JJ Redick stood at a Lakers podium on Thursday, ahead of the team’s actual media day, and made an announcement by describing everyone it excludes. Three of the five spots in the Lakers’ starting lineup are apparently locked in, and for the other two, Redick skipped past names entirely and went straight to a demographic category — which is either the loosest a Lakers presser has ever been, or the most efficient way to hand down a decision without officially making one.
Here’s the line in full: “I’m pretty confident in 3 of the spots,” Redick said. “The other two spots will not be two white guys.” Read it twice and it doesn’t get more specific; it gets funnier, and a little more uncomfortable, because a head coach just publicly narrowed a starting-lineup competition to a demographic category in front of the players competing for it. That’s the two spots nobody in the room got named for, and everyone in the room heard exactly what got ruled out instead of who got picked.
Redick’s confirmed three, per Yahoo Sports: Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler, and the math tracks. Doncic has spent the offseason already treating this roster like his team; handing him a starting job before camp opens is a formality, not a decision. Reaves got his the standard way, by being good enough that the front office got nervous every time his name came up in trade talks. Kessler is the newest arrival, acquired from the Jazz for two unprotected first-round picks and two pick swaps, then handed a four-year, $130 million extension with a full trade kicker. Considering the picks the Lakers gave up to get him, a starting job was probably the least he was owed.
Redick’s phrasing works like the exclusions page of an insurance policy; it never tells you what’s covered, only what’s carved out, and you’re left to reconstruct the real terms from what got denied. An insurer doesn’t itemize every disaster it won’t pay for because it’s feeling coy. It’s managing exposure, covering its own ass instead of committing to language it might regret later.
Redick did the same thing at a podium, and the trick reads the same way once you notice it: he ruled out a category instead of naming a name, which leaves two explanations. Either he genuinely hasn’t settled the last two spots, or he has, and he isn’t ready to put a name on it while the players still fighting for that spot are standing in the room.
None of the speculation about who actually fills those spots came from Redick. Per Yahoo Sports’ own roster breakdown, the smart money has Quentin Grimes at small forward, with the power forward job contested between Jake LaRavia and Sandro Mamukelashvili — that’s analyst projection, not confirmation, the educated guessing that fills a preview when the coach won’t. Everyone but the confirmed three is auditioning for a seat in the Lakers’ starting five that their coach has already described in the negative.
Underdog NBA caught the exchange:
https://x.com/UnderdogNBA/status/2103224057672118677
Nobody in that room laughed harder at the line than Redick did, which is its own small tell. Coaches who are genuinely unsettled on a decision don’t make jokes about it in front of reporters; they dodge the question, or they lean on some version of “we’ll see how camp goes” until the cliché does the work for them, which is a hell of a lot safer than committing to an actual answer. Redick skipped the cliché and went with the bit instead, which suggests the depth chart in his head is further along than the one he’s willing to hand a reporter. The Lakers have three starters locked and a punchline standing in for the other two. Camp will tell us if the punchline was ever really a joke.
