Throughout the season, Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick has consistently emphasized the importance of a process-oriented mindset for athletes.
Redick reiterated this philosophy prior to the Lakers’ recent matchup against the Clippers. Following their 116-102 loss at the Intuit Dome, Redick once again emphasized the importance of adhering to this process-oriented approach, even in the face of defeat.
“Every time we made a mistake they made us pay. But our guys competed. We fought. We stayed together,” the Lakers coach said after the loss. “This is for us, this was a good process for us. We didn’t get the result we wanted.”
Los Angeles Lakers LeBron James Frustration Grows
However, this message appears to be struggling to resonate within a Lakers locker room increasingly plagued by frustration. LeBron James, in particular, has publicly acknowledged the team’s limited margin for error, directly attributing it to roster construction challenges.
LA Times’ Dan Woike writes, “When asked if there were ways for the Lakers to increase those margins, internally, James was blunt.
“Nah,” he said. “That’s how our team is constructed. We don’t have room for error — for much error.”
In a follow-up, James was asked if the Lakers had to play near-perfect basketball most nights to win. And again, James basically said the roster flaws demanded it.
“We don’t have a choice,” James said. “I mean… that’s the way our team is constructed. And we have to, we have to play close-to-perfect basketball.'”
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James’s comments regarding the team’s roster limitations could be attributed to the frustration stemming from the Lakers’ recent string of losses, with the team dropping four of their last six games.
JJ Redick’s Process Not Moving Fast Enough
However, JJ Redick’s assessments of the team’s chances also reflect a degree of realism. When discussing the recent stretch of games where the Lakers played ten out of twelve contests in Los Angeles, it was difficult to discern whether his tone was optimistic or tinged with a sense of inevitability.
“You can certainly look at a calendar and say this is an easier part of the schedule or this is a more difficult part. Nothing is going to be easy for our team. And I figured that out very early in the season,” Redick said before shifting tone. “And that’s OK. We’re going to keep fighting. … We have 18 losses, so by the loss column, we’re sixth. We would like to be higher.
I think there’s a couple games where we would all say we should have won. We haven’t had any of those games where you’re like, ‘Well, we kind of stole that one.’ We’re going to get a couple back at some point. We just got to continue to trust each other and we’ll be fine.”