LOS ANGELES — Amid all the chaos and disruption of the past month-plus for the Los Angeles Lakers, they have firmly established themselves as among the best teams in the league.
Since Jan. 15 — their first win after the Los Angeles wildfires — the Lakers have the league’s best record at 15-4. They rank No. 1 in defensive rating, No. 8 in offensive rating and No. 3 in net rating (behind only the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder).
They have won despite Anthony Davis. before being traded, missing time with an abdominal injury, Luka Dončić not being available for the first week after the trade, and Dončić missing another game once he returned to the lineup. Only Austin Reaves and Jaxson Hayes have appeared in each of the last 19 games. (LeBron James is close with 18.) Even then, coach JJ Redick deployed vastly different nightly in-game strategies, which tested the group’s competitive stamina and basketball IQ.
For Redick, though, there is a simple through-line to the recent run, one that speaks to the ethos he’s tried to instill in his group throughout the season.
“I think just playing hard,” Redick said at practice on Tuesday when asked to explain the group’s recent success. “Competing. You’re trying to capture that every night. Again, this is a team sport and the group has to be right. And I think more times than not, our group has just been right with our competitive spirit.
“And the game plan shifts and what you’re trying to do offensively or defensively may alter game to game. To me, it’s less of a system as it is adaptability and concepts. And then going about executing those concepts within the framework of the system.”
Following Tuesday’s 107-99 win over the Dallas Mavericks, improving the Lakers to 3-2 with Dončić, it’s time to start talking about them as a legitimate contender.
Whether they can match the likes of Boston, Oklahoma City and Cleveland remains to be seen (and, as things stand, seems unlikely). But it’s reasonable to expect them to fare well against the rest of the Western Conference (and even the East, if the New York Knicks, Milwaukee Bucks or another team advances there). They’ve beaten many of those teams recently. They also have arguably the best duo in the league in Dončić and James. That at least suggests they have a puncher’s chance, depending on how their playoff matchups shake out.
Teams that rank in the top 10 on both ends of the court historically have a legitimate chance to win the championship. The Lakers don’t rank in the top 10 on both ends with their season-long numbers, but they also have gone through multiple identities, both because of trades and Redick tinkering with the starting lineup and rotation. The recent numbers are closer to reflecting who they truly are than the season’s sample size.
“At the end of the day, winning is all that matters,” Reaves said. “Some wins are ugly, some wins are pretty, but at the end of the day, nobody really cares because it goes down with a win in the column.”
This version of the Lakers has become increasingly dangerous as a small-ball group, with the combination of James, Dorian Finney-Smith, Jarred Vanderbilt and Rui Hachimura swarming and rotating, cleaning the defensive glass and protecting the rim better than expected. The Lakers’ defense has somehow been better since Davis went down (and then was traded). Since his last game as Laker, Los Angeles is allowing just 105.9 points per 100 possessions, the best mark in the NBA.
“Again, just team defense,” Redick said at practice. “Our group is committed to it right now. We have some good defenders, we have some really good defenders. … You have to play a team defense, and you have to rely on each other. And we’re doing that right now.”
James, in particular, earned praise from Redick on Tuesday for defending “at an all-NBA defense level” for the past six weeks.
“Obviously, it’s a collective thing,” James said. “But I take that side of the floor very seriously. I take my matchups very seriously every night. And to be able to get stops in this league, it makes your offense that much better.”
With their starting lineup, Finney-Smith, Vincent and Vanderbilt, the Lakers have a legitimate top eight that can compete with just about anyone on a given night. They have statement wins over the past month(ish) against the Celtics, Denver Nuggets, Knicks, Golden State Warriors (twice) and LA Clippers.
The Lakers were able to play smaller and swarm and rotate against the likes of Nikola Jokić, Karl-Anthony Towns and Ivica Zubac, showing that Hayes being their only traditional big man — he’s on the lanky side physically — is far from a death knell.
The Dončić trade was always more about the future than the present, but it has raised the Lakers’ ceiling in the present, too. He’s a better player than Davis — possibly the second- or third-best player in the league behind Jokić — and gives the Lakers a surplus of shot creation and playmaking that is difficult to contain.
Dončić and James have a burgeoning two-man game that they displayed down the stretch of the Mavericks win. The two have largely linked up in transition or organically within the half-court, implying they’re still in the nascent stages and have more to fine-tune.
LUKA TO LEBRON FOR THE TREY BALL 🎯
That’s Luka’s 10th AST giving him a triple-double while LeBron’s up to 20 PTS!
WE’RE TIED IN THE 4Q AT 91 🍿 pic.twitter.com/rzsXhS0nw6
— NBA (@NBA) February 26, 2025
“It will happen,” James said. “It’s still early in the process, so it will happen. Obviously, the trade happened and I think we had, what, two games before the break? So we had two games before the break and then we had a week off. So that doesn’t help the process of us building that camaraderie and building the things that we want to do offensively.
“So it will come and every game and every film session, every practice, shootaround we’ll get an opportunity to be better and better. And I thought in the last stretch when that game was tied, it showed what we’re capable of. So we’ll just have to build off of that.”
Of course, 19 games isn’t the largest sample size. Perhaps the Lakers regress. Maybe the defense comes back down to earth or not having better centers matters in a particular matchup. They have the fourth-toughest remaining schedule, according to Tankathon, which could drop them in the standings a bit.
At the same time, 19 games represent over one-third of the season thus far for the Lakers (35-21) — and the third that really matters. This is the time when identities are formed and seedings are determined.
Depending on how the next month goes, the Lakers could realistically be anywhere between the No. 2 and No. 6 seed, which would have a dramatic impact on their playoff path and title odds.
They aren’t in the inner circle with Boston, Oklahoma City and Cleveland. But they’re trending in that direction. And they at least belong in the next group with the likes of Denver, Memphis, New York and Milwaukee, among potentially a couple of others.
They have the top-end talent, depth and defense to make a deep playoff run. No one will want to face James and Dončić in a seven-game series. And at this point, the Lakers’ success should no longer be surprising, They are legitimately good with a chance to make some noise in April, May and perhaps even June.
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(Photo of LeBron James: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
