LOS ANGELES – In the aftermath of the Los Angeles Lakers’ 129-101 win against the Golden State Warriors over the weekend, a clip emerged showing a somewhat tense exchange between Luka Doncic and head coach JJ Redick. While the exchange in question was reportedly diffused by unnamed sources, Redick himself set the record straight on his relationship with the Lakers’ star.
Prior to the Lakers’ game against the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday, JJ Redick affirmed his strong relationship with Luka Doncic, while explaining how outside voices blew the entire situation out of proportion.
“I didn’t think much of it at the time. To be honest with you I don’t think Luka did either. He and I have a great relationship. I think those things happen, not every game, but they happen very frequently,” Redick explained. “Sometimes you have to rehash them with a player or as a teammate. Sometimes it happens player-to-player. It’s a competition. There’s two guys, who in this case, are trying to win a basketball game and be on the same page about stuff.”
“I talk about player-led teams all the time. I encourage guys talking to me or talking to our coaches and brining stuff up and telling us what they need,” Redick continued. “I don’t know why it went viral. It felt very normal to me.”
The Lakers obviously went on to win that game, and pulled off another win in dominating fashion the following night against the Sacramento Kings. After the Kings win, Doncic acknowledged how the team does not really pay attention to the outside noise amid the ups and downs of a season.
And while the entire exchange may have seemed completely normal to Redick as it pertains to coach-player interaction during the course of the season, he admitted that due to the nature of being the Lakers, everything is under increased scrutiny whether that’s fair or not.
But for him, the challenging aspect of everything being magnified was why he wanted to coach the Lakers to begin with.
“It’s definitely special to the Lakers. And there’s certainly other teams and other players. To be honest with you, we have LeBron James who is probably the most scrutinized, or one of the most scrutinized athletes of all-time,” Redick said. “It’s why I wanted to play at Duke. It’s why, when I was a free agent after a year of rebuilding in Orlando and then a first round exit in Milwaukee, I said to Doc Rivers, ‘I want to come here because I’m going to play for something. I want it to matter. I want to be a part of something that means something.’”
The Lakers have 22 games remaining, and they’re currently in sixth place in the Western Conference standings at 36-24. They are only two games behind the Houston Rockets for the No. 3 seed. As the playoff race heats up in the final months of the regular season, Redick knows the Lakers are going to be essentially under a microscope.
“The reality is everybody’s gonna have an opinion. . .Since pro sports have existed, everybody’s always had an opinion,” Redick said. “There’s been sports talk, there’s been barbershops, there’s chat rooms. Everybody’s had an opinion. Now, everybody’s opinion is more easily accessible. It’s just more amplified.”
And as far as anyone searching for a rift between the Lakers’ coach and his franchise star, they’re going to have to search harder.
“I was talking to Luka about it, we were actually laughing about it. I was like, ‘I didn’t feel any tension.’ And he’s like, ‘No, I didn’t care about it,’” Redick said. “I’ve known Luka now for about six years. Our relationship is strong. It’s only going to get stronger.”
