{"id":573784,"date":"2026-04-09T11:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573784\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:47:11","slug":"plaschke-broken-lakers-need-to-shut-down-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573784\/","title":{"rendered":"Plaschke: Broken Lakers need to shut down the season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barely a week ago, a charmed Lakers<\/a> season screamed three words.<\/p>\n

Deep playoff run.<\/p>\n

Today, a jinxed Lakers season soberly whispers three very different words.<\/p>\n

Shut it down.<\/p>\n

With less than a month of games remaining, the Lakers season is done, finished, kaput.<\/p>\n

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Twisted and torn by the sudden same-day injuries to their two best players, the Lakers are broken beyond repair.<\/p>\n

Read more: With their Big Three sidelined, Lakers lose to Thunder again in another blowout<\/a><\/p>\n

They can\u2019t win without Luka Doncic<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a>, and neither is coming back at full strength in time to save them.<\/p>\n

They were wholly embarrassed in their first two shorthanded games and will wind up falling to a fourth or fifth seed with a first-round matchup looming against Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n

They can\u2019t beat the Rockets, they won\u2019t beat the Rockets, and the season will officially and quickly and sadly end. It might end in something more palatable than a sweep \u2014 maybe they win a game? \u2014 but it\u2019s going to end, and soon, and the Lakers need to reinforce their priorities before it does.<\/p>\n

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Shut it down.<\/p>\n

Tell Doncic to stay in Spain for as long as it takes for that magic medicine to cure his strained hamstring. Tell Doncic his MVP-worthy season is DOA. Tell Doncic to begin getting ready for September.<\/p>\n

The Lakers don\u2019t need him showing up in three weeks trying to save this season on a limp and a prayer. They don\u2019t need him risking a reinjuring of the hamstring that could affect his summer workouts and bleed into next season.<\/p>\n

\"Lakers<\/p>\n

Lakers star Luka Doncic reacts to a play during a blowout loss to the Thunder in Oklahoma City last week. (Cooper Neill \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Most experts agree it would be a miracle if Doncic would return at 100% in time to carry them through the first round of the playoffs, which start April 18. The Lakers don\u2019t need him to be a miracle. They need him to be the cornerstone of a franchise that is being rebuilt in his image.<\/p>\n

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They don\u2019t need him now, when he\u2019s not going to save them anyway. They need him six months from now, to be healthy and in shape to lead them into their next era.<\/p>\n

Shut it down.<\/p>\n

The Lakers need to say the same thing to Reaves, who they\u2019re going to give a boatload of money this summer to be their No. 2 star for the indefinite future.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t need him to try to play with an injured oblique and make things worse. They don\u2019t need him to gut it out. They need him to sit it out.<\/p>\n

The fans aren\u2019t going to like reading this. And the players aren\u2019t going to like hearing it.<\/p>\n

Read more: Inside Luka Doncic’s high-stakes medical treatment and recovery plan<\/a><\/p>\n

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Just listen to Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, the Milwaukee Bucks star who has been shut down since March 15 because the Bucks didn\u2019t want his nagging injuries to worsen and affect either his trade value or his 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a slap in my face,\u201d he told reporters recently. “I’m available to play today. Right now. I’m available. Do I look like I’m not available? \u2026 I don’t know what game is being played right here, I just don’t wanna be a part of it.”<\/p>\n

There is no game with the Lakers. Their new Dodger ownership group doesn\u2019t play games. Their goal is to build a franchise that has sustainable success. Pushing all their chips into the middle for a team that doesn\u2019t have a chance in hell is not building sustainable success.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve seen how the Dodgers rest their players for six months to prepare themselves for the postseason, right. Shutting down the Lakers now is sort of this, in reverse. They\u2019re punting in the playoffs to prepare themselves for next season.<\/p>\n

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Certainly, Doncic would take the news of a shutdown about as well as Antetokounmpo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he’s, in my conversations with him, he’s motivated to do everything possible,\u201d said coach JJ Redick to reporters. \u201cAnd I know for him, it’s hard for him not to be on a basketball court. That’s his happy place. And he’s one of the handful of guys that really plays year round. And it’s not just international competition. But he likes to be in the gym. He likes to be working on his craft. And I think it’s hard for him. He wants to get back on the court.”<\/p>\n

