LOS ANGELES — In their first game back at Crypto.com Arena after his team’s 1-4 road trip, coach JJ Redick changed the Lakers’ starting lineup for Friday’s home game vs. the Philadelphia 76ers.
Cam Reddish joined the first unit alongside Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, replacing D’Angelo Russell in the starting unit.
Hachimura (illness) and Davis (left plantar fasciitis) were available after missing Wednesday’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Lakers went 18-6 with their previous starting lineup of Russell, Reaves, Hachimura, James and Davis last season, helping them win 22 of their last 32 games to close 2023-24 and leading to Redick announcing them as the Day One starting lineup before training camp started.
But the Lakers’ struggles on their five-game trip led to changes.
Reddish, who made his debut in the rotation off the bench in Monday’s loss to the Detroit Pistons, has provided the Lakers with much-needed defensive athleticism and quickness in the backcourt since receiving more playing time. He averaged 7.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.5 steals in his two games in the rotation.
Russell’s play has been significantly scrutinized in light of his struggles to start the season.
The 10th-year guard entered Friday averaging 12 points on 37.5% shooting (29.2% on 3-pointers) to go with 5.8 assists.
Redick went viral on social media for his expressive reaction after Russell had a series of bad plays during the third quarter of the loss to the Grizzlies.
Russell didn’t play in the final 18½ minutes and played a season-low 22 minutes against the Grizzlies.
“To be clear, my younger staff, not Bob Beyer, but some of the younger staff members brought that to my attention this morning,” Redick said pregame. “Basketball is, to me, an emotional game. I’m a competitive person, I’m a passionate person. Sometimes you lose control of that emotion. It’s not the first time that it’s happened, I’ll be honest with you. Maybe it’s the first time that something like that was over Twitter, but it’s going to happen again. It may happen two hours from now. That’s just the reality.
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Redick added: “I think about myself as a player, now as a coach, certainly when I watched NBA games and analyze NBA games, I’m not a zombie. That’s what we kind of refer to as like non-passionate, non-competitive, non-expressive people. I’m not a zombie. So I don’t like seeing myself in that light. When I watched the video, I actually forgot that it happened. I want to be clear about something, D-Lo and I talked about this: that was not directed at him. Yes, it came after a shot in the corner that he took. There [were] 25 plays that preceded that from a number of different players. And you’re 1-3 on a road trip and you get to a point where you feel like you’re in a ball game on the road and a play like that happens and you let out some emotion but it was not directed at D-Lo. It was directed more at the series of plays for two and a half quarters that had preceded that, not D-Lo’s shot.”
When asked about the feedback from Russell in those conversations, Redick said he and Russell were “good.”
“He’s great,” Redick added. “He’s been a professional. I’ve asked him to…he’s a pick-and-roll player. And he’s playing in an offense that doesn’t feature a lot of drag pick and rolls and high ball screens. He’s been super professional, he’s been super coachable. Him and I established a baseline level of our relationship this summer. We’re good.”