Lakers coach JJ Redick said the verbal exchange with reserve forward Jarred Vanderbilt during the second quarter of Tuesday’s 123-87 blowout loss to the Thunder was “nothing personal” and a “normal interaction” for Redick.
Redick called timeout following the Lakers’ first possession of the second 16 seconds into the quarter after a Kobe Bufkin missed floater that last touched Alex Caruso and flew out of bounds.
As the Lakers were going back to the bench, Vanderbilt walked into the coaches’ huddle and animatedly appeared to try to talk to Redick, who was using the white board with assistant coach Greg St. Jean.
Star guard Austin Reaves, who is sidelined with an oblique injury, stepped between Vanderbilt and Redick and assistant coach Nate McMillan held Vanderbilt’s back before Redick walked to the team’s bench, with McMillan and Reaves staying back with Vanderbilt.
Once back near the bench, Vanderbilt continued talking to Redick, who at one point during the exchange shrugged and waved Vanderbilt off.
McMillan gestured to Vanderbilt to stay back before stepping between Redick and Vanderbilt as Redick talked to Vanderbilt as he was getting up from the bench.
“A confluence of things,” Redick responded when asked what led to the exchange with Vanderbilt. “Again, it’s nothing personal with him. Normal stuff from my end. I think for all of us, being undermanned, we’ve got to scrap and claw, we’ve got to all be on the same page, We got to be great teammates, we got to all play hard. Called a timeout to get him out of the game. And he reacted, but again, normal interaction for me.”
Vanderbilt didn’t play again after being subbed out.
He finished with three points, two rebounds, one assist and one steal in 5 minutes.
Vanderbilt left the arena without speaking to reporters postgame.
When asked what Vanderbilt wasn’t doing in his lone playing time shift, Redick responded, “again, it was a confluence of things.”
The exchange with Vanderbilt was the second time Redick quickly called a timeout early in the quarter to pull a veteran player.
Redick called timeout 2 ½ minutes into the game before taking out Rui Hachimura, who later returned and ended up finishing with a team-high 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting to go with five assists in 26 minutes.
“I called the early timeout because Rui didn’t do his job, so took him out of the game,” Redick explained. “We’ve got to find nine guys that are all in on us fighting and willing to go out on whatever metaphor you want to use — I don’t want to use a war metaphor in this time — but whatever you got to do to go out and fight and be all in on the team, we’ll find the nine guys. It’s a great opportunity for us, over the next three games to find those guys.”
