Are the Lakers still a championship contender? All signs point to no

There was hope when the Los Angeles Lakers hired a new coach — former sharpshooter J.J. Redick — in the offseason that he would be able to wring the most value out of a mismatched roster that made it through only five games of the playoffs last season.

After a quiet summer in terms of trades and signings, the Lakers were seemingly banking on Redick to lift up a team that hasn’t won a conference finals game since 2020, the last time it felt as though Los Angeles was a serious title threat.

Instead, after a 134-93 shellacking at the hands of the Miami Heat on Wednesday, the Lakers look through roughly a quarter of the NBA season as far away from a championship as they did under the previous regime. And one of their problems is especially shocking.

After 22 games last season, Los Angeles was 13-9, with a -0.8 net rating, 21st in the NBA. The team was also 28th in 3-point attempts, converting them at a 37.7% rate.

After 22 games this season, the Lakers are 12-10, with a -4.7 net rating, 23rd in the NBA. The team is 27th in 3-point attempts, converting them at an even worse 34.5%.

Even if you want to be generous and account for the blowout loss to the Heat skewing the net rating, there’s still no cogent argument for saying Los Angeles is a better team this season. Most signs clearly point to worse.

As promising a coach as Redick is — and he’s respected around the league for both his acumen and his ability to connect with players — the Lakers still have largely the same issues they did a year ago. They don’t have enough shooting threats around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and the players who are on the floor generally can’t make up for that lack of offense with elite defense.

Essentially, if you can’t shoot, then you need to defend at a very high level. Los Angeles does neither.

While that’s an admittedly basic, 10,000-foot-high view of the Lakers’ main problem, dig a little deeper and an even more troubling, baffling issue has arisen for this year: James and Davis have been terrible together.

In the 509 minutes James and Davis have shared the floor this season, the Lakers have been outscored by 95 points — the first time the duo is on pace to be outscored since they teamed up in 2019.

Even more worrisome is James’s individual plus/minus, which is -6.0, nearly three times as worse as his previous career low, -2.1 in 2022.

For as flawed as Los Angeles’ roster has been ever since it won a championship in 2020, LeBron and AD have often been the saving grace. Their brilliance frequently masked the lack of shooting or the spotty perimeter defense. They were the reason few people ever felt comfortable counting out the Lakers the last few seasons. But Los Angeles’ not being able to beat opponents with both of them on the floor is a massive red flag.

One reason for the duo’s struggles is the decline in James’ play.

In any rational universe, a player on the doorstep of 40 years old averaging 22.3 points, 7.9 rebounds and 9.0 assists per game would be celebrated no matter what.

But there has never been anything rational about James’ career, and so far this season, he hasn’t quite met the lofty standards he sets for himself.

Not only is James’ scoring down, but so is his efficiency. He’s shooting 49.1% from the field, which would be his worst mark since 2015. And his 3-point shooting has nosedived from 41.0% a year ago to 34.2%. Threes have become critical for James at his advanced age, as he doesn’t get to the rim or the free-throw line as often as he used to. (His 4.5 free-throw attempts a night are a career low.)

It’s obviously asking quite a bit from a player in his 22nd season to carry the team. But that’s the kind of roster the Lakers have built, and if they have any hope this season, it starts with James and Davis getting back on track.

After the humbling loss to Miami, everybody shared in the blame for how the season has gone.

“We’re having trouble right now on both ends with, like, base-level game-plan stuff,” Redick said at his postgame news conference. “It’s odd. It’s very odd.”

James, from the locker room, said: “It’s not on the coaches. It’s definitely on us, for sure.”