The Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Denver Nuggets within the opening spherical of the 2024 NBA playoffs. Only a 12 months earlier, they had been swept by Nikola Jokic and Co. within the Western Convention Finals.
Darvin Ham paid for his staff’s incapability to beat the Nuggets together with his job, permitting JJ Redick to step into his first head teaching function.
With a brand new offensive and defensive system, a number of recent voices inside the teaching workers and a 12 months of continuity inside the rotation, Austin Reaves believes the Lakers could possibly be a shock contender subsequent season.
“I like the place we’re at,” Reaves said. “I believe that now we have what we have to go compete for a championship. You look again on the Denver collection final 12 months, I overlook the statistic, however I believe we led for like 140 minutes to their like 38 minutes or one thing, and we get beat 4-1. Which you’ll’t actually wrap your thoughts round, however it was only a couple sequences down the stretch that we didn’t execute they usually executed. If we do, we’d beat them in that collection and we’d go on and have a chance to play Minnesota. So I like the place we’re at.”