Just thought should do one more of these for the end of the season since people, for some reason, stopped posting these a few months ago, and it's fun to revisit some of the old takes early season.

Source: https://www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/lal/season/2024 and https://www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/lal/season/2025

Also, since many of the old threads brought it up, the Lakers under JJ Redick also now have a higher net rating (+1.6) compared to Darvin Ham (+0.6)

44 comments

  1. was getting worried when we hadn’t gotten another lakers post in the last 5 minutes

  3. JJ has done a spectacular job imho, it’s a blood bath in the west, getting to 50 is not easy.

  4. Out of curiosity, what are the numbers pre and post Luka? I’m assuming not a lot of difference since they had a bad stretch post Luka when a lot of players were out and that probably leveled things out, but would be cool to know for sure.

  5. Lol they just happened to get fucking luka doncic…. these comparisons are stupid af

  6. if you compare apples to apples between seasons you will wildy discount what JJ has done.

    input Ham had a wildly healthy team last year and JJ has had several key injuries along with revolving players in and out of the lineups.

    input scheduling disasters and a brutal march schedule the likes in which the league has never seen

    input JJs fucking house being burned down and living out of a hotel with his family

    input not running the two star players into the ground and developing the bench for depth so you don’t wear down your team before the playoffs. Ham basically ran Lebron and AD 40 min a night and played them 70 games each and tried to take credit for that while benching Austin Reaves, not playing Max Christie, etc

    probably several other factors i am missing but it’s been completely night and day difference in difficulty level for JJ.

  8. Ham x1 NBA Cup Champ

    JJ x0 NBA Cup Champ

    Ham x1 WCF appearance

    JJ x0 WCF appearances

    *shrug*

  9. Darvin with a better roster: “what am I supposed to do with this?”

    JJ with a worse roster: “this is perfect, I have all the pieces I need to make a championship push.”

  11. This juxtaposition is no longer relevant with Luka.

    It’s a completely different team.

  12. Their record from last year would have them 9th right now, needing to win 2 games to face okc first round. Ik thats not exactly how it works but still

  13. Well it’s not like there were any major roster changes that could have accounted for this

  14. There’s actually no point posting this anymore as this sub will completely discount that Lakers were better with JJ prior to the Luka trade and focus on Lakers getting Luka being the main reason. This sub hates the Lakers being good

  15. Jj has done a great job, but they picked up Luka Doncic mid season if you’ll recall. So while it’s fun to poke at people who said they’d under perform it’s also just a tad unfair.

  19. They will end up with the same record as Luka’s previous team, the 2024 Mavericks. Crazy, how Luka carried a 5th seed to the NBA Finals.

  20. Everyone is going to bring up gaining Luka, but LeBron missed two weeks and before we got Luka we were winning without AD. This season has had its ups and downs and I think with Ham we’d be worse. He had better injury luck too. JJ is a better coach

  21. Any Laker fan can tell you that Ham lost about 8 games himself from poor game management and coaching so this checks out. 

  24. He’ll be the one to orchestrate the trade that brings AD back to LA this off-season.

  25. And they have one of the best win %against teams above .500, I think they’re 17-6 since January against teams above .500

  29. I think JJ has done pretty well.

    Part of this is JJ, another part of this is getting a top 5 player in the league. We’ll see how things shape up during the playoffs.

  30. That’s well within standard deviation, not to mention the Laker roster is better this year.

    Given Ham’s career success, it’s difficult to not wonder if the perceived “impact” of Redick’s coaching reflects subtle racism.

  31. It’s funny that 4 wins in an 82 game season gets reflected in the media so dramatically.

  32. Just 4 games difference in W/L column separating 3rd from 7th seed. Insane margins

  34. i mean…there’s also a GLARING difference.

    Davis still being on the Lakers would have changed things up a lot.

    His usual injuries and being out for awhile would have affected them. And then Lebron having to do a lot more would have affected the team too.

     

    Getting Doncic helps Lebron take a secondary role more often, helps defense, and helps scoring

  35. 4 game improvement and a slightly better net rating? Folks are acting like JJ walks on water. If they make a long run or win the championship, I’ll be happy to eat crow.

  36. Last season, most Laker fans were probably in favor of trading Ham for any other coach aside from maybe 5 of the bottom coaches.

    This season, Laker fans won’t trade JJ for anyone.

    That says a lot about the fan base’s perceived gap between JJ and Ham despite “just 4 wins” separating their record. Despite the WCF run and NBA Cup win with Ham, fans know how much better JJ has been. Or how bad Ham actually was.

  37. For one thing, he doesn’t have his hands in his pockets. That’s good enough for me.

  40. It’s also the manner that he got the wins I reckon. Outside of the groin strain I feel like LeBron is going to be much fresher heading into these playoffs as opposed to previous years

  42. JJ is better but let’s not pretend this years team ain’t better which def plays a part.

  43. You dont go through what he did as a player, the hate, the arc to evolving from a one dimensional player to an all timer in college. And then being a good role player pro.

    Dude is a psychopath.

    I thought it was really funny watching the end of game fire nico chants because when the camera was on Redick the only thing i could think of was those free throws at Maryland when the entire crowd was chanting “Fuck you JJ”

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