{"id":124709,"date":"2025-02-19T17:17:33","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T22:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=124709"},"modified":"2025-02-19T17:24:49","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T22:24:49","slug":"lakers-jj-redick-role-players-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/19\/lakers-jj-redick-role-players-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Role Players Receive Raving Respect From JJ Redick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presently, the purple and gold have two of the NBA’s highest-profile superstars at their disposal:\u00a0<\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>. However, if you ask Los Angeles Lakers head coach\u00a0<\/span>JJ Redick<\/span><\/a>\u00a0about it, he’ll single out the “others” helping make the Lakers a top-seeded squad in the wild wild West. Attention will shine the spotlight on Luka and LeBron, but it is a team sport. In this case, Redick’s “others” include a player in resurgence and one who recently just arrived. As Redick puts it, there’s no overstating these two role players’ impact on the Lakers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lakers Role Players Receive Raving Respect From JJ Redick<\/h2>\n

LA Lakers Coach JJ Redick Points Out Supporting Cast For Their Leadership and Connectivity<\/h3>\n

Patrick Beverley<\/span><\/a>\u00a0recently stated on his podcast,\u00a0<\/span>The Pat Bev Podcast<\/span><\/em>, that the\u00a0<\/span>Lakers might have the league’s best third and fourth options<\/span><\/a>. It’s not hard to guess that\u00a0<\/span>Austin Reaves<\/span><\/a>\u00a0would be the third. As for the fourth, according to Beverly, that rank falls to\u00a0<\/span>Rui Hachimura<\/span><\/a>. Offensively speaking, Beverley might have a case. Unfortunately, in Reaves’s case, the lack of defensive strength might keep Reaves off of most other ballots for this particular category. Nevertheless, generally speaking, the Lakers supporting cast has proved to be instrumental this season. Reaves is putting together a career year, and\u00a0<\/span>Hachimura is starring in his role<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not these two players that Redick highlighted, though, when speaking with Lakers media members recently. It might come as a surprise that\u00a0<\/span>Gabe Vincent<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Dorian Finney-Smith<\/span><\/a>\u00a0were the two players on the coach’s mind. Vincent, who missed much of last season due to injury and struggled mightily to begin this season, has turned it on since the new year rang in. He’s shooting the three-ball well and playing solid defense. As for Finney-Smith, he was the subject of an early season trade that saw\u00a0<\/span>D’Angelo Russell<\/span><\/a>\u00a0go back to the Brooklyn Nets. Finney-Smith has slid in perfectly in the role Redick wants for him as a three-point shooter and perimeter defender.\u00a0<\/span>Redick highlighted each player’s impact and their overlooked importance on the roster.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t overstate how important Gabe Vincent and Dorian Finney-Smith are to this team, and to your point about connectivity and leadership and talk and all that stuff, those guys are important for our group.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The “Others” Will Be Needed More Than Ever Down the Stretch<\/h3>\n

Everyone already knows the Lakers deepest hole in their roster is at the center position. As it stands, going into their first game after the All-Star break, only\u00a0<\/span>Jaxson Hayes<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Alex Len<\/span><\/a>\u00a0fill the big men’s spots. The Lakers had their man in\u00a0<\/span>Mark Williams<\/span><\/a>, but that trade fell through. So, without significant depth in the paint, the Lakers supporting cast, like Vincent and Finney-Smith, will have to shine brighter than ever in their roles. The same goes for Reaves, Hachimura, and others, while LeBron and Luka carry the majority of the load.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Redick is a master at knowing the game of basketball and sizing up the roles and strengths of players throughout the league. If he’s hailing Vincent and Finney-Smith as duo catalysts to the Lakers, we should take him at his word. Los Angeles gets back on the court against the Charlotte Hornets tonight to pick up the remainder of their season. Hopefully, in the remaining days of the season, Luka and LeBron can gel together. As for the “others,” all they need to do is star in their roles, and Redick will have nothing but more good things to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Chris Nicoll-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Presently, the purple and gold have two of the NBA’s highest-profile superstars at their disposal:\u00a0LeBron James\u00a0and\u00a0Luka Don\u010di\u0107. However, if you ask Los Angeles Lakers head coach\u00a0JJ Redick\u00a0about it, he’ll single out the “others” helping make the Lakers a top-seeded squad in the wild wild West. Attention will shine the spotlight on Luka and LeBron, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":124717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1608,62],"tags":[46,4556,509,2272,4921,1962,2279,4675,1133,4044,494,1749],"class_list":["post-124709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lakers","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-alex-len","tag-austin-reaves","tag-dangello-russell","tag-dorian-finney-smith","tag-gabe-vincent","tag-jaxson-hayes","tag-jj-redick","tag-lebro-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-mark-williams","tag-patrick-beverley","tag-rui-hachimura"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124720,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124709\/revisions\/124720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}