Through four preseason appearances, the initial in-game returns for Bronny James Jr. aren\u2019t ideal. He\u2019s gone 4-of-15 from the floor (1-of-7 beyond the arc) and dished out 13 assists to 12 turnovers. While Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick acknowledged James\u2019s struggles, he added some context to help explain the slow start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he had a really nice September and a good summer with us. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s played well in the four preseason games, but he\u2019s had good practices. Some of it\u2019s just rhythm. Some of it\u2019s who he\u2019s playing with, right?\u201d Redick told reporters after Tuesday\u2019s loss to the Golden State Warriors. \u201cHe\u2019s played a lot of minutes, especially in the second half of games, with our two-way guys and tonight we played with Rafael [Castro], who\u2019s who\u2019s been with us for three days. So some of it is like the group he\u2019s with. I think that is not necessarily setting him up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from James, who did not score (0-of-2 shooting) and committed four turnovers (zero assists), his fellow backend bench guards, Jaden Hardy and Chris Ma\u00f1on, also labored during Tuesday\u2019s defeat. Hardy scored 10 points on 3-of-9 shooting (1-of-6 from deep) and had two assists to three turnovers. Ma\u00f1on scored five points on perfect 2-of-2 shooting but logged one assist to four turnovers.<\/p>\n
Redick recognized the poor performance of those three, which contributed to a dismal second half offensively (26 total points), and knows they\u2019ll be needed throughout the regular season when injuries to other backcourt members occur. But he didn\u2019t place the blame solely on their shoulders and made clear the coaching staff has to find ways to simplify the game for them as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve talked to those guys. I mean, the reality is, again, if one of our three primary handlers are out, one of those guys\u2026one of those guys is going to play,\u201d Redick said. \u201cIt\u2019s too taxing with full-court pressure for [Reaves] and [Luka] to just do that solely. We\u2019ll keep trying to get better and those guys, their intent is there…Overall, it just was not a good offensive product in the second half and I\u2019ll look at what I can do better with that too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through four preseason appearances, the initial in-game returns for Bronny James Jr. aren\u2019t ideal. He\u2019s gone 4-of-15 from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,771,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":["post-858852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-lakers","tag-basketball","tag-la","tag-la-lakers","tag-lakers","tag-lakers-news","tag-lalakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleslakers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117440537094093220","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858852","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=858852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}