“Sustainable Lakers excellence” is what the franchise’s general manager, Rob Pelinka, has been striving for, and he made it clear that he wouldn’t settle for anything less. This vision explains why the organization refrained from making any major moves this summer, aside from drafting Bronny James and Dalton Knecht.

However, their underwhelming road trip has raised questions about whether this no-move strategy was the right call. Did Pelinka make a mistake by taking his do-or-die season too lightly? Is the current squad strong enough to deliver a standout season, or will head coach JJ Redick end up making the same choices as his predecessor, Darvin Ham? ESPN’s Brian Windhorst appeared to have an answer to it.

On NBA Today, the Insider began by excusing himself for judging a team playing without their star, Anthony Davis. But Windy couldn’t help but highlight that Redick is facing the same difficulties as Ham. “They essentially have the same roster they did a year ago,” Windy stated. “And the same challenges that JJ is now dealing with is the same challenges that Darvin Ham was dealing with.”

Those who have followed Ham’s tenure with the Lakers are aware that the challenge was regarding point guard, D’Angelo Russell. Windy pointed out that Ham chose to exclude DLo’s name from the starting lineup as it was difficult to manage both him and Austin Reaves in the backcourt. “That’s one of the things that JJ is probably considering now,” the ESPN Insider added.

“D’Lo makes it difficult when he’s not hitting his outside shot,” Windy said, justifying why Redick might follow Ham’s footsteps. The veteran journalist believes, “When he is hitting his outside shot, they’re hard to beat, and they will have nights like that. He could have a net like that tomorrow against Philly, and they could win. But because he’s inconsistent and because the roster hasn’t changed, they’re gonna still have these struggles in the defensive end.”

There’s no doubt that the 28-year-old D’Angelo Russell is talented and possesses a versatile skill set. However, his inconsistency has been a constant issue, even last season, which led to his name surfacing in trade rumors. Through the Lakers’ 4-4 record this season, D’Lo’s 3-point shooting has been well below par, with an average of just 29.2%, creating challenges for the Lakers’ offense.

On Wednesday, during the game against the Grizzlies, cameras captured JJ Redick’s reaction after D’Lo’s poor shot, and he appeared frustrated. And after the press conference incident, it was clear that Redick wasn’t in the mood to tolerate it anymore.

JJ Redick could be an inexperienced coach, but he knows the value that the Los Angeles Lakers hold and when he sees a lack of effort from the team, he doesn’t step back from pointing it out. After the loss to the Grizzlies, the HC took a seat in the presser to address the questions of the media.

At first, he spoke highly of LeBron James and his performance despite being 39. He underlined that the 4-time champion “played the hardest” in the team, which stood out for him. However, when he was asked a follow-up question about how he would address the lack of effort from the rest of the team, the Lakers HC simply stated, “I just did,” and walked out. While leaving the room, Redick let out his frustration by saying “First thing I said to them,” as per ESPN. Reddick’s message was clear in the way he distributed the playtime.

He gave only six minutes in the second half to D’Angelo Russell and a season-low 22 minutes in total, as the coach shuffles his rotation to try to find a spark. When Reddick was asked why he limited Russell’s role in Memphis game, his reply was, “Just level of compete, attention to detail, some of the things we’ve talked with him about for a couple of weeks.”

“And at times, he’s been really good with that stuff. And other times, it’s just reverting back to certain habits. But it wasn’t like a punishment. It just felt for us to have a chance to win this game, that was the route we wanted to take,” Reddick further added.

Russell finished with 12 points on 4-for-12 shooting (2-for-9 from 3). But he was not the only L.A. player to struggle. Dalton Knecht, making his first career start replacing Hachimura, shot 1-for-7, with all of his takes coming beyond the 3-point arc. Austin Reaves scored 19 but was just 2-for-9 from 3. Gabe Vincent, who benefitted from Russell’s reduced minutes, was 2-for-8 overall and 1-for-6 from 3. Looking at all these, it is no wonder that full-fledged trade rumors are going on around Russell.

Los Angeles Lakers to trade Russell soon?

Russell had an excellent regular season last year, averaging 18 points, 6.3 assists, 3.1 total rebounds, and 0.9 steals. But his quality of play visibly dropped in the playoffs, averaging 14.2 points, 4.2 assists, 2.8 total rebounds, and 0.8 steals. This year also in the postseason, Russell averaged 12 points, 5.8 assists, 2.3 total rebounds, and one steal per game. But Russell might still have a healthy trade value because he is known to be a sharp shooter. And Bill Simmons of The Ringer believes that trade could come sooner than expected.

“[The Lakers] still have a D’Lo trade to make, which I’m sure we will be getting passive aggressive hints about fairly soon. I have it on my calendar for Nov. 15. But to me, they just seem pretty far away from the best teams in the league at this point,” Simmons said in his podcast. Many expect Los Angeles to aim for Trae Young of the Atlanta Falcons. But according to Simmons, a trade with the Brooklyn Nets could add more depth.

“Could they package [Dennis] Schroder and [Dorian] Finney-Smith to the Lakers for the [D’Angelo Russell] contract, Christian Wood, something else and get one of those first-round picks from the Lakers that they’re still hoarding? They probably could. Would that be a good trade for the Lakers? It actually would be,” Simmons said.

For context, Schroder, so far this season, he has averaged 19.9 points, 7.3 assists, three total rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game. On the other hand, Finney-Smith could add some great support to Anthony Davis under the rim. This year, he has averaged 10.6 points, 5.1 total rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.5 steals per game. These players could Contribute significantly in defense, something that the Lakers are severely lacking. Even James also pointed the problem in defense after the Memphis game.

“We got to compete, and we got to defend. We gave up 50% shooting, and they shot the 3 ball well. They got into the paint. They got offensive rebounds. They got second-chance points. And they had some transition points, as well. So, it wasn’t too much of the offense, even though we didn’t shoot the ball well. We got to do a better job of that. But defense, we got to hang our hat on that too,” he said. But whatever it is, for a player, continuously finding his name associated  with trade rumors is not something very pleasant. So how is Russell navigating that?

“I definitely just kind of got used to it. Hopefully, y’all kind know what y’all gonna get from me. This is definitely a new feel, new everything going on with the structure and with JJ kind of coming around and implementing what he’s trying to do to kind of change the rhythm of things around here. So my approach is just stay steady,” Russell had said just a week back.

With all this, the atmosphere in the Lakers hood is heated up following the failure. It was the second loss on the trip in which L.A. allowed 130-plus points, as the Lakers dipped to 28th in defensive efficiency, allowing 118.8 points per 100 possessions. However, their next 3 games are at the Crypto.com Arena, where they’ve been successful this season. So there’s an opportunity to bounce back. So, Redick could prepare his team well for their upcoming matchup with the struggling 1-6 Philadelphia 76ers, a team that has yet to find much success this season.