\"Lakers<\/p>\n

Lakers forward LeBron James reacts to a play during a win over the Kings last month at Crypto.com Arena. (Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

And no, LeBron James<\/a> is not going to be happy either, trying to carry a team that seemingly isn\u2019t trying. So what? Do you really believe he is going to take remarkably less money to stay on the Lakers next season? Do you really believe the Lakers want him back when they will have the cap space to trade for a player like, um, Antetokounmpo?<\/p>\n

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To leave James alone on a first-round island might be unfair, but the Lakers have kowtowed to him plenty in his eight years here. He\u2019s just going to have to take one for the team, however briefly that team may be playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a shot to the heart and the chest and the mainframe with Luka,\u201d James told reporters. \u201cI woke up from my nap and saw that [Reaves] news and was like, ‘S\u2014.’\u201d<\/p>\n

You know who else wouldn\u2019t easily accept the news of a shutdown? That would be Redick, who, barely one week after being lauded as the first Laker coach since Phil Jackson to manage consecutive 50-win seasons, now finds himself again fighting for credibility.<\/p>\n

Remember last year when Redick took heat for playing his starters the entire second half of a playoff loss to Minnesota?<\/p>\n

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He\u2019s taking heat again this spring for playing both Doncic and Reaves in the second half of a blowout loss to Oklahoma City that sent both players to the injured list.<\/p>\n

\"Lakers<\/p>\n

Lakers coach JJ Redick directs players during a blowout loss to the Thunder on Tuesday. (Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

When Doncic was hurt the Lakers trailed by 32 and he had already looked injured after grabbing his leg in the second quarter. Reaves, meanwhile, spent much of the first quarter grabbing at his back.<\/p>\n

Redick said both players were medically cleared and that they both insisted on challenging the league-leading Thunder in the second half.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe group wanted to go for it in the second half,\u201d Redick told reporters. \u201cThere was nothing leading into that game that would suggest either those guys were ‘running hot.’\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

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This was just the beginning of Redick\u2019s bad week.<\/p>\n

Jarred Vanderbilt was certainly running hot Tuesday night in a rematch against Oklahoma City after he was benched in the first moments of the second quarter. Vanderbilt accosted Redick on the court and had to be restrained. Redick ultimately responded by benching Vanderbilt the rest of the game and then not-so-subtly ripping him afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for all of us, you know, being undermanned, we\u2019ve got to scrap and claw, we\u2019ve got to all be on the same page, we got to be great teammates, we got to all play hard,\u201d Redick told reporters. \u201cCalled a timeout to get him out of the game. And he reacted.\u201d<\/p>\n

One has to wonder about Redick\u2019s connectivity with his players if one of them is unafraid to confront him on the court during the middle of a game.<\/p>\n

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One has to also wonder, again, about Redick\u2019s big-game management style if he would allow his two best players to risk their health during a blowout.<\/p>\n

Redick, who signed an extension in September that will keep him under contract until 2030, is not on the hot seat, not yet. But another spring meltdown will not endear himself to new owners who expect their coaches to be the calm face of the organization.<\/p>\n

Then again, for everyone involved, there must be some grace granted in the wake of the incredible tension surrounding a team whose dream season just became a nightmare.<\/p>\n

End the nightmare now. For the sake of the future of the franchise, shut it down.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter on all things Lakers.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barely a week ago, a charmed Lakers season screamed three words. Deep playoff run. Today, a jinxed Lakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[171150,94120,4279,359,5050,31765,66655,5556,6306,3013,4281,3014,360,6429,355,64449,12205,22359,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-573784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-austin-reeves","9":"tag-blowout-loss","10":"tag-dodgers","11":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","12":"tag-houston-rockets","13":"tag-jarred-vanderbilt","14":"tag-jj-redick","15":"tag-kevin-durant","16":"tag-lakers","17":"tag-lebron-james","18":"tag-los-angeles-times","19":"tag-luka-doncic","20":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","21":"tag-minnesota","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-next-season","24":"tag-oklahoma-city","25":"tag-robert-gauthier","26":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}