Los Angeles Lakers 2025-26 Season Recap
The 2025-2026 Lakers season has come to an end.
While not the desired ending, this Lakers season has provided a lot to be hopeful about for the future.
Heading into the season, ESPN had projected the Lakers to finish the regular season at 46 wins. They ended up winning 53 games despite their star trio of Luka, Austin, and LeBron only sharing the floor 29 times. They finished three games better than last season’s 50-32 record, and Coach JJ Redick had become the first Laker coach since Phil Jackson to lead the team to back-to-back 50-win seasons—an impressive feat for a second-year coach.
The Lakers weren’t considered title favorites heading into the season, and the flaws in the roster raised questions about how far off they actually are from competing for one. But building a championship team is a season-by-season process.
LA has increased its win total every year since the infamous 2021-2022 season.
And this year, they’ve looked like they’re one step closer to contending for their 18th banner.
The Highlights
The Lakers started the season off strong despite LeBron James’ absence due to his sciatica injury. They went 15-4 in their first 19 games and went 8-2 in LeBron’s first 10 games back. Austin Reaves was averaging nearly 30 points a game during that opening stretch, including a 51-point performance vs the Kings on October 26th, 2025.
The Lakers were one of the league’s best clutch teams all season, with the highest winning percentage in clutch games at 73.3% (22-8). Four of those wins were game winners: Austin Reaves’ buzzer beater vs Minnesota, Rui Hachimura’s buzzer beater vs Toronto, Luka Doncic’s game winner vs Denver, and Luke Kennard’s game winner vs Orlando. Not to mention Reaves’ clutch miss and rebound at the free throw line, resulting in a shot that sent the game to OT against Denver.
The Lakers had an unbelievable March run, going 15-2 during that month. The team had just gotten healthy, the trio was playing well together, the role players were stepping up, and Luka was making his case for MVP as he put up absurd numbers, including a 60-point outing vs. Miami. This was also LAL’s toughest stretch on their schedule. They had beaten Minnesota, Denver, and Houston twice on the road within a week, and it allowed them to position themselves comfortably in the standings the rest of the way.
Then, in the postseason, they prepared to play without Luka and Reaves, going in as heavy underdogs to advance past Houston. They go up 3-0 and eventually take the series in 6 games, led by the collective effort of their starters James, Smart, Hachimura, Kennard, and Ayton. And because they were the league’s best clutch team, they pulled off a miracle Game 3 comeback from down six with less than 30 seconds left.
Overall Assessment
The Lakers still have a way to go in terms of building a true contender, and they’ll have the opportunity to do so this summer. They’ll have roughly $48 million in cap space to spend, the 25th pick in the draft, and some tradeable assets.
Despite all of the adversity this team faced, they never let up and hung their heads. JJ Redick and his staff had this group playing for each other, playing as hard as they possibly could, no matter who was out on the floor. From Drew Timme of the South Bay Lakers to LeBron James and so on. That season-by-season process of building a championship team also includes establishing a winning culture, and it’s brewing.
It was evident in the 2nd round versus the defending champion, the OKC Thunder. They were outmatched in every way, but they played like it didn’t matter to them. Playing down 0-3 to the best team in the NBA would feel like a defeat and a waste of time to most. But they gave one final punch in Game 4, and it unfortunately wasn’t enough.
Now the Lakers look to the summer. They have a solid foundation and several free agents they would love to have return.
There is a lot of pressure to deliver a title-contender ready to compete next season as the first offseason of the Mark Walters era gets underway.
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