{"id":120947,"date":"2025-01-30T11:02:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T16:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=120947"},"modified":"2025-01-30T11:02:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T16:02:14","slug":"lakers-jj-redick-kendrick-perkins-challange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/30\/lakers-jj-redick-kendrick-perkins-challange\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers’ JJ Redick Challenged by Ex-First Take Colleague"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time this season, the\u00a0<\/span>Los Angeles Lakers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0will be without\u00a0<\/span>Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for an extended period. <\/span>Davis left early in the Lakers’ loss to the Philadelphia 76ers two nights ago and will be re-evaluated next week. <\/span>For now,<\/span> the purple and gold will have to find their way without AD.<\/span> Keeping with that theme,<\/span> Lakers head coach\u00a0<\/span>JJ Redick<\/span><\/a>\u00a0must also find his way. Earlier this week, he received an open challenge from a former television debate partner, calling for adjustments <\/span>to be made<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lakers’ JJ Redick Challenged by Ex-First Take Colleague<\/h2>\n

Lakers Head Coach Called Out By Kendrick Perkins, Advised to ‘Level Up’<\/h3>\n

Remarkably, Davis has avoided serious injury all season, in addition to last season, when he played in 76 out of 82 regular season games. This season, he’s missed just three games, but counting, now that he’s injured. Suffice it to say, AD has shed his “street clothes” persona, which was given to him by\u00a0<\/span>Charles Barkley<\/span><\/a>\u00a0some years ago. Unfortunately, now AD is facing at least a week away from the court, and possibly more, depending on the diagnosis in his re-evaluation.<\/span><\/p>\n

With AD out and the Lakers void of significant depth behind him in the roster, players like\u00a0<\/span>Jaxson Hayes<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and the newly returned\u00a0<\/span>Jarred Vanderbilt<\/span><\/a>\u00a0must step up and produce.\u00a0<\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>\u00a0will do all he can do. However, he can’t do it alone and will need assistance from his head coach. That’s where\u00a0<\/span>Kendrick Perkins<\/span><\/a>\u00a0comes in, praising Redick for his overall job with the Lakers this season. Subsequently, he followed the praise with a challenge to the first-year bench boss.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Now it\u2019s on JJ Redick to get into his bag. He\u2019s been doing a hell of a job but he has to level up even more, when you missing your arguably best player,” <\/em>Perkins stated on NBA Today<\/a>. “You can\u2019t rely on a 40-year-old LeBron James, it\u2019s unfair to him. Now let\u2019s see what he does in his line-ups. Let\u2019s see what he does with his offensive and defensive adjustments. Who\u2019s he going to rely on? Is it going to be Austin Reaves<\/a>? Is he going to play Jarred Vanderbilt and Rui Hachimura<\/a> a lot together? I need to see more from JJ, but dammit, he has set the standard.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Tough Game-Slate Doesn’t Allow Much Room for Error<\/h3>\n

Redick and LeBron weren’t capping when they admitted that the Lakers’ margin for error is minimal. That margin for error will be tested over the next handful of games void of AD. The Lakers must first win a game they should win against the Washington Wizards on Thursday night. After that, the slate gets much tougher. Redick’s coaching acumen will be tested with upcoming matchups against the\u00a0<\/span>Knicks<\/span><\/a>, Clippers,\u00a0<\/span>Warriors<\/span><\/a>, and Pacers (AD will likely miss all four games).<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lakers caught a slight break, considering Vanderbilt has returned just in time for AD’s absence. However, whether Redick will up Vanderbilt’s minutes is a question mark, given that he’s only just returned in limited minutes. Nevertheless, Redick is about to experience life without AD for the first time. How he handles it and how the Lakers play will tell a lot about who they are as a team. It should also increase pressure on GM Rob Pelinka in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time this season, the\u00a0Los Angeles Lakers\u00a0will be without\u00a0Anthony Davis\u00a0for an extended period. Davis left early in the Lakers’ loss to the Philadelphia 76ers two nights ago and will be re-evaluated next week. For now, the purple and gold will have to find their way without AD. Keeping with that theme, Lakers head […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":120950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1608,26],"tags":[240,4556,1006,2941,1962,2279,3215,38,1749],"class_list":["post-120947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-basketball","category-lakers","tag-anthony-davis","tag-austin-reaves","tag-charles-barkley","tag-jarred-vanderbilt","tag-jaxson-hayes","tag-jj-redick","tag-kendrick-perkins","tag-lebron-james","tag-rui-hachimura"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120947"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120952,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120947\/revisions\/120952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}