JJ Redick is Not Ready for This

JJ Redick stormed out of a press conference last night. He did this after throwing the entirety of the Lakers players who played last night under the bus, with the exception being LeBron James. I read that what made him leave was a journalist asking if the team is poorly conditioned, a pretty common question for coaches nowadays. Him storming out says a whole lot to me.

JJ Redick has thin skin. He has never really been challenged in his life. He walked through his NBA life as a role player. He was hated by many when he was playing at Duke, but he was playing basketball at Duke, he didn't have much to worry about. And when he was broadcasting he was fine. He never blew me away as a play by play guy, but he was fine. But now, when he is the head coach of the biggest brand in all of the NBA, he is going to have to field questions much worse than the conditioning of his team. Will he walk out of every press conference if he doesn't like what reporters are asking him? I hope not because that would be an even worse look. He is eight games into his first season as a head coach and he is already bailing out of press conferences, over explaining how he "earned" this job, acting like he is the cream of the crop on podcast appearances. Basically, he is in over his head.

I get it. I'm watching a first year head coach for Michigan football, and he is having a tough time transitioning to being the head guy. But Sherrone Moore hasn't left a press conference. He isn't showing up and trying to justify how he earned his job. He is out there recruiting every day and night. He is struggling now, but I have faith in him. JJ Redick though, I never had faith in him. And this action just makes me even more sure that he is not fit to be a head coach for a high school basketball team, let alone the Lakers.

What made this even worse for me as a viewer though was how he talked about his players not named LeBron James. That is a bad, bad look. Guys on this team aren't going to simply take that from JJ Redick. He hasn't earned that yet. Not even close. Again, he is doing this eight games into the season. That's bad news. D'Angelo Russell is already fed up with him as a head coach. I'm sure Gabe Vincent wasn't too keen on being name dropped as to why he played Russell so few minutes. I have to imagine both Dalton Knecht and Bronny James are stunned to hear their names come up since they're rookies. He didn't say anything about Anthony Davis or Rui Hachuimura, but that is because they were out last night. Austin Reaves probably never heard his name bandied about like that the last two seasons. Him doing that, and leaving LeBron out of it, makes me think that he only got this job because of his friendship with LeBron. And if he would just come out and admit that I'd have no problem with it. That is how some things get done in pro sports. Jalen Brunson's dad is only an assistant because the Knicks wanted his kid to play for them. That happens in college with recruiting all the time. People hire family members or friends to appease star players. It's a fact of life. LeBron also didn't deserve hate for last night's game. He came to play. But to be so blatant about it, to act like the dad of the team to everyone but LeBron shows favoritism and someone with a lack of how to deal with a locker room and pro athletes.

The Lakers have all the time in the world to right the ship. They're 4-4 right now. They have 72 more games to show what type of team they can be. But getting beat by the Pistons one night, then getting the doors blown off by the Grizzlies the next night, and having a coach act like a petulant child afterwards, that is a bad, bad look for a team that is only going to be even more scrutinized going ahead. JJ Redick needs to look in the mirror and stop acting like an old school head coach that has earned the respect of pro players. He has not, and if he continues to play this type of game with the media, he will be looking for a head coaching job somewhere else sooner than he'd like. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing, the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast, and the greatest basketball writer on the internet.

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