During his exit interview in the spring, Lakers head coach JJ Redick made a pointed comment that many interpreted in a very specific kind of way.
Following their playoff exit and amid all the noise that
followed Luka Dončić’s exit from Dallas, Redick spoke about the need for the Lakers to get into “championship shape.” As much as that felt like a not-too-subtle jab at Luka, it also ended up serving as a driving force for the Lakers this summer.
Nearly five months removed from those initial comments, Redick returned to the proverbial podium for his media day presser with President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka — who also announced a contract extension for Redick — and the phrase “championship shape” was oft-mentioned.
“We’ve asked all our guys to be in championship shape and not starting [with training camp] on Tuesday,” Redick said. “The commitment level across the board from our team has been very high this summer. We’ve had organized workouts, the guys have played pick-up. Nearly every day, we’ve added conditioning at the end. They’ve all been committed to it.”
There’s a joke here about the Lakers needing to be in championship shape because Redick won’t be making any subs, but there is something to the team getting in elite shape.
While he hasn’t been around the team mainly due to EuroBasket, I think it’s fair to say that Luka has also gotten into championship shape. In his interview with ESPN LA after his presser, Redick offered more insight into how much the team has emphasized getting into better shape.
“We’ve been in the gym with our guys doing small group stuff, they’ve played pick-up,” Redick said. “At the end of nearly every one of those workouts, we’ve asked them to run and to do sprints. The guys have been committed.
“There’s a difference between playing in games, which you’ve got to play in games to really get into [championship shape], but in terms of a group-wide commitment being in shape, I’ve been crystal clear on that since the end of last season, I was crystal clear on that when we had our vet mini-camp in Vegas and we were crystal clear on that literally every single day we were in August and September.”
As a brief aside, based on that quote, it sounds like the Lakers returned to having a mini-camp before training camp, something they’ve often done in the LeBron James era but had not done in recent seasons. Given that it was a pretty long offseason, it makes sense they’d want to get started as quickly as possible.
Obviously, we won’t really know if the Lakers are in “championship shape” until the games start. Players will certainly talk about being in the best shape of their lives at media day, but that’s about as common a cliche as there is at the start of the season.
While being in “championship shape” alone won’t win the Lakers a title, it does set a tone and a standard for how the team will approach things this season and under Redick which can only be a good thing.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
