The Los Angeles Lakers knew head coach JJ Redick overly relied on his best players, and it came back to haunt the franchise at the worst possible time. Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves suffered season-ending injuries in the same game, following a scorching month where LA looked like a serious title threat. It is truly a nightmare scenario, but fans can’t be shocked.
Redick did this last season. LeBron James, Luka, and AR all averaged 35 minutes each night in the regular season and were all over 39 in the playoffs. The head coach played just five players in the second half of Game 4 of last year’s first-round playoff series, with the campaign virtually on the line. Los Angeles unsurprisingly blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead and lost the series in five games.
Nothing changed. Redick is still playing his best option too much, and it came back to bite the entire organization. He even left both players in when they were already injured on Thursday night with his team down 31 points at the half. The head coach had to learn the lesson the hard way.
JJ Redick hurt the Lakers by overextending his best players
Luka Doncic is fourth in the NBA in minutes per game this season. Austin Reaves sits 15th, and LeBron James is 29th at 41 years old. Even when Redick has a chance to give them some rest in the fourth quarter of a lopsided game, he struggles to take them out. The coach is always worried the reserves will mess things up. JJ’s perfectionist attitude crushes him here.
Things are worse than they seem. During the team’s 15-2 March, Doncic and Reaves averaged 37.3 minutes per game over 17 contests. Only Tyrese Maxey is playing more for the full season. This is with Luka already dealing with a nagging hamstring issue, and after AR missed 22 games with a calf injury. LeBron was playing 34.3 minutes per game over that stretch, which is way too many for someone with his miles.
It is a similar story with Marcus Smart. The veteran has been frequently injured in recent years, but still saw his minutes climb over 30 in the last 13 games before his ankle injury.
Things need to change on multiple fronts for the Lakers, and coach Redick leaning away from Tom Thibodeau mode is a must.
The Lakers medical/training staff has had constant turnover, Pelinka constantly has taken shortcuts at building on the margins, and Redick has been Thibs-esque with how he overplays his best 3-4 players.
— brian (@RunTheJules) April 4, 2026
It's an organizational failure tbh. https://t.co/112KstQp8J
The Lakers were two weeks away from the playoffs when their two best players suffered injuries with a month-plus recovery time. It was the worst possible scenario for everyone involved. Luka was just hitting his stride with the Lakers and looking like the MVP. Los Angeles had dreams of making a deep playoff run that were dashed when both stars went down in Oklahoma City.
Head coach JJ Redick deserves plenty of blame. It will never make sense to play his best players over 37 minutes per game for an extended stretch after dealing with soft tissue injuries. Redick increased the chances of a fatigue issue because he didn’t trust his bench.
The irony is that the head coach is left with no choice now. He won’t have Luka Doncic or Austin Reaves to bail him out. Redick must rely on everyone else to pick up the slack. Hopefully, the role players make the coach look foolish for not trusting in them because that is the Los Angeles Lakers' only hope of making a postseason run.