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The Athletic: JJ Redick believes the Lakers will be a ‘championship-level’ team. Is he right?
JJ Redick believes the Lakers can become a championship-level team. Can Luka Dončić and the revamped roster prove him right?
Sam Amick, The Athletic
October 7, 2026 4:36 PM
Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves are the focal points of the Lakers' new-look core.
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JJ Redick could have tempered expectations. After all, that's what NBA head coaches typically do as a way of avoiding the unwanted scrutiny and, at times, the hot seat. Undersell and overdeliver. Especially when you're working for a franchise that draws the brightest of all the lights in Laker Land.
But when the third-year Los Angeles Lakers coach was asked to assess his revamped team's title-contending chances during a Sept. 24 news conference, he took the media relations road less traveled with his bold response. Never mind that the Lakers had said goodbye to the great LeBron James in the summer, or that their new Luka Dončić-led core (which now includes the re-signed Austin Reaves and 25-year-old big man Walker Kessler) is undeniably unproven. Redick, whose answer came just moments after president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka had taken a more political approach with his reply, opted to put it all on the line.
"I'm confident we're gonna develop as a team into a championship-level team — this year," he declared with an emphatic finger point to the ground.
As Redick is well aware, that viewpoint is not shared by the vast majority of objective NBA observers. Not with the reigning-champion New York Knicks bringing almost their entire team back in the East, or the class of the West — the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder — loaded for bear (again), too. The Las Vegas oddsmakers didn't even put these Lakers in the top third of the league in terms of projected wins, with 10 teams above them.
But as Redick shared during our discussion at Lakers training camp in Los Angeles, when I inquired as to why he set the expectations so high rather than taking a more conservative PR approach, this was not some sports psychology tactic to instill belief in his players. Nor, for that matter, was this propaganda masquerading as genuine perspective. This opinion was formed, Redick explained, because of the behind-the-scenes substance that supports it.
"I've watched these guys play," Redick, whose playing career spanned from 2006 to 2021, told The Athletic. "I've played against these guys, or coached against these guys, and I've also gotten to see (them) at our vet minicamp in Vegas (in mid-July). I got to see it all of August and September."
And believe it or not, Redick couldn't care less if anyone outside of their building sees it differently.
"You've got to get things out in the open," he said of his choice to share this vision so publicly at the start. "We look at this every day. I don't sugarcoat it.
"Those teams (like New York, San Antonio and Oklahoma City) deserve to be perceived that way, (but) I don't care. It doesn't matter — the perception of us. We're on our own path. We are on our journey. That's exciting to me."
As is always the case this time of year, it's impossible to know if a team's view of itself will ultimately reconcile with the results. But from Redick on down, there is a sense that there's more here than meets the (skeptical) eye.
For starters, having a healthy Dončić is as good as starting points get. The 27-year-old, who finished fourth in MVP voting last season, entered training camp fully healthy after missing more than a month with a hamstring injury when it mattered most — en route to the 41-year-old James carrying the Lakers to a first-round playoff victory over Houston. Dončić has his flaws, but the fact remains that he became the sixth-fastest player ever to reach 15,000 total points last season and has the fifth-highest scoring average (29.2 points per game) in the league's history at this point in his career (behind Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). The fact that he's on track to become the first player ever to average at least 29 points, eight rebounds and eight assists is even more remarkable.
What's more, Dončić has quieted the discussion about his level of dedication from his Dallas days by looking skinnier and even more mobile. Doing it once, as he did last summer, was seen by many within the league as a revenge play in response to the way the Mavericks framed his exit. But showing this kind of commitment to his physique for consecutive offseasons takes the development from an outlier to genuine change and personal growth.
From there, it's the revamped roster construction that has Redick and the rest of the Lakers so bullish. Kessler, who they landed via sign-and-trade from Utah for the steep price of two first-round picks, two first-round pick swaps and his four-year, $130 million deal, gives Dončić the kind of rim protection and lob threat that worked wonders during the Mavs' 2024 finals run (with Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II). The parallels don't stop there, as the playmaking duo of Dončić and Reaves has similar strengths and weaknesses when compared to the Dončić-Kyrie Irving pairing from the Dallas days. And if they're going to be at their best offensively while being protected defensively, that requires the kind of role-player support that Redick is convinced they have. As the Mavericks used to call it during Dončić's best days there, a team of "Luka and the try-hards" is how you achieve the right kind of balance around the generational talent.
The elephant in the room, of course, is that James' departure to Philadelphia made it that much easier for the Lakers to build out in this sort of youthful, more-balanced manner. That was the perceived backdrop of another one of Redick's comments from his Sept. 24 presser, when he declared that with this group, "probably the first time in my three years here, that I feel like the pieces actually fit together."
Redick, not surprisingly, felt compelled to clarify the comment.
"When I said the pieces fit, that's more about having depth, having multiple ballhandlers besides Luka and AR (in newcomers Colin Sexton and Quentin Grimes), having more shooting, more volume shooting, having an elite rim protector — the combination of all those pieces," said Redick, whose Lakers were 10th in offensive rating and 20th in defensive rating last season when they finished fourth in the West (53-29). "And it's having great wing defenders.
"I really believe in our wing group. I believe in their defense. I believe in their ability to make open 3s. (But) you don't become a championship team (in late September). You have to become one throughout the season."
There's no way to know if they can pull off just yet, but it wasn't hard to find doubters at the Lakers' preseason game against Golden State on Tuesday night.
"No," one rival team scout said while shaking his head when asked if he agreed with Redick's premise.
Stranger basketball things have happened, though. And Redick, for what it's worth, is hardly the only one within the Lakers' walls who sees a team that can evolve into something special in the next six months.
"Listen, I think we're gonna be a nasty defensive team; I'm just being honest," Kessler said during camp. "Seeing these guys hound the ball on the perimeter. …We're gonna be really good defensively. We have a lot of defensive tools."
So, he was asked, was Redick right that they can truly contend for a title this season?
"No question," he fired back. "Undoubtedly. I think we have a lot of great tools and a lot of versatility, and I think that the guys are getting along, and I think connection makes championship teams. We definitely can be a contender."
When Kessler was asked to name names, he rattled off Matisse Thybulle (signed to a one-year, veteran's minimum deal in the summer), Ziaire Williams (also signed to a one-year, vet minimum deal), Grimes (signed to a four-year, $60 million deal) and Sexton (signed to a two-year, $19 million deal in the summer), as well as Lakers holdovers Jarred Vanderbilt and Jake LaRavia.
"I could go through the whole team," Kessler added.
It isn't yet clear if this is an attempt at manifesting or actual soothsaying, but Redick's confidence is clearly contagious. For now, with the slate clean for every team in the league, that's enough to make these LeBron-less Lakers very interesting.
— Dan Woike contributed to this story.
Sam Amick is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic. He has covered the Association for the better part of two decades while at USA Today, Sports Illustrated, AOL FanHouse and the Sacramento Bee. You can follow Sam on X @sam_amick.
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