Former NBA star JJ Redick spoke on the recent state of the Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, and Golden State Warriors. Each team was put in a position to compete for an NBA Championship prior to the 2023-24 season, but it's been an underwhelming start. All three teams are on the outside of the playoffs looking in, with the Warriors and Lakers holding a record under .500.

“The Phoenix Suns, and the Lakers, and the Warriors have underperformed relative to expectations,” said Redick, via The Old Man and The Three podcast on YouTube.

Redick spotlighted the Lakers when talking about season struggles, with tremendous inconsistency in Los Angeles. The Lakers are supposed to have one of the best duos in the NBA with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, but injuries to the roster have deterred them from being able to truly improve. They show flashes of success on both the offensive and defensive ends, but that hasn't stuck through the season.

“You have the Lakers, who won the In-Season Tournament, but frankly have not been a very good offensive team,” said Redick.

The Lakers are playing their own brand of basketball and it's simply not working. They're attacking the paint, playing with a slower pace on both ends, which just doesn't the modern NBA. One of the biggest issues Redick goes over is that the Lakers aren't interchangeable. They have the star players to produce points and highlights, but the lineups that Los Angeles is putting out don't seem to have much continuity.

“They don't have a huge margin for error offensively, specifically if they aren't shooting the ball well… They really do rely on LeBron and A.D. and all of that is coming in the paint,” said Redick.