When the Los Angeles Lakers were presented the opportunity to acquire Luka Dončić — a perennial First Team All-NBA player entering his prime — 19 months ago for a staggeringly low cost, they had to seize the moment.
In doing so, though, they left themselves thin at center, with Anthony Davis as the focal point of the Dallas Mavericks’ return package, and provided Dončić a roster built in Davis and LeBron James’ image.
Last summer, they made a few notable moves by signing Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart
and Jake LaRavia to be rotation mainstays but the roster still felt in flux as the Lakers navigated old and new identities after such a dramatic trade. This summer, though, once James made clear he’d be heading elsewhere as a free agent, Los Angeles mashed the accelerator and sprinted into the Dončić Era. The Lakers added seven players via free agency and re-signed Austin Reaves to a four-year, $184 million deal.
Now, the Dončić-Reaves Era has unambiguously arrived and head coach JJ Redick believes this is the most cohesive roster-building he’s had since being hired two summers ago.
“I think we’ve always tried to give our players clearly defined roles. I think with this group, probably the first time in my three years here that I feel like the pieces actually fit together. So those roles probably get even more crystallized,” Redick told reporters Thursday. “I’ll give you the wing thing, like, there’s a very clear ask for you to be able to play. And if you don’t do those things, then you’re not gonna play. That’s just the reality. We’ve already had some of those conversations this week with our players.
“We have high, high confidence in these guys that they’re going to buy into that. So, it’s going to naturally create a lot of healthy competition. Everybody at some point, inevitably, will get a chance to impact our team and impact winning.”
The Lakers won plenty of games the past two seasons because Dončić, James and Reaves is a damn good trio and Redick has proven himself a pretty shrewd head coach thus far. But the roster certainly didn’t always mesh and there felt like plenty of stretches in which everyone was just trying to get on the same page while also attempting to win basketball games.
A bunch of new faces playing together will still require an assimilation period. If Redick’s assessment is correct, though, a sensible identity has been established and that should be an advantage moving forward over the past two seasons.
You can follow Jackson on Twitter at @jackfrank_jjf.
