If the bar of success means winning 50 games, winning the division, and finishing as the third seed in the Western Conference playoffs, then JJ Redick had a successful rookie campaign as an NBA head coach.
But the bar is much higher when you’re the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. If the season doesn’t include championship confetti reigning down the arena and the Larry O’Brien trophy isn’t sitting in the locker room, the season is largely considered a failure.
“I know I can be better, and I know I will get better,” Redick said when asked to evaluate his first season as Lakers coach.
“I don’t necessarily take satisfaction from how the year went,” he continued. “That’s not to say I’m not proud of what the group was able to do; how we were able to figure things out on the fly and put ourselves in position to have homecourt [advantage] in the first round. But there’s always ways to get better and I can get a lot better.”
Redick made three big coaching mistakes in the Lakers’ first-round playoff series against Minnesota that contributed to the Timberwolves winning the series in five games and ending L.A.’s season.
The first mistake came in a 116-113 loss in Game 4 when Redick played his starting five 24 straight minutes in the second half, using timeouts as the only breaks. The huge gamble backfired as the weary lineup of Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, and Dorian Finney-Smith struggled physically down the stretch and were outscored 19-9 in the final five minutes. Doncic and James missed point-blank layups that could have been attributed to fatigue. There were times when the Lakers looked like they were playing in mud. The ball was not moving and the bodies were stationary.
The second mistake came hours before Game 5 when Redick abruptly walked out of a pregame session with the media after becoming angry over a question about his decision not to sub out his main guys in the second half of Game 4. Redick’s emotions got the best of him and he took it as a jab about his inexperience as a head coach. As a coach or leader of a team, you cannot allow softball questions to bother you. JJ has to develop a thicker skin. Bolting out of a presser is a bad look, it shows immaturity and sets a bad tone leading up to an elimination game.
The third mistake Redick made was inexplicably inserting Maxi Kleber in Game 5. Kleber has been out for three months and barely had practice time with his new teammates. Redick not only played Kleber but he put him in the game during a crucial moment, with the team down six with five minutes left in the fourth quarter. The move was an act of a desperate coach who seemed to be wingin’ it instead of staying the course and trusting the guys who were there from the beginning. ESPN insider Brian Windhorst, Redick’s former TV colleague, called the move an irrational decision.
Playing Kleber in Game 5 and burning out his starters in Game 4 were tied to the fact that the Lakers have a flawed roster. Redick felt Kleber was a much better option than Jaxson Hayes or Jarred Vanderbilt. The lack of a true center forced Redick to lean into his small-ball lineup, which could have worked if fatigue hadn’t sunk in. Redick overplayed his hand, and it ended up costing him his chips.
Outside of Hachimura, who fought through fatigue, the legs of the Lakers starters looked heavy, especially LeBron and Reaves.
LeBron, at age 40, played 46 minutes out of a possible 48 minutes in Game 4, and it hampered him in Game 5 as he shot just 9-for-21 from the field in 40 minutes and wasn’t as active defensively. Reaves was a shell of himself in Game 5, scoring just 12 points (eight below his average) and committing an uncharacteristically high six turnovers.
In team sports, especially in basketball, when the game is close the difference between winning and losing comes down to which player steps up in the clutch and which coach makes the right calls. Redick didn’t pass his first big test as Lakers coach.
During the Lakers end-of-season news conference, Redick reflected on his challenging season and the main lessons he learned.
“I look at everything as an opportunity for growth. I look at things more like a river. It’s all part of one long, winding journey. Along [the journey] you might run into a dam … You just never know what things will come along in that journey,” Redick said. “You have to be willing to embrace failure, you have to be willing to embrace success, but you have to be able to grow in both. Everything that’s happened this year with the players, the staff, the wins, the losses have been incredibly beneficial.”
Image caption: JJ Redick’s first season as Lakers coach ended in disappointment (Getty Images)