D’Angelo Russell, the Lakers’ repentant point guard who has vowed to be more engaged this season, answered some questions Thursday as drama-free as possible.
“The main goal is basketball. I think I do that,” he said. “Obviously a lot of people get distracted from that and everything else matters but basketball. For me, I’m trying to eliminate the distractions that y’all can use against me or say against me. Trying to eliminate it.”
But when the topic turned to the way the Lakers are preparing for the season under JJ Redick, about the mental demands being put on the team, Russell couldn’t hide his excitement.
“Hell yeah. Yeah, it excites me,” he said. “I haven’t really had the opportunity to — and I’m not throwing shots at anybody, obviously, I know it kinda spins like that — but I’ve never really had the opportunity to build a relationship with a coach over a long period of time.”
Russell mentioned spending parts of three seasons with Chris Finch in Minnesota as one example, but otherwise, he’s lived a fairly transient NBA lifestyle.
With Redick, Russell said, he’s found someone willing to challenge the Lakers and himself with intellectual ideas while forcing them to get into the minutia about how and why something as simple as a screen can work.
“For me to see how JJ is trying to bring the play calls and just level of IQ into each practice and each film session, to see how he’s prioritizing that. I’ve always been a guy that wants to prioritize high IQ, high verbiage, high film sessions… like, let’s rise to that,” Russell said. “And he’s obviously doing that. It’s something to look forward to.”
Redick said he’s been working on getting his players acclimated, collaborating with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and other players who were away from the gym in the build to the season.
“I’m confident that given our level of work, and I would call it preliminary install in September, we were in constant communication,” Redick said. “As we were building out languages and our systems, you know, I would update those guys, you know, every 10 days or so with an updated PDF of all the stuff. If they had any questions, we talked about it.”
Russell made news Monday during the team’s media day when he apologized to fans for “a lack of professionalism” during his scrum with reporters. He offered the same apology during a different televised interview.
Thursday, asked about the cause of those apologies, Russell declined.
“I left y’all with what I left y’all with. That’s all I really got,” Russell said.
But when it came to specifics about a play Redick drew up in one of the first Lakers’ practices of the new season, Russell said he made sure to reach out to his coach later in the day to compliment his innovation.
“He drew up a play and I don’t even know if it worked. I think Jaxson did a great job of sniffing the play out. And I was on the golf course and I was thinking about it and I sent JJ a little voice note kinda thanking him for putting that out. I’d never seen it,” Russell said. “I’m not trying to hype it up but I thanked him for showing me that. It didn’t work, but I saw him getting into his bag right there and it’s exciting for players to notice stuff like that.”
Let the games begin
The Lakers open the preseason Friday in Palm Springs against Minnesota before hosting Phoenix on Sunday.
Redick wouldn’t say how much James or Davis would play.
“We have a general idea of what that looks like for all of preseason,” he said. “But just trying to figure out what makes the most sense. Our framework for a plan is based in real-time, based on how these guys feel. I lived this as a player. You can have a three-and-a-half-hour practice where you’re standing around for 45 minutes and people are talking and teaching and we didn’t do that the first two days. It was two hours and five minutes with two water breaks. Today was 60 minutes with no water breaks. One thing to the next. So we gotta see how they feel and we’ll adjust accordingly.”
The team bused to Palm Springs following that tight Thursday practice.
“Today was a ‘tornado,’ that’s what (Redick) said …because we only had a one-hour practice so we were just going to go hard,” Rui Hachimura said. “…We just wanted it high intensity today so that’s what we did and we had a really good practice today, I think. It was a short time. It’s been great.”
Make a pick
Hachimura said he’s in a unique position with the Dodgers and the Padres meeting in the playoffs, with two Japanese countrymen starring for the teams in Shohei Ohtani and Game 2 San Diego starter Yu Darvish.
“Dodgers, yeah. I got to say. You know, actually, Yu Darvish, that’s tough. Yeah, that’s tough. He’s like my mentor, you know. When I got to the league he was always supporting me,” Hachimura said of Darvish. “He was always there. He came to the game too one time. I remember that. He had like the whole [outfit], my jersey, everything. It’s just one of those [things] where I’m just happy to see those Japanese athletes — they’re playing against each other on one of the biggest stages in the world. So, yeah, I’m just happy to see it and I’m so proud of them, those two.”
