Late in the regular season, during a home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt was seen getting into a heated interaction with coach JJ Redick. The incident happened after Vanderbilt had played just five minutes in the game, and he didn’t return to the court afterward.
Afterward, Vanderbilt said he talked to Redick and that he had moved on from the incident. The forward played 26 minutes in the Lakers’ next game, a 119-103 win over the Golden State Warriors, and made a decent contribution with six rebounds and five assists.
After Los Angeles was swept by the Thunder in the second round of the NBA playoffs, he said that he’s on good terms with Redick, via Silver Screen and Roll.
“We ended up good,” Vanderbilt said. “Like I said, we’re both competitors. We’re competing at the highest level, so sometimes tensions rise and you have disagreements. But, it happens. Player to player, coach to player, staff to player, when you all have a goal like that of winning, sometimes disagreements happen. That’s all it was. We’ve been good ever since.”
In the playoffs, Vanderbilt played meaningful minutes in the first four games of the first round versus the Houston Rockets, but his playing time dwindled considerably afterward. In fact, he didn’t play in three games, although some of that was due to a dislocated finger he sustained in the Oklahoma City series.
His lack of offensive skills, especially his inability to finish in traffic at the rim or hit 3-pointers, is the best explanation for why his playing time went down during the postseason. It is something that has happened in the past since joining the Lakers, even though he’s an energetic and versatile defender who can grab rebounds in bunches.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Jarred Vanderbilt on his relationship with Lakers coach JJ Redick
Reporting by Robert Marvi, LeBron Wire / LeBron Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
