Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick has issued a clarification on a video that went viral on social media on Thursday. In the clip, Redick could be seen slamming his chair after D’Angelo Russell took an ill-advised three and he subbed off the guard soon after. Redick was asked about the clip before the game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday and revealed he spoke to the guard about it.
“Some of the younger staff members brought that to my attention this morning,” Redick said. “I will say, first of all, basketball to me is an emotional game. I’m a competitive person, I’m a passionate person. Sometimes for a brief period of time, you lose control of that emotion.
“It’s not the first time that it’s happened, I’ll be honest with you,” Redick continued. “Maybe it’s the first time that something like that was over Twitter. But it’s gonna happen again. It may happen two hours from now. That’s just the reality.
“I think about myself as a player, now as a coach, certainly when I watched NBA games and analyzed NBA games, I’m not a zombie,” Redick added. “That’s what we kind of refer to as non-passionate, non-competitive, non-expressive people. I’m not a zombie. I don’t like seeing myself in that light.
“When I watched the video, I actually forgot that it had happened,” Redick stated. “I want to be clear on something. DLo and I talked about this today. That was not directed at him. Yes, it came after I think a shot in the corner that he took… There was 25 plays that preceded that from a number of different players.
“When you’re 1-3 on a road trip and you get to a point where you feel like you’re in a ballgame on the road and a play like that happens, you let out some emotion,” Redick said. “But it was not directed at DLo. It was directed more at the series of plays for two-and-a-half quarters that had proceeded that. Not DLo’s shot.”
Redick then added that’s it all good between him and Russell. In case you missed it, this was the clip that had gone viral.
D’Angelo Russell had JJ Redick crashing out 😭 pic.twitter.com/ImQwSoK1O4
— LakeShowYo (@LakeShowYo) November 8, 2024
This shot was the last of a series of bad plays by Russell in the third quarter of that Lakers-Grizzlies game. The fact that Redick was so animated right after the shot and subbed the guard off after calling timeout made it a fairly obvious assumption for many that he was frustrated at the guard. The 40-year-old made it clear here that he was frustrated with pretty much the whole team.
The Lakers ended up losing 131-114 to the Grizzlies and to say their head coach wasn’t happy postgame would be an understatement. Redick stormed out of his press conference after criticizing every Lakers player except LeBron James for their effort.
Redick called out Russell as well for not competing hard enough and not paying attention to detail. That wasn’t acceptable for him and, as a result, the guard was only out there for 21:33 minutes, in which he put up 12 points (4/12 FG), one rebound, three assists, and two steals.
Redick then decided to bench Russell for the game against the 76ers and managed to get a reaction out of the guard with that move. The 28-year-old had 18 points (7-12 FG), two rebounds, and three assists as the Lakers won 116-106 to improve to 5-4.
While Russell played well in this reserve role here, I wouldn’t get carried away just yet if I was a Lakers fan. You need to see more of this from the one-time All-Star and his next test will be against the Toronto Raptors at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday at 9:30 PM ET.
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