ATLANTA — For NBA teams, the first lengthy road trip of the season, like the five-game trip the Lakers will kick off on Saturday against the Atlanta Hawks, offers an abundance of opportunities for team-bonding experiences.
Team dinners. Player-organized outings and activities. Conversations on the long flights as they trek around the country from city to city, typically playing a game every other night.
But Coach JJ Redick implemented a Japanese-inspired storytelling presentation throughout the preseason and has continued it into the season to help with team bonding: PechaKucha.
Typically in PechaKucha, with the origins of the name being tied into the Japanese term for “chit-chat,” the presenter will show 20 slides (20 seconds per slide) with the purpose of telling the story on the subject they’re speaking about rather than simply just talk about the slides.
Instead of doing 20 slides, the Lakers do five: where they’re from (which Redick described as “very open-ended”); favorite basketball memory; a person, event or thing that has impacted their life; a non-basketball happy place; and the final slide is up to the presenter.
“Truthfully, they’ve all been good,” Redick said after Friday’s practice. “It’s the way the prompts have been set up encourages a little bit of vulnerability, which has been really, really good from our guys to see from their teammates and see from their coaching staff.”
Redick, with the help of assistant coach Greg St. Jean, came up with the idea over the summer when discussing ways to facilitate team-bonding for 2025-26.
A player and coach present on the same day, then nominate another player and coach to present on another day.
Luka Doncic, Deandre Ayton, Jake LaRavia and Gabe Vincent are among the players who have already presented, with Marcus Smart being next up to go among the players.
“It’s just something JJ kind of brought to the table, I feel like, to help everyone know like backstories and just like a little fun facts about everyone else on the team, and just kind of get our chemistry a little bit better,” LaRavia said after the team’s Friday practice. “It’s been working.”
“A lot of times, most of the interactions you’ll have with your teammates [are] on the basketball court. It’s good to just kind of either learn some stuff about them outside of basketball, like hobbies and stuff like that, where they come from. And that just helps you kind of understand who the person is a little bit better.”
Vincent and assistant coach Scott Brooks were the first player-coach pair to present, setting a standard for how the presentation goes – with Brooks choosing a picture of a walnut to represent where he’s from.
“Because he grew up in Section 8 housing, single parent, and to make ends meet, they would work on a walnut farm on the weekends,” Redick said of Brooks. “Scotty’s story is incredible. Those two guys both set the tone for what this should be.”
INJURY UPDATES
Starting guard Austin Reaves will miss his third consecutive game because of a groin ailment when the Lakers kick off the trip against the Hawks.
Reaves was listed on the team’s Friday evening injury report as out, with his designation changing to “right groin strain” after originally being on the injury report with “right groin soreness” for his previous two absences after suffering the injury early in Sunday night’s win against the Miami Heat.
The 27-year-old Reaves averaged 31.1 points (48.9% shooting), 9.3 assists and 5.1 rebounds in the Lakers’ first seven games.
Reserve big man Maxi Kleber was upgraded to questionable for Saturday after being sidelined to start the season because of an abdominal muscle strain.
Redick said LeBron James, who didn’t travel with the team for the five-game trip, has done one-on-one work with coaches so far, and that the team is progressing from there in light of James being cleared for contact basketball activities. Redick added that he believes James practicing with the organization’s South Bay G League affiliate in Southern California is “on the table” before saying that a decision hasn’t been made yet.
LAKERS AT HAWKS
When: Saturday, 5 p.m. PT
Where: State Farm Arena, Atlanta
TV/Radio: NBA TV, Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM