JJ Redick Sets the Tone for the First Day of Lakers Training Camp

JJ Redick Sets the Tone for the First Day of Lakers Training Camp

uh who uh participated today and who did not or I guess who did not. Yeah, I mean that’s probably be easier. Uh I can’t I don’t even know if I can name all the participants. Um so uh LeBron, Marcus, and Gabe and Adu are all sort of under either return to play protocols or modified protocols. Starting with LeBron, what do you expect out of him at the starting camp tomorrow? Yeah, I I I think it’s it’s probably a little bit longer of a ramp up leading into opening night um for him just obviously in year 23, uncharted territory here. So, um I felt and and and in talking with performance and in talking with Mike and LeBron, like he probably did too much last year in camp. um which was great for for me as a first year head coach to get to get buy in from him, but it’ll be a slower process with him uh leading into the first game. Um you know, he’s obviously got uh 22 years so far of of wear and tear on the body and he’s dealing with a little bit of uh nerve irritation in the glute. So, um just we’re playing the long game with with LeBron. Uh Gabe, he’s just modified. He should be good to go live by the end of the week and we expect him to be able to play Friday. Um and that’s just again the the management of of his knee that you know we we we did last year as well. Um Marcus just dealing with a little bit of Achilles tendonopathy. Um you know he’s been in a slow ramp up. He was a modified participant. Nothing lied today. We expect him to be fine by next week. And then Adoo I think gave you guys all the information himself yesterday. Coach from the players that did participate. Who stood out to you? Uh I mean Luca was pretty good. Uh Luc was pretty good. Uh no, I look I I think a lot of times in in camp, right, you’re you’re doing a lot more drills and you’re doing games with constraints. We did two 5m minute scrimmages at the end. Um so call it, you know, 45% of the time was drills, 55% of the time was live, but a lot of the live play was was with constraints. So, uh, I think the group really stood out and and it was just our energy, our physicality. You know, we’re asking these guys to to have championship communication. I thought our talk was really good today. Um, and and we we pushed ourselves like from a conditioning standpoint, we got a lot out of today. Jere is there not as much trying to instill what the expectations are or there’s a lot of new players, so there is still some of that. No, there’s always that and it’s it’s it’s different year to year and I I I would say this um you know you use the word expectations and I I think there’s the internal expectations of what’s the standards are and what’s required every day versus the external expectations which kind of really don’t matter because we we kind of have to set that for ourselves. Um which that’s a process to build. You don’t come in day one and say, “Okay, this is our standard. These are our expectations.” And then it’s boom, perfect. Um, it takes a little bit of time. And uh, you know, we like we were last year and and like we’ll continue to be all year. Like we we’ll be very clear with what the expectations are. One thing all the players did say that they they really said what you said in terms of championship and championship communication. That is the expectation of it. Is that fair to say you know like Yeah, I mean that’s we have we have three priorities this year and three priorities only. And that’s championship habits, championship communication, and championship shape. And um there’s no there’s no shortcuts to this. Uh there’s no shortcuts to success. There’s no shortcuts to having a good season, great season, whatever. It’s the the league is too good. Uh there’s too much talent out there. There’s too much balance. Um you you have to be committed on a daily basis to those things. Uh two two kind of LeBron related questions, too. Um, one of the things Luca has said a lot just sort of an excitement about getting into camp so that himself LeBron and also kind of like problem solve and figure this stuff out. Um, can that still occur if he’s not playing live as much? Um, are there ways just like sort of like through osmosis where that where that can happen? [Music] It’s a good word, right? Yeah, they’ll they’ll a couple of the guys know this. There’s there’s a there’s a there’s a fun exercise next week. There’s a fun exercise next week. Like a team building exercise of sorts. We’ll see. Or like jumping jacks. No, no, no. I don’t mean physical exercise, but there’s a Yes. To answer your question, yes, there is. Okay. And then um being around him last year and seeing you know the way he hit that first week of the season and then kind of you know he had that that break around the inseason tour um break recovery whatever you want to call it. Um and the way he was able to come back and push did that change the way that you wanted to work with Mike and Dr. Sims in some ways about like how to best sort of plan out you know. Yeah. I I again I I I you’ll hear me use this a lot. It is uncharted territory. I don’t think there’s a blueprint for someone who’s had this amount of mileage and and this many minutes and uh been asked to do so many things on both ends of the court. And look, we we asked a lot of them last year. Um we asked a lot of them to start the year in camp. Um so it’s it’s it’s just working as a partnership to try to figure out what’s best. Was he receptive to in the past? I know there have been times like he’s going to play he’s going to have a minutes restriction and then two games into it it’s like he’s running through that restriction like he was on board with this. Well, I’ve never put a minutes restriction on him. Uh you know he he’s on board. Yeah, we’re all on the same page. As a follow up on a new what has he been able to do between summer? Yeah, he has he he’s he’s had a a ramp up um from, you know, running, cutting, jumping, uh then running, cutting, jumping versus coaches, threeon-ree versus coaches, three on three versus players to to live play prior to to this week. Um and again, I I think, you know, we we’ve we’ve just got to manage him coming off of a knee surgery. And to be quite frank with you, you know, he was not our player when he had his surgery. And so we did not have control over what he did for 3 months after the surgery. And so it’s really just about, to use the LeBron phrase again, it’s really about playing the long game with him. We look at this year for him as a uh a developmental year. and uh there’s not there’s no reason for us to to sort of push his body um and and and create any sort of long-term harm, but his knee is in a really good spot. Um we just want to be really careful with it. Does it matter if LeBron plays in the preseason? Does it like I mean, is that important that he plays at the game at some point in the preseason? Um it would be nice. It would be nice for sure. Um, you know, I we would we would love to have that happen and if it doesn’t, we’ll we’ll just make it work. We’ll cancel the season. No, we’ll still play 82 games. Is there any discussion about Isabel potentially an opening night for that? That’s the goal. Yeah, definitely. You mentioned your Spectrum interview yesterday about wanting to get, you know, not just the throwhead, but once against the offense earlier, you know, you think 18, 19 seconds on the clock, championship has been something that you harped on a lot this offseason. How much are those tying together after you looked at last season in order to get to why the early offense actually we have to be in a certain I I really I really believe that all three of our priorities tie in together and in terms of the early offense you certainly have to be in shape um there has to be communication um our habits that that part of that is execution and you know I think it’s execution of spacing. It’s execution of um knowing what we’re trying to get on a possession and you have to be in shape to sort of recognize all those things in real time. So, it’s it’s all tied together and I thought with our script and and we did a modified uh threeon-ree game, um I thought the emphasis was there. The guys did a really good job. They understood what we were trying to accomplish. They understood the purpose of everything we were doing today in script and in threeon-ree. Uh, and then that translated to five on J. What’s going to the term I guess lineup? Could that rele again? I I’m I’m not even concerned about it. Yeah, I’m not even concerned about it. How does um obsession play into the priorities? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, Rob has a a word of the season, a word of training camp every year. Last year was details. This year is obsession. Obviously, if you saw the shirt, you know that the 18 was uh part of that, which that’s what we’re all after. We’re all we’re all after that 18th banner. I think um understanding the priorities of the job and and being obsessed with those and committed to those on a daily basis, that’s what determines great players. That’s what determines great teams.

Subscribe for the latest Lakers’ content: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8CSt-oVqy8pUAoKSApTxQw
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lakers
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lakers/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lakers
Get the Lakers app: https://www.nba.com/lakers/multimedia…