{"id":587648,"date":"2026-02-07T04:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T04:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/587648\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T04:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T04:30:11","slug":"jj-redick-wants-jaxson-hayes-to-use-suspension-as-learning-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/587648\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ Redick Wants Jaxson Hayes To Use Suspension As ‘Learning Opportunity’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers did not have backup big man Jaxson Hayes in the lineup when they took the floor against the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday night. The reason for that is a one-game suspension that was doled out by the NBA because of his altercation with the Washington Wizards mascot<\/a> last Friday. <\/p>\n

The Lakers got the win against the 76ers anyways, but needed one of Maxi Kleber\u2019s best games of the season off of head coach JJ Redick\u2019s bench. It was certainly a bizarre situation and an odd suspension given out by the league, but Hayes chose not to fight it and instead took his one game off on Thursday. <\/p>\n

Redick was asked to comment on Hayes\u2019 suspension and the action that led to it, and he kept it very succinct in what he hopes for out of the whole ordeal. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe made an error in judgment and he owned up to it and apologized,\u201d Redick said. \u201cHopefully this is a learning opportunity for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NBA has always been strict about player engagement with non-athletes, stemming back from the Malice at the Palace fight between Detroit Pistons players and fans all the way back in 2004. That leads to harsher than expected punishments \u2014 like one game for pushing a mascot \u2014 even if it seems unnecessary on the surface. <\/p>\n

If you love our reporting, choose LakersNation.com as a preferred source on Google.<\/a><\/p>\n

As Redick says, hopefully Hayes learns how serious the league is about these kinds of altercations, and avoids anything that could be perceived as that type of behavior in the future. <\/p>\n

The Lakers will have Hayes back for their next game on Saturday night against the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n

JJ Redick praises Luke Kennard <\/p>\n

The Lakers\u2019 lone trade deadline move was acquiring sharpshooter Luke Kennard from the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Gabe Vincent and a 2032 second-round draft pick. Kennard is, percentage-wise, the best shooter in basketball. The criticism on him, though, is that he isn\u2019t a very willing shooter, with only 3.2 attempts per game. <\/p>\n

But Redick \u2014 who went to the same college as Kennard in Duke University \u2014 believes that the new guard is one of the best shooters in the league<\/a> despite that.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcited about Luke,\u201d Redick said. \u201cI\u2019ve known him, I guess for about 12 years now and I think he\u2019s one of the best shooters in the NBA. I\u2019m gonna highly encourage him to shoot more and not turn down shots. Because I think one of the underrated part of his game is his ability to move and create second actions and move the basketball. You\u2019ve seen that now at a number of his stops where you can initiate the offense through an off-ball movement and he will just make the right play and sort of get the offense going. So he\u2019ll be a corner threat and he\u2019ll be an off-ball threat and we\u2019re excited to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers did not have backup big man Jaxson Hayes in the lineup when they took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,32,1661,150],"class_list":{"0":"post-587648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jaxson-hayes","10":"tag-jj-redick","11":"tag-los-angeles-lakers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116027473063941632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}