When the Los Angeles Lakers hired JJ Redick to be the next head coach of the franchise, it was quickly pointed out that when he was an awards voter last season, he did not give any love to superstar Anthony Davis in the Defensive Player of the Year race. So it wasn’t long before Redick received some questions about that decision.
When it was addressed, Redick said he spoke to Davis and that the Lakers star was unaware of the situation. He followed that up by saying that he and the Lakers coaching staff would empower Davis to go after any season awards he wants, including All-NBA, Defensive Player of the Year and even MVP.
Some were confused by the way in which Redick spoke about the whole situation, leading to him needing to clarify those comments at a recent practice.
“Well, I know what he wants to have,” Redick said on Monday. “I remember when I said it, I talked to Zach (Lowe) about it afterwards, I didn’t necessarily word that tremendously. Sometimes I do misspeak.
“I know he wants that, I know he wants that. We believe he is that. It’s our job to empower him on both sides of the basketball to have a monster year. And I thought he had a monster year last year. But I think the way we want to play, he’s gonna be featured like he always is, but he’s also gonna be hopefully perpetually involved.
“It’s interesting, the Milwaukee game is a great example of that where his first like five or six minutes, we were getting some stops but we were really doing a nice job of throwing the basketball ahead. Rui got some stuff, and [Davis] is naturally underneath the basket and he’s gonna be trailing the play. There are stretches of games where that’s gonna happen but you have to be intentional and make a substitute or whatever. We were really intentional for the rest of the quarter about having him involved in the halfcourt. That’s sort of what I mean by empowering him. We got to make sure we ride our guys.”
The Lakers are certainly going to need Davis to be an elite level for most of the season if they want to improve upon their record and final result from last year. And if that means he winds up in the DPOY race, then that’s a cherry on top for Redick and L.A.
But they are going to put him in positions to be his best self on the floor regardless.
JJ Redick addresses beef with Doc Rivers
An interesting wrinkle to the Lakers preseason game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday was the head coaches JJ Redick and Doc Rivers. Rivers notably coached Redick during his tenure as a player with the L.A. Clippers.
Now several years removed from that, Redick and Rivers’ relationship has been on the rocks. During his time with ESPN last season, Redick went on “First Take” and threw criticism at his former coach by sharing that Rivers never takes accountability for his team’s struggles.
Since becoming head coach of the Lakers, Redick is going to have to coach against Rivers twice a year during the regular season. While it could make for interesting theatrics, Redick shared that he does not have any ill will towards his Rivers.