Lakers’ most pleasant surprise early in 2024-25 season

The Los Angeles Lakers have gotten off to a solid start this season at 10-5 with JJ Redick in his first year at the helm. It’s a stark contrast to the slow starts that plagued the team during former head coach Darvin Ham’s two-year tenure. Helping propel the Lakers to a quick start are a couple of pleasant surprises including a new role for D’Angelo Russell.

Under Ham, the Lakers didn’t get above .500 until the final month of the regular season in 2022-23. In 2023-24, they played .500 basketball until the final two months of the regular season. Their slow starts to each season played a factor in playoff seeding down the line.

While there are still things to smooth out and work on, the Lakers have overall looked much better than they have in the past two seasons. And as mentioned before, the Lakers have a couple of surprise performances that have helped power the strong start to the 2024-25 season.

D’Angelo Russell’s move to bench helped Lakers

One of the most pressing questions coming into this season was if D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves could cut it as the Lakers’ starting backcourt. Since the Lakers reacquired Russell at the 2023 trade deadline, he’s been one of the team’s starting guards alongside Reaves.

Last season, Ham couldn’t nail down a consistent rotation and both Russell and Reaves spend time coming off the bench.

This season, it took Redick only eight games to shuffle the lineup. Russell was moved to the bench following a road trip during which the Lakers went 1-4. Since Russell joined the second unit, the Lakers had won six consecutive games before their recent loss to the Orlando Magic.

In fact, the team is reportedly more reluctant to involve Russell in a potential trade due to his production for what’s become a thin Lakers’ second unit.

In the eight games that Russell has been a part of the second unit, he’s been averaging 10.9 points, 2.3 rebounds and 4.1 assists with splits of 41.2 percent shooting from the field, 30.6 percent shooting from the three-point line and 90 percent shooting from the free-throw line, as per StatMuse.

His shooting percentages could stand to be more efficient, but he’s been giving the Lakers a scoring and playmaking threat given the team’s inconsistent bench production. Redick recently praised Russell’s decision-making and passing following the team’s win against the Utah Jazz on Tuesday.

“D’Lo hit him two or three times in a row. LeBron [James] checks into the game, D’Lo sets the flare screen for him,” Redick said. “I don’t know what his stats were offensively, but D’Lo was great. . .orchestrating, defensively, his activity, guy had a low-man blocked shot against John Collins. He was great.”

Dalton Knecht in Rookie of the Year race for Lakers

While Russell’s play off the bench has been a most pleasant surprise for the Lakers, the other major surprise for them has been the play of Dalton Knecht. The rookie wing from Tennessee has thrown his hat in the ring for the Rookie of the Year award.

Knecht is currently tied with Memphis Grizzlies rookie Jaylen Wells in rookie scoring at 11.7 points, behind only the Philadelphia 76ers’ Jared McCain and the Atlanta Hawks’ Zaccharie Risacher.

Back during the offseason, before training camp even started, it would not have been a stretch to have envisioned Knecht getting seasoning with the South Bay Lakers from time to time. But after a strong preseason and start to the regular season, that went out the window.

The former SEC Player of the Year has become one of the Lakers’ most reliable players this season. Through the first 15 games of his career, he’s been averaging 11.7 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists with splits of 52 percent shooting from the field, 46.1 percent shooting from the three-point line and 92.3 percent shooting from the free-throw line.

Following the Lakers’ win against the Jazz on Tuesday, Redick spoke about how he sees Knecht developing as his career takes off.

“I think he is a guy that, with incremental growth, can become a great player in the NBA. . .him just being a little better defensively with his slides and being a little more physical, potentially being a really good switchable defender down the road,” Redick said. “He’s just got a great feel offensively. . .when he’s doing all the other stuff, it’s like, I don’t want to take him off the court. He’s such a weapon for us offensively.”