The Los Angeles Lakers have had every reason to make excuses and allow a brutal March slate, combined with just a tough injury luck, to derail an otherwise stellar start to the Luka Doncic era. Based on a listless showing against the Brooklyn Nets, that’s how things appeared to be going until JJ Redick sat at the postgame podium and absolutely ripped his team for that poor effort.
“I think it was just an overall mentality just to take shortcuts tonight,” Redick said that night. “We just wanted to take shortcuts. They scored 20 points on us gambling. They had 16 offensive rebounds. We ball-watched all night. We said no “dare” shots. I’ll go through it, but they probably made six, seven uncontested threes. Just shortcuts.
“If you want to be a good team, you want to win in the NBA, you got to do the hard stuff. We couldn’t even pass to each other. We couldn’t enter our offense. Running ball screens at literally half court, yeah that’s going to end up in a turnover. I don’t know what we’re doing.”
“Very low-level communication game for our team… I don’t think being short-handed is an excuse for how we played basketball tonight.”
JJ Redick speaks with @LakersReporter and the media after tonight’s loss in Brooklyn. Get closer to the action on Spectrum SportsNet+ with the… pic.twitter.com/xs3etpZuVT
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) March 11, 2025
Compare Redick’s reaction to losing in Brooklyn to Darvin Ham’s infamous thoughts on the arduous 82-game NBA season:
Within this answer from Darvin Ham:
“I’m tired of people living and dying with every single game we play. It’s ludicrous. Actually. Like, come on, man. It’s a marathon.” pic.twitter.com/UwTP8Zzvq5
— Daniel Starkand (@DStarkand) January 6, 2024
Sources close to the situation say Ham was told by higher-ups that his message was absolutely not the correct one to send, whether that be to his players or to fans. His poor messaging played a considerable role in Ham’s eventual dismissal, and something the Lakers have said publicly they wanted from his replacement was that psycho competitiveness Lakers fans demand from their team.
Redick’s tone didn’t fall on deaf ears. His new superstar agreed:
“That’s my fault,” Doncic stated in response to Redick calling out the team, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
Under Ham, the Lakers lacked accountability and culture. He built this belief that eventually, things would work out whether he or the Lakers put in the work necessary to achieve the success demanded of a team headed by LeBron James and Anthony Davis. In hiring Redick, the Lakers wanted to distance themselves from that approach as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
Since then, despite being thoroughly outmatched because of injuries, the Lakers have pushed the Denver Nuggets to the brink of upset, then soundly beaten the Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs. Only in Milwaukee were the Lakers outright blown out, but even there, Doncic and Austin Reaves did all they could to keep the game close-ish, combining for 73 points, 19 rebounds and 18 assists. At no point in that game did it feel like the Lakers were going through the motions having accepted their fate.
Arguably the most notable factor in this season-long turnaround has been how refreshing players have found Redick’s raised expectations and his approach to holding them and, crucially, himself accountable.
“One thing that used to drive guys crazy last year was how, after games, it was always how they just needed to play harder and stuff like that,” a source close to the team said recently. “Darvin never even considered publicly that he may have been part of the problem. JJ obviously has high demands but he also holds himself to that kind of standard and calls himself out a bunch too. That means something.”
Sources close to the team and around the league have stressed how impressive it’s been to watch the Lakers defend this season and especially continue to defend at an elite level after trading away Davis. Players obviously deserve the bulk of the credit for executing the gameplan, but they’ve also made a point of heaping praise on Redick and his coaching staff’s gameplans — a source of frustration under Ham, who didn’t gameplan for any team specifically was often slow to adjust when need be, according to sources close to the team last year.
What is far more important than the comparison of Redick back to Ham is that the Lakers maintain the level they’ve played at since trading for Doncic. So far, Redick has been able to earn consistent buy-in and it’s largely been due to his unfailing belief in this team and the expectations he holds as a result of that confidence. Then, from there, he and his staff have borderline maniacally put in the work to ensure they do their part in living up to those expectations.
“When a locker room senses their coach is working just as hard as they are, they’re going to respond,” that source said. “Winning consistently in the NBA is hard as hell. You have to commit to all kinds of sacrifice and hard-a** work to succeed at that level. When you look and see the head coach doing all he can on his end and teammates also getting after it, it makes it that much easier to put in that work. That’s what we’ve seen from this team this season.”
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