Lakers must be in ‘championship shape’ next season, says JJ Redick

Los Angeles Lakers’ head coach JJ Redick said his team must be in championship shape in next season. The Lakers were knocked in the first-round series of the playoffs after suffering a 4-1 loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday.

The Lakers lost the fifth game of the series by 103-96. Redick said they would look to kick off the next season’s off-season on a high.

“I’ll start with the offseason and the work that’s required in an offseason to be in championship shape,” Redick said Thursday in a news conference with reporters to close the Lakers’ 2024-25 season. “And we have a ways to go as a roster. And certainly, there are individuals that were in phenomenal shape. There’s certainly other ones that could have been in better shape. That’s where my mind goes immediately is we have to get in championship shape.”

L.A. was outscored 127-85 by Minnesota in the fourth quarter during the series but Redick didn’t single out any particular player. Redick said the opposition was better than them.

“Maybe this is hard sometimes for a coach or a player to admit this: We lost to a better team,” Redick said. “That’s just the reality. We did.”

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert scored 27 points and 24 rebounds in the fifth game of the series. Midway through the season, the Lakers had traded Anthony Davis with Luka Doncic.

“I think when you make a huge trade at the deadline where you trade your starting center for a point guard, of course that’s going to create significant issues with the roster, and we saw some of those play out,” Rob Pelinka, Lakers president of basketball operations and GM, said of the Doncic-for-Anthony Davis trade. “We know this offseason, one of our primary goals is going to be to add size in our frontcourt at the center position.”

“I think LeBron’s going to have high expectations for the roster,” Pelinka said on James’ future. “And we’re going to do everything we can to meet those. But I also know that whatever it is, he’s still going to give his 110 percent every night, whether that’s scoring, assisting, defending, rebounding, leading. We know that’s always going to be 100 percent, and that never wavers.”