JJ Redick had his staff look up actual stats to prove players return from injury against Lakers

One of the long-running fan-held beliefs that players return from injury against the Lakers is something head coach JJ Redick had his analytics staff look into.

Confirmation bias can be a tricky thing to navigate. If you believe something, then whenever you see it, it becomes a more fervent belief.

For some time, Lakers fans online have felt that players return against them at a high rate. And each time it happens, as it did on Saturday against the Grizzlies when Ja Morant played his first game after nearly two weeks out, their heels dig in deeper.

Is this a case of it actually being true? Or is this a case of believing it’s true and being emboldened the handful of times it actually does happen?

Well, head coach JJ Redick had a similar question.

Prior to Saturday’s game, Redick was asked about the theory and revealed he actually had his staff research the notion.

“We had our analytics group look into it,” Redick said. “I don’t know that it’s been updated. I haven’t looked at it since Dame [Lillard] missed the Milwaukee game. But I think it’s like 86% of payroll has been available [against] us this year, which is, by far, No. 1 in the league.”

The game he is referencing took place on March 20, so the data would be less than two weeks old at this point. Still, there are some caveats.

Having players available against your team is not the same as players returning against your team. It’s pretty close! And, really, it’d be a pretty exhaustive study to look at every instance of a player returning from injury and analyzing if it happened more against the Lakers than anyone else.

To perhaps further back up Redick’s point, though, there are other similar stats that back up the notion that players play against the Lakers.

Again, to get the full understanding of this, you’d have to document every instance of a player coming back to get a full picture and who would do tha...

Me. I would.

Early this season, I started keeping track of when players returned from injury against the Lakers. While there was about a month span from December until January where I stopped tracking because it didn’t seem to be a notion with much backing to it, a flurry of instances in the last roughly month made me back track.

This list may not be entirely complete — and if I missed some, do share — and it also doesn’t include just players injured. There are a couple of instances of non-injuries keeping players out.

The date in parentheses is the last game played by the player.

• Oct. 28 – Bradley Beal returns from elbow soreness, misses next game
• Nov. 23 – Nikola Jokic misses 12 days after birth of child, returns to lineup day before Lakers game
• Nov. 26 – Bradley Beal (Nov. 12) and Kevin Durant (Nov. 8) return from injuries. To this point, of Beal’s nine games played, one-third were against the Lakers
• Nov. 27 – Devin Vassell (Nov. 15) returns from injury. His most recent game was against the Lakers
• Dec. 15 – Zach Edey (Nov. 17) returns from ankle injury
• Jan. 23 – Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis miss the front end of a back-to-back against the Clippers, all play vs. Lakers...and lose.
• Feb. 19 – LaMelo Ball returns from ankle soreness and Mark Williams plays first game since rescinded trade
• Feb. 28 – Donte DiVincenzo (Jan. 15) returns from a 20-game absence with toe injury
• March 8 – Jrue Holiday, Jaylen Brown, Al Horford return after sitting out their previous game against the Sixers. Jayson Tatum and Horford then sit out Boston’s next game.
• March 29 – Ja Morant (March 14) returns from right ankle sprain to play Lakers

Again, there’s a good chance I’ve missed something on this list, but it gives you an idea of how often players return against the Lakers.

Is this special to the Lakers? In an era with so much resting of players, potentially not.

But it sure does feel like it!

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.