JJ Redick sets record on Luka Doncic’s “great” relationship

LOS ANGELES – After Los Angeles Lakers‘ 129-101 win against the Golden State Warriors over the weekend, footage has emerged showing a somewhat tense exchange between Luka Doncic and head coach JJ Redick. While the exchange in question was allegedly spread by unnamed sourcesRedick set a record for the Lakers star himself.

Before the Lakers’ game against the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday, JJ Redick confirmed their strong relationship with Luka Dončić, while explaining how outside voices exaggerated the whole situation.

“I didn’t think much of it at the time. To be honest, I don’t think Luka did either. He and I have a great relationship. I think those things happen, not every game, but they happen a lot,” Redick explained. “Sometimes you have to repeat them with a player or as a teammate. Sometimes it’s player-to-player. It’s a competition. There’s two guys, in this case, trying to win a basketball game and be on the same page about things.”

“I talk about player-led teams all the time. I encourage guys to talk to me or talk to our coaches and bring things up and tell us what they need,” Redick continued. “I don’t know why it went viral. I felt very normal.”

The Lakers clearly won that game and picked up another win in dominant fashion the following night against the Sacramento Kings. After the Kings’ victory, Doncic admitted that the team doesn’t really pay attention to outside noise amid the ups and downs of the season.

And while the entire exchange may have seemed perfectly normal to Redick, as far as coach-player interactions go during the season, he acknowledged that the nature of the Lakers puts everything under increased scrutiny as to whether or not it’s fair.

But for him, the challenging aspect of it all was magnified as to why he wanted to coach the Lakers to begin with.

“It’s definitely special to the Lakers. And there are certainly other teams and other players. To be honest, we have LeBron James who is probably the most scrutinized or one of the most scrutinized athletes of all time,” Redick said. “That’s why I wanted to play for Duke. That’s why when I was a free agent after a rebuilding year in Orlando and then going out of the first round in Milwaukee, I told Doc Rivers, ‘I want to come here because I’m going to play for something. I want it to matter. I want to be a part of something that means something.’

The Lakers have 22 games remaining and are currently in sixth place in the Western Conference standings at 36-24. They are just two games behind the Houston Rockets for the third seed. As the playoff race heats up in the final months of the regular season, Redick knows the Lakers will be essentially under the microscope.

“The reality is that everybody’s going to have an opinion. … As long as there’s been professional sports, everybody’s always had an opinion,” Redick said. “There was sports talk, there were barbershops, there were chat rooms. Everyone had an opinion. Now everyone’s opinion is more accessible. It’s just more amplified.”

And as for anyone looking for a rift between the Lakers coach and his franchise star, they’ll have to look harder.

“I was talking to Luke about it, we were actually laughing about it. I was like, ‘I didn’t feel any tension.’ And he said, ‘No, I didn’t care about that,'” Redick said. “I’ve known Luka for about six years now. Our relationship is strong. It’s only going to get stronger.”