The confrontation between Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick and forward Jarred Vanderbilt was a brief one, but still one that caught the eye of many watching the game. During one of the Lakers’ final regular season games against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Redick called a timeout just 16 seconds into the second quarter to sub out Vanderbilt, something that didn’t sit well with the veteran.
Vanderbilt would get into the face of Redick during the timeout before being pulled away and even though the head coach downplayed the incident immediately after, there were still questions about whether the relationship between the two had been fractured. But Vanderbilt made it clear that the two are on good terms now.
“We ended up good,” Vanderbilt said after the Lakers’ season came to an end. “Like I said, we’re both competitors. We’re competing at the highest level so sometimes tensions rise and you have disagreements. It happens. Player to player, coach to player, staff to player. When we all got a goal like that of winning, sometimes disagreements happen. That’s all it was. Like I said, we’ve been good ever since.”
Vanderbilt is someone who always plays with a lot of energy and passion, and Redick is extremely passionate and fiery on the sideline as well. When that is the case, there are bound to be some disagreements here and there, but the important thing is that it doesn’t linger and that is what Vanderbilt and Redick were able to ensure didn’t happen.
Like the forward noted, when everyone has that goal of winning and are competing so hard every night, there can be some disagreements, and that is all this was. Both were able to move on and now are on the same page moving forward into the summer.
It says a lot about Redick, especially as a younger coach just getting started in his career, that he was able to properly handle this situation. An angry, frustrated player can have damaging effects in the locker room, but by communicating and maneuvering this incident as he needed to, there were no lasting issues and this was simply a brief altercation that is completely in the past.
Dillon Brooks calls Jarred Vanderbilt one of the ‘dumb’ players in the NBA
Vanderbilt’s style of play can sometimes lead to opposing players not caring for him on the court and Phoenix Suns wing Dillon Brooks is one of them. Arguably the biggest villain in the NBA today, Brooks recently took a shot at Vanderbilt on a live stream, naming him as one of the dumbest players in the league.
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