Dave McMenamin, ESPN Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick is speaking out after the Hall of Fame analyst criticized Redick’s team and questioned his job security on Thursday’s episode of “Inside the NBA.” and chose not to have any further public altercations with Charles Barkley.
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“I just couldn’t finish the clip, to be honest with you,” Redick said Friday before the Lakers’ game at home against the Atlanta Hawks. “My resting heart rate is probably 64 (beats per minute). I watched the clip and it was 64. I literally don’t care. I have other ideas, but I don’t care. .”
Barkley said that during Redick’s Dec. 19 game against the Sacramento Kings in LA, the Lakers coach gave his opinion on the state of NBA broadcasts, given the decline in national television ratings compared to past seasons. He was responding to what he said when he said that.
“(Reddick) said something about it being our fault that people don’t see this shitty product that we make. … Yeah, it’s us,” Barclay said. “It’s like we’re jacking 100 3s every night.”
When Reddick first brought up the issue of ratings, he said too many 3-pointers made the game less interesting because too many teams were playing the same style. He refuted a widely held belief.
“I don’t think the league is as homogenized as a lot of people think it is,” Redick said at the time. “For some on certain rosters and certain players, given their skill set, it makes sense for them to shoot a lot of 3-point shots. I think what’s being lost is what’s being taken away. In the long two seconds it steadily decreases.”
Reddick said the three also led to an increase in scoring near the basket because defenses can’t simply clog the inside because they need to have personnel on the perimeter to guard deep shots. .
“The three-man system gives us more space for people to really score at the rim and score in the paint,” Reddick said. “That’s the strategy.”
Redick, a former NBA analyst for ESPN, also detailed how the game is being covered by the league’s television rights partners, TNT and ESPN.
“I don’t think we as a national partner, and I don’t think we’ve been a part of it, have done a good job of telling the story and celebrating the game,” Reddick said. “If I’m just a fan and every time I turn on the TV and you tell me this product sucks, I’m not going to watch it, and that’s actually what’s happened over the last 10 to 15 years. I don’t know why, but there’s nothing interesting about this game for me.
Reddick declined to name names when making his criticisms. But Barkley apparently believed it was directed at him.
“JJ, you came for the king. You better not miss it,” Barkley said, paraphrasing a line from the character Omar on HBO’s “The Wire.” “Because I can have you, brother. Remember, I got your Lakers game. You can’t hide the flaws they had. Just a dead man walking. They fired Frank Vogel, who did a good job. They did a good job with Darvin Ham, but you change things up with that ugly woman you dated on the Lakers. That’s what I thought when I came out.”
Long before Barkley suggested Redick’s job could be in jeopardy, the first-year coach admitted it himself. He told ESPN before the start of his first training camp coaching the Lakers. “There are no guarantees in this industry. We know we can be fired at any time. That’s the reality.”
Mr. Berkeley continued: “He came in there thinking, ‘This is going to work.’ The Lakers stink, come on, you can put makeup on that pig.”
LA is currently in 6th place in the Western Conference with 19 wins and 14 losses.
Redick is not the first Lakers player to take part in a duel with Barkley.
LeBron James also broke into Barkley in 2017 while playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“I hate him,” James told ESPN at the time. “Why can you trust what he says? Because he’s on TV?”
