The Los Angeles Lakers dropped their third consecutive game on Tuesday night, once again getting blown out by the Oklahoma City Thunder. With the team reeling following the injuries to leading scorers Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, frustrations may be beginning to surface as well.
Head coach JJ Redick called a timeout just 16 seconds into the second quarter to sub out forward Jarred Vanderbilt. And the veteran wasn’t happy with that, confronting Redick on the sideline and needing to be held back by Reaves, via Khobi Price of the California Post:
Another snippet of the interaction between Jarred Vanderbilt and JJ Redick during the Lakers' timeout early in the 2Q. https://t.co/BOcdzjXrpI pic.twitter.com/hISVkYYevW
— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) April 8, 2026
Vanderbilt did not return to the court following the confrontation, logging less than five minutes and was the only Lakers player to play less than 12. He also left the locker room before speaking to reporters after the game, so exactly what went down from his vantage point is still unclear.
This is a bit out of character for Vanderbilt who, even though he has been in and out of the rotation, has always been a valuable teammate. In fact, it was he who had been tasked with helping Doncic keep his emotions in line and just a few weeks ago was seen stopping a similar confrontation from escalating between Doncic and Redick. So to now see him having to be held back by Reaves is undoubtedly a change.
Times are tough for the Lakers who, in a span of a week went from possible Western Conference contender to trying to salvage what they can from this season. Vanderbilt is someone who plays with a lot of passion and Redick will speak his mind as well, so in the midst of another blowout loss, perhaps things just boiled over briefly.
JJ Redick downplays seriousness of confrontation with Jarred Vanderbilt
The confrontation certainly wasn’t one that Redick himself felt was a big deal as the Lakers coach made it clear that it was nothing personal from himself and felt it was a normal reaction between himself and Vanderbilt.
“Just a confluence of things,” Redick said after the loss. “Again, nothing personal with him but normal stuff from my end. And I think for all of us, being undermanned, we’ve gotta scrap and claw. We’ve gotta all be on the same page. We gotta be great teammates. We gotta all play hard. [I] called the timeout to get him out of the game. And he reacted. But again, normal interaction for me.”
When Redick had a similar confrontation with Doncic, he downplayed that as well.
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