Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
On Tuesday, former NBA guard Gilbert Arenas claimed that he would have fired Los Angeles Lakers head coach J.J. Redick after the team’s loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday.
“Put it like this: J.J. would’ve got fired last night if it was up to me,” Arenas said.
The Lakers struggled on offense against the Timberwolves, putting up just 80 points in their 109-80 loss. However, Redick has only coached the team for 21 games, so Arenas’ thoughts on firing him may be a little extreme.
While Redick and the Lakers might not have had the best game plan against the Timberwolves, it didn’t help that superstars Anthony Davis and LeBron James both had rough games.
Davis shot just 4-for-14 from the field on Monday, scoring 12 points to go along with 11 rebounds and five assists. It was just the second time all season that Davis failed to score 15 points in a game, and the 12 points were his fewest of the 2024-25 campaign so far.
James wasn’t any better on Monday, shooting 4-for-16 from the field and 0-for-4 from beyond the arc. He finished the loss with 10 points, eight rebounds, four assists and six turnovers.
The Lakers are currently the No. 9 seed in the Western Conference, and they’ve lost five of their last seven games. They’re 12-9 overall.
Redick was hired in the offseason after Los Angeles moved on from former head coach Darvin Ham. Ham led the Lakers for two seasons, taking them to the Western Conference Finals in the 2022-23 campaign.
However, the Lakers weren’t very successful in the regular season under Ham, as they needed to go through the play-in tournament in each of his two seasons as head coach just to make the playoffs.
Redick is hoping to avoid that same fate in the 2024-25 season. If the season ended today, the Lakers would need to win two games in the league’s play-in tournament in order to earn a playoff spot.
Arenas might not have liked how the Lakers played on Monday, but Los Angeles needs to give Redick – a first-year head coach – time to develop and go through some of the highs and lows of coaching at the NBA level.
The Lakers will attempt to get back on track on Wednesday when they take on the Miami Heat.
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