EL SEGUNDO — In the immediate aftermath of the Lakers’ 2024-25 season ending with a five-game loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs, part of the messaging from the franchise’s leaders was a feeling of not having enough time after trading for Luka Doncic to maximize the potential of last year’s team.
Particularly when it came to building the requisite chemistry with their star trio of Doncic, LeBron James and Austin Reaves.
It’s part of why there was universal optimism among the Lakers on Monday about this team’s ability to compete for a championship this season.
“The eagerness levels are very high,” Reaves said during the annual preseason media day festivities at the team’s practice facility. “I felt like we had good synergy with the three of us last year, towards the end of the year. And that’s just basically being thrown in the fire after the trade. It was ‘go play basketball, go figure it out.’ [Because] we didn’t have a lot of time to really mesh together.
“And having this preseason to do just that will be really exciting, and that’ll really help our team a lot.”
The Lakers played just 21 games before the playoffs in which Doncic, James and Reaves were all available after acquiring the 26-year-old Slovenian star guard, who said on Monday that he’s entering this season with a “fresh mind” after shaking off the initial shock of being traded from Dallas to Los Angeles.
And even though the Lakers went 13-8 in the games when their star trio played (a 50-win pace in an 82-game regular season) and went 18-10 in the regular season games Doncic played in (52-win pace), it was evident they didn’t reach their ceiling as a collective.
The Lakers outscored opponents by just two points in the 423 regular-season minutes Doncic, James and Reaves played alongside one another – mainly because their elite offensive production was diminished by poor defensive play.
James, the 40-year-old, four-time league MVP who is entering an unprecedented 23rd NBA season, is confident that a full training camp and preseason slate will help with developing chemistry.
“It’s about time,” James said. “The more time that we’re together, the better we’re going to be. Having Day One and the coaching staff having another year under their belt on how we all can complement each other, play with our strengths, play to the team and be able to – not be looking to see who can make the play, but all of us figuring out how we can make plays together.
“It’s gonna be beneficial to us having that chemistry from Day One, which we will have because of how we [were] able to finish the season last year.”
During a joint media availability on Thursday with President of Basketball Operations/General Manager Rob Pelinka, Coach JJ Redick offered insight into how he believes the team can maximize its star trio.
“The word I would use would be share,” Redick said. “In a team sport, you have no choice but to share: share the basketball, share the spotlight. All those three guys have a ton of respect for each other’s skillsets, for each other’s abilities.”
Redick added that a meeting with Rams coach Sean McVay in May highlighted ways the maximization can happen.
“We were picking each other’s brains and it was very helpful,” he said. “One of the takeaways from that was utility plays. That’s something that is a football term. Every basketball team has those utility plays. The utility plays are plays where all three of those guys feel involved in some capacity and they’re sharing the court together.”
And the work to putting the puzzle pieces together will continue at the team’s first official practice on Tuesday ahead of Friday night’s preseason opener against the Phoenix Suns in Palm Springs.
“First of all, just talking about it, communicating is important,” Doncic said. “But then just trying some stuff in practice. Obviously, we’re gonna have time last season to go through, and that’s why preseason is very important for me, for the team, just to kind of get to know everybody, what everybody likes. And in practice, you can make a lot of mistakes. We’re gonna have a lot of practices, and I’m excited to figure out with everybody.”
