There’s drama playing out in Los Angeles again. The Lakers enter the 2025-26 season with fresh faces, old questions, and, well, a defense that still hasn’t found its identity. At the center of it all, of course, is LeBron James backing his coach publicly, and JJ Redick, who, in a candid Coaches Corner breakdown, effectively admitted the roster has a gap the front office still hasn’t filled. 

Tim Legler led the session. Redick obliged, walking through the play and pointing out the small, painful realities. “We don’t have — we didn’t last year… not going to this year. We don’t have lockdown defenders,” Redick said bluntly, before adding the corrective.

“So we rely on our help defense. We rely on our ship presentation.” Legler and Redick replayed the sequence, pausing at the contact on the roll and the defensive rotation that followed. The point was that without a true stopper, the Lakers must earn stops collectively. Redick also got specific about whom he trusts on the perimeter.

“We talk all the time in isolation, particularly against guys that can knock down threes like Klay Thompson. We want to use that stick hand. Rui Hachimura is the best guy on our team using that stick hand in isolation,” he said. He praised Austin Reaves’ willingness to take charges and stressed how small lineups force constant switching, which is essentially a setup that invites mismatches and requires players to lay their bodies on the line.

The comments landed on social channels and drew a quick public nod from LeBron. He reposted the clip originally posted by Evan Sidery, added: “Love to see this. Hot take culture so tired.” It might have only taken the King 9 words, but LeBron made it perfectly clear that he stands with Redick’s film-first, accountability-first message.

It also read as a faint rebuke of narrative-driven criticism and, indirectly, the roster construction that leaves defensive holes. And this is not the first time the Los Angeles Lakers have faced backlash against their roster.

Back in August, Ben Rohrbach, an NBA Insider, noted in one of his articles, “Pelinka has constantly tinkered with the roster in the years since the title, mostly to negative results, until this year’s trade for Luka Dončić fell into his lap. Whether the Lakers should trust Pelinka to construct another contender is a separate question.”

And while that is still outside noise, LeBron publicly backing JJ Redick on his indirect call to Rob Pelinka speaks enough to have an individual standing. And well, LeBron’s amplification matters because he’s both the cultural and locker-room center in LA.

His endorsement gives Redick cover to say what many inside the building already know: the roster lacks a true defensive anchor. That’s not a signing faux pas. The front office pushed offense and versatility this offseason. The result is a team loaded with switchable wings and scorers but short on a single, reliable rim protector.

And the timing? It only compounds the issue. LeBron James is out for the first weeks with sciatica, and the Lakers want him healthy for the playoff stretch.

LeBron James as the advocate of Los Angeles

That absence magnifies the need for reliable rotation defense. Redick’s film reads like damage control and strategy at once, of a coach reshaping expectations while instructing the group on how to compensate. There’s a shorthand in Redick’s tape talk for what the front office must still solve.

He mapped the moments when a bigger center would alter the picture. “Now, it might look a little different for you defensively if you got a DeAndre Ayton on the floor,” he noted. That’s not a secret, right? It’s a public blueprint for what the roster lacks.

On paper, though, the Lakers were busy this offseason. Marcus Smart and Deandre Ayton arrived to build up spacing and rim presence. Yet the defensive results Redick highlighted about rotations giving up paint points, mismatches at the rim, and late stampede cuts that invite collisions suggest those moves aren’t a cure-all.

Good rotations can mask structural weakness, but they can’t replace a true anchor night after night. Redick’s frankness also carries a coaching message. He wants clarity. “I think just having a base defense for a full season with the same group and really just creating clarity night-to-night,” he said.

In other words, standardize and teach. For a first- or second-year coach, that’s a reasonable plan. For a roster in flux, it’s a demanding one. But LeBron’s repost did two things.

It signaled unity behind Redick, which is crucial with the coach entering Year Two, and it pushed the spotlight back to the front office. Fans can debate roster moves. The players and the coach have to produce wins. When the star publicly backs the coach, the pressure shifts subtly toward management to deliver the pieces Redick needs.

What happens next could be diplomatic. On the floor, Redick will use schemes like “stick hands,” charge-taking, and smart switches to paper over gaps. Off the court, the front office will watch film and consider whether a late tweak or trade can add the missing element.

The season will only test the theory. If the Lakers’ team defense connects, Redick’s method will get the credit. If it doesn’t, the critique of roster building and Pelinka’s role in it will grow louder.

At the end of the day, the headline will still be that LeBron has staked his voice to a coach who called the problem out in public. That’s rare. It’s also a fast track to accountability.