The NBA has continually evolved in numerous facets over the years and not just with the players on the court. The league has taken many steps to improve the officiating with one thing implemented being the Last 2-Minute (L2M) report, which began for the sake of transparency and holding referees accountable for mistakes. But new Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick is not a fan.
Referees are human and are bound to make mistakes just like anyone else. The league clearly wants players and fans to know that they are also seeing the mistakes when they happen and while Redick understands this, the Lakers coach doesn’t believe it solves anything.
Redick was recently interviewed by Hasan Minhaj and explained his reasons for disliking the NBA L2M report, as well as a change he’d like to see with instant replays:
“There’s always been a human element to the sport. Referees are a big part of our sport and they’re graded just like all of us, they’re scrutinized internally I’m saying. If I have a good game or a bad game, I’ve got to then go watch the film the next day with the team and we’ve got to talk about it and we’ve got to fix the problems, they’re getting that within the referee’s association. So there’s always been that human element. Technology has made it where the eyeballs and the magnifying glass on them has I think made it harder. As far as the Last 2-Minute report, I hate it. I don’t think we should do it. There’s some times where the league will come out and they’ll be like that was the correct call and we’re like no we all watched the replay 17 times, it was not the correct call. What does the Last 2-Minute report do? We can all see what happened. The [Tyrese] Maxey, you brought up the travel, but what about Game 2 when his jersey gets held on the inbounds play? That should’ve been a foul. And then they come out with a Last 2-Minute report like, Josh Hart fouled Maxey, well no shit. I don’t need you to do that. The intent there is for transparency, I think the intent is correct. But does it solve any problem? No. Does it make anybody feel any better? You think 76ers fans woke up the next day and were like, league got it right this time? … I know it slows the game down at times, but I like replays within the game. I think it’s fair to have replays. I think there’s some stuff, and again I have nothing to do with the rules committee, but there’s some stuff where we see something happening in a replay and they’re reviewing the replay for something else and its blatantly obvious that this one thing happened, but it’s not reviewable. Can we tweak some of that stuff, I don’t know.”
Like Redick said, the intent is there, but there really is no need to do the reports when everyone can clearly see a mistake was made, but nothing about the final outcome of the game will change. In the end, the losing team will still have a loss on their record.
Redick’s suggestion on the instant replay tweak is an interesting one as well. There are often times where a ball might go out of bounds off of someone, but replay will show that it is only because they were fouled on that play, but nothing was called. When that happens, there is nothing that can be done and the Lakers coach would like to see something being done about that.
Whether the Lakers coach’s suggestions will be considered is unknown and it’s possible the league is already considering changes to the rules. But for now Redick will have to push forward with the rules as is.
JJ Redick’s Lakers coaching staff finalized
JJ Redick has officially finalized his coaching staff for the 2024-25 season and the new Lakers coach has accomplished his goal of blending experience with youth and creativity.
Former NBA head coaches Scott Brooks and Nate McMillan are at the head of the staff as lead assistants. Bob Beyer has been an NBA assistant for nearly 20 years and Greg St. Jean has more than 10 years of experience coaching at the NBA level. Lindsey Harding, last year’s G League Coach of the Year, and Beau Levesque, who spent the last four seasons as a player development coach, round out Redick’s coaching staff with Michael Wexler being named head video coordinator.
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