Fact or Fiction: The Lakers can build a champion around Luka Dončić’s defense

Each week during the 2025-26 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

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Fact or Fiction: The Lakers can build a champion around Luka Dončić’s defense

Every time you type “JJ Redick” into a search engine, you’re hit with some headline like, Lakers coach blasts team’s effort, or, The latest attempt to solve Los Angeles’ defense!

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“Look, my staff and I, our analytics team, this is all we’re doing right now,” Redick told reporters following Tuesday’s 115-107 win over the shorthanded Denver Nuggets. “We’re trying to figure out what’s the best way for this team, with this group, to play defense.”

We are at the season’s midway point. (In fact, we are nearing the one-year anniversary of Luka Dončić’s trade to the Los Angeles Lakers, who face his former team on Saturday!)

This is an improvement from December, when Redick seemed to think there was no tactical adjustment to cure what ailed his defense, other than more effort from his players.

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“We practice this stuff enough,” he said after a loss to the Phoenix Suns. “We review this stuff enough. We show film on this stuff enough that to me it comes down to … just making the choice. It’s making the choice. There are shortcuts you can take, or you can do the hard thing, and you can make the second effort, or you can sprint back, or you can’t.”

Whether it is the coaching staff’s scheme or their players’ intention, the fact of the matter is: The Lakers’ defense is bad. On the season, they rate 25th out of 30 teams, allowing 117.3 points per 100 possessions. Since the start of December, when the Lakers are 11-13, they have allowed 119.2 points per 100 possessions, rating 29th on the defensive end. Only the Utah Jazz, who own the worst defensive rating in NBA history, have been worse than L.A.

One reason they are terrible at defense: Nobody gets hunted more than Dončić.

(Hassan Ahmad/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/fact-or-fiction-the-lakers-can-build-a-champion-around-luka-doncics-defense-184151127.html

Author : Ben Rohrbach

Publish date : 2026-01-23 18:41:00

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