JJ Redick Diagnoses Lakers’ Turnovers Issues This Preseason

There have been a lot of positives for the Los Angeles Lakers this preseason, but there have been some negatives as well.

Chief among them is their turnovers as the Lakers have at least 20 in all four of their preseason games and have averaged 25. Even for a brand new team trying to find their footing, that is an absurdly high amount. The Lakers had 29 in Tuesday night’s loss to the Golden State Warriors, and after the game head coach JJ Redick discussed their inability to take care of the ball.

“I take the good with the guys that played through roughly two-and-a-half quarters. I thought we did a great job, particularly in the second quarter, just moving the basketball, getting advantages, keeping advantages, finishing advantages and making the easy play,” Redick said.

“I think the turnovers throughout the preseason; it’s been two consistent themes. It’s when we play in a crowd, we turn the ball over. And then the sort of non-AR (Austin Reaves), Luka [Doncic] minutes without Collin [Sexton] out there, we just have been, that’s when our other minutes were like at 93% organization rate. Those minutes were at 60%. So, some of the turnovers are just us being unorganized. Again, we’re whatever it is, two weeks into camp, so we’ll continue to build that group up. I’ve told all those guys they’re going to get an opportunity to play at some point. It’s just the nature of the NBA season. They’ve got to be ready. But they’ve got to do a better job of being organized, and that’ll help the offense.”

Collin Sexton is expected to be the Lakers’ third ball-handler behind Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves during the regular season, but he has yet to suit up in purple and gold due to a lower body injury. In his absence, young players like Bronny James, Jaden Hardy and Chris Mañon have gotten more ball-handling opportunities, particularly in the second halves of games, and have struggled.

“It’s been a consistent theme,” Redick said. “We’ve talked to those guys. The reality is again, if one of our three primary handlers is out, I would throw Chris in there too, one of those guys has to play. It’s too taxing with full-court pressure for AR and Luka to just do that solely. So, we’ll keep trying to get better. I know those guys; their intent is there. Whether it’s simplifying things for them, we’ve tried to simplify things tonight. Overall, it just was not a good offensive product in the second half, and I’ll look at what I can do better with that too.”

The hope is that Sexton will be back for the start of the regular season, but if not then the Lakers’ second unit could struggle to begin the year due to the lack of playmaking.

JJ Redick planning to stagger Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves

One way to mitigate that lack of ball-handling off the bench would be to stagger Doncic and Reaves so one of them is on the floor the whole game, and Redick recently spoke about his plan to do exactly that.