JJ Redick pulls out '86%' fact to highlight Lakers' unluckiness
03/30/2025 01:14 PM
On Saturday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers got back on track with a big road win over the Memphis Grizzlies. Austin Reaves, LeBron James, and Luka Doncic were all magnificent in this game, looking every bit the part of the “Big Three” Lakers fans thought they had on their hands when their team acquired Doncic.
Throughout this year, Lakers fans on social media have made a running meme about injured players for opposing teams seeming to return for games against Los Angeles quite often, and that alleged trend continued on Saturday when Ja Morant, who had missed the last six games for Memphis, was back in the lineup.
After the game, head coach JJ Redick was asked about this supposed phenomenon, and he actually had a statistic he claimed backs up the theory.
“I think it’s like 86% of [opposing] payroll has been available to [play] us this year, which is by far No. 1 in the league,” said Redick, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN on X, formerly Twitter.
It’s unclear where Redick’s analytics department got this statistic, but if it’s true, it would certainly lend credence to those claims.
The price of being the Lakers
Having opposing teams and players amped up to play against you is part of the price of living for arguably the most iconic franchise in the NBA. Of course, the Lakers have used their mega-influence and stardust in the opposite direction over the years as well, signing free agents like Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James as well as having some questionable calls go their way in big moments, including most notably the 2002 Western Conference Finals vs the Sacramento Kings.
Overall, if having to play against healthy competition is the price to pay for being able to acquire players like James and Doncic at a far higher rate than other organizations, Lakers fans will likely be happy with that result.
In any case, Los Angeles will next take the floor on Monday evening back at home against the Houston Rockets.
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