LOS ANGELES — Before he even managed an NBA regular-season game, Lakers first-year coach JJ Redick already anticipated the biggest obstacle he will face.
“Learning not to get too high or too low,” Redick said. “Probably not too high, too low. That’s probably the biggest challenge.”
Before he even oversaw one game of the 2024-25 NBA season, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue already anticipated the uncertainty with whenever Kawhi Leonard will fully heal from his right knee injury.
“No timeline,” Lue said. “Like we said from day one, it’s going to take some time.”
Yes, much has changed since when LeBron James and Anthony Davis first teamed up together on the Lakers while Leonard left Toronto for the Clippers. Entering the 2019-20 season, Vegas oddsmakers pegged the Lakers and Clippers as co-favorites to win the NBA championship. Plenty of NBA fans predicted they would duke it out in the Western Conference Finals.
Five years later? Neither the Lakers nor Clippers enter this season as NBA title favorites. Instead, they’re pegged as teams that could make the playoffs with a Play-In seed, or to miss the postseason entirely for various reasons.
The Leonard-Paul George era came to an end this past summer when George chose Philadelphia’s more lucrative free-agent offer. That punctuated the end of a five-year run that entailed zero NBA titles, four post-season appearances and various injuries that often disrupted the team’s potential.
Four years after winning an NBA title in the campus bubble during the beginning of the pandemic, James and Anthony have shown as much dominance together both with the Lakers and the U.S. Men’s Olympic team. Nonetheless, they have experienced one missed playoff appearances, two first-round exits and one Western Conference Finals stint through two different head coaches and uneven rosters.
Nonetheless, both the Lakers and Clippers still have high expectations of themselves.
After seeing the Boston Celtics take the lead for most NBA titles this past summer (18-17), the Lakers still believe they can win another NBA title. Since when don’t they? Lakers owner Jeanie Buss has championship trophies sitting on a shelf in her office, which oversees the team’s practice courts.
The Lakers also have practical reasons to think they can add another item to the trophy case. They have James and Davis still playing at an elite level. Their supporting cast has plenty of potential. And they have a first-year head coach who can make up for his inexperience with his obsessive work ethic and basketball smarts as a formerly respected NBA player.
“We have to maintain this is a process,” Redick said. “Our goal is to get better every single game and every single week. We believe as a group that if we do that and embrace that, then by the end of the regular season, we’ll be a really good team and be able to contend.”
The Clippers view themselves the same way. After experiencing two consecutive first-round flameouts that coincided with Leonard laboring with a right knee injury, the Clippers plan to manage Leonard once again with care. Though the Clippers don’t even have clarity on when Leonard will progress from individual skillwork to team practices, they remain bullish about their playoff potential in their first season at Intuit Dome.
The Clippers plan to lean on James Harden to show the same offensive brilliance he displayed in Houston. They have plenty of depth, including an elite rim protecter (Ivica Zubac), a new starting two-way player (Norman Powell) and strong wings (Terance Mann, Derrick Jones Jr.). They have a familiar head coach that can make adjustments (Lue) and a new assistant coach that has plenty of NBA coaching experience and defensive expertise (Jeff Van Gundy).
“I’m confident,” Lue said. “Every night, we’re going to put a product on the floor. We’re going to play hard. We’re going to compete and play the right way.”
Maybe so. Yet, the Lakers and Clippers also will have to navigate around various landmines.
Though James and Davis have not experienced a major injury in the past season, the Lakers can’t assume they can keep the same fortune for their star in his 22nd NBA season (James) and for their other star that has extensive injury history (Davis). Though the Clippers pledge they will not play Leonard until he is fully healthy, load management does not guarantee Leonard can avoid the trainer’s room again.
The Lakers believe that both continuity and Redick’s in-game adjustments can ensure that D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura improve significantly. They also trust that last year’s major free-agent signing (Gabe Vincent) can stay healthy. Yet, Russell, Reaves and Hachimura have shown limitations even when they have had consistent playing time. The Lakers already have injury concerns with another key role player (Jarred Vanderbilt).
The Clippers project that Powell, Zubac and Mann will continuously grow with expanded roles. They trust that their versatility and work ethic can compensate for their star player's injury (Leonard) and a key free-agency departure (George). Despite boasting roster depth, the Clippers couldn’t make the 2022 NBA playoffs through the Play-In tournament during Leonard’s season-long absence while recovering from his surgically repaired right knee.
It doesn’t help that the Western Conference features a handful of young-and-up-coming teams (Oklahoma City, Minnesota), teams with more star power (Dallas, Phoenix) and teams with another generational talent (Denver, Golden State).
Where does that leave the Lakers and Clippers?
On paper, both teams can still remain viable playoff contenders with their stars, role players and coaches all seeking to find every edge. In reality, both teams are vulnerable with concerns about their star players’ health and whether their role players can truly excel in bigger roles. Either way, it will make for an interesting NBA season. It just won’t likely be as interesting as five years ago when the Lakers and Clippers anticipated they both had a great shot at hoisting up a trophy.
Mark Medina is an Lakers/Clippers columnist for Sporting Tribune. Follow him on X.
