Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick was very open about the limitations his team faces after a loss Sunday to rival Clippers. “We don’t have a huge margin for error” Redick admitted during his post-match press conference. “There’s a daily emphasis on touching the paint, playing with a paint mentality, making the extra pass. We don’t have a guy on our team that’s necessarily always going to shoot two at the ball. We don’t do that There’s not a guy on our team that’s going to be able to get past his guy one-on-one, get to the paint and spread it out on the perimeter.
It was a surprisingly frank comment from a NBA head coach and effectively served as an admission of some of the shortcomings of this roster. Right now, the team isn’t good enough to win games in which they don’t execute. His best player, LeBron James, echoed those sentiments.
“This is how our team is built,” James said when asked about his coach’s comments. “We don’t have the right to make mistakes, or many mistakes.” While James and Redick largely lamented the state of the team, both particularly highlighted the construction of the roster. James even did it a second time. “We have no choice,” he continued. “This is how our team is built, and we have to do it, we have to play close to perfect basketball.”
Lakers’ LeBron James expresses frustration over low margin for error: ‘We have to play close to perfect’
Jack Maloney
If it were November, these concerns might be considered growing pains. If it were April, it would be a lost cause. But it’s late January, a time in the calendar when James is known to be a little more expressive than usual. It’s not hard to say why.
The trade deadline is just over two weeks away. At 22-18, the Lakers are hovering around the middle of the Western Conference. They’ll probably make the playoffs, but in their current state, they probably won’t be there for very long. If they want to make a true playoff run this spring, they’ll likely need to make significant improvements at the trade deadline now — even after the recent acquisition of Dorian Finney-Smith.
So, was James trying to send a message to the front office with his comments? If that was the case, well, he was a little more subtle about it than he was a year ago at this time. Remember when he wore a New York Knicks towel during a post-game interview at Madison Square Garden? At the time, there were a lot of rumors that James had potential interest in joining the Knicks, but as James’ famous publicist Brian Windhorst noted on his Hoop Collective podcast at the time, it certainly seemed like he used the situation to his advantage. .
“He can just say, ‘Oh, I just put a towel around my shoulders. What are you talking about? You guys are crazy.’ But that’s where LeBron excels. He calculates it all.” Horst said. “Of course he was aware that he was putting a napkin that said New York Knicks on it. Why would he go after the Knicks? Because he was using the Knicks as a tool to put pressure on the Lakers. “
James has been in the public eye for over two decades at this point, and over that time he has become very adept at sending subtle messages through his comments and actions. In the past he was a little more direct about it. After his 2017 Cleveland Cavaliers lost a January game to the New Orleans Pelicans, for example, James was very clear about what he thought of the team at the time, adage “We’re heavy as fuck” and “We need a fucking point guard.” At this point, the Cavaliers had already made a trade, landing sharpshooter Kyle Korver. They would then sign former All-Star point guard Deron Williams via a buyout in February.
The tone and urgency of these messages tends to correlate, for obvious reasons, with how well his team is playing at that moment. His Cavaliers had lost five of seven when he made those comments in 2017. When the 2020 Lakers were touring the league en route to a championship, though? “We’ve had enough right now,” James said.
The culmination of these “GM LeBron” quotes came in 2023, when the Lakers were dangling Russell Westbrook in an effort to undo the 2021 trade that James had previously advocated for. Early in the season, he deferred, telling reporters to “go ask Rob those questions,” referring to Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka. But as the season progressed, the tone changed. “I think about how long I’m going to play the game,” James said in January of the same year. “I think about the fact that I don’t want to finish my career playing at this level, from a team standpoint. I still want to be able to compete for championships because I know what I can bring to any ball club with the right parts.”
By January, his impatience was evident. “You all know what should happen,” James said. Athletics at the time. “I don’t need to talk.” Whether it was his public cajoling or simply a viable deal presenting itself, the Lakers ultimately improved the roster. Their trade of Westbrook and a first-round pick for D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley helped them reach the Western Conference Finals. Yet at the time, James was hoping for a different decision which didn’t pan