team.
“It’s no secret that our bench has been struggling to find ways to score,” James said. “And the best way to change that is to put a scorer on the bench. And DLo came in and gave us a big-time push off the bench.”
Redick made it clear that he did not bench Russell after his poor showing and benching in the second half of the Lakers’ 131-114 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday. Redick said he was unaware that his reaction to a couple of Russell miscues went viral on social media until this morning, when several of his younger staffers brought it up to him at the facility.
He admitted it was difficult to watch his reaction back on video, but added that he doesn’t like coaching like a “zombie” and that he’ll likely have outbursts in the future.
“Basketball is, to me, an emotional game,” Redick said pregame. “I’m a competitive person, I’m a passionate person. Sometimes … for a brief period of time, you lose control of that emotion. It’s not the first time that it’s happened, I’ll be honest with you. Maybe it’s the first time that something like that was over Twitter, but it’s going to happen again. It may happen two hours from now. That’s just the reality.”
This wasn’t the first time Russell has been benched in Los Angeles. He was benched in Game 4 of the 2023 Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets after he averaged 7.0 points on 29.6 percent shooting through the first three games. He was also benched last season in December after a 1-5 stretch for the Lakers.
Internally, the Lakers have been concerned about potentially losing Russell if they benched him, dating back to the 2023 playoffs. Redick ultimately took the risk — and much earlier than expected. Russell appeared to be accepting of the change and had a positive mindset about his ability to contribute in a new role.
“My approach has been to be professional from Day 1,” Russell said. “And I’m committed to it through not playing, through coming off the bench, through whatever it may be. I’m egoless. So I just want to win.”
Russell and Redick have a different relationship than Russell and former head coach Darvin Ham did last season. Russell and Ham often butted heads, something Russell was often — and somewhat surprisingly — vocal about last season. But it’s different with Russell and the new coach. Redick said earlier in the season that Russell was the player he spoke with most over the summer. The two bonded, in part, over their mutual love of golf.
And those conversations about buy-in and role and sacrifice led to Russell not checking out on Friday after Redick told him about the decision to move him to the bench.
“I left all that, all my baggage at the door this summer once we changed coaches and new staff came in,” Russell said. “I was committed to whatever it takes. That’s what y’all see now.”
Redick said he and Russell are “good” pregame before praising Russell’s professionalism and coachability after the victory.
“We’ve asked him to do things. He’s been accepting of the role,” Redick said. “He has talked with me all the time. He has a really strong desire to win, and he has a really strong desire to be coached. And our communication level from June 20 to today has been nothing but open, honest and transparent. And I would assume it will continue to be.”
Reddish’s rise within the rotation has been remarkable. He opted into his veteran’s minimum player option over the summer because there was no market for him in free agency. He was projected to be outside of the rotation to start the season, and didn’t play until the fifth game of the season, when he received garbage-time minutes.
But with Max Christie and Gabe Vincent struggling to make shots, and defending or providing energy at quite the level the Lakers wanted, Redick turned to Reddish in the Lakers’ 115-103 loss to the Detroit Pistons. Reddish immediately provided a spark, hounding ball handlers full court, leaping into passing lanes and infusing the bench with much-needed energy.
He played so well the past two games — arguably the two best performances of the season until Russell’s outing — that he was promoted to the starting lineup by his third game in the rotation.
On Friday, Reddish alleviated the burden on Reaves and Hachimura and helped hold George to nine points on 4-for-13 shooting.
“He’s disruptive, he’s handsy, he’s physical, he’s tough, he slides his feet,” Davis said. “That’s what we need. He’s been that for us, especially the last three games. And it stands out. It got him in the rotation. You need a player like that who you kinda just feed off of their energy. He’s coming into the game and getting steals and guarding the other team’s best wing and putting a lot of pressure on that wing to make tough shots, tough plays.”
Redick said the starting lineup remains “fluid” and that he’s not committed to this group moving forward. One potential change could be inserting Jarred Vanderbilt, the Lakers’ best perimeter defender, into the starting lineup for Reddish when Vanderbilt returns from his offseason foot surgeries. The two are relatively similar players, with Vanderbilt just taller and longer and better defensively and on the glass.
That said, Redick said he doesn’t want to “overreact” and have “19 different starting lineups in 25 games,” so he’s trying to find the proper balance with tinkering with the rotation and building continuity and reps with lineups.
“It required a lot of thought and, to be honest with you, it also required removing emotion from it,” Redick said of the adjustment, “because there is a balance as a coach in trying to do what is what you believe is best for the group but also being empathetic and sensitive to each player and trying to maximize those players and empower those players and not mess up or sort of put something in their head about what they are or what they aren’t. And there’s a really hard balance that I kind of had to work through.”
(Top photo of JJ Redick and LeBron James: Adam Pantozzi/Getty Images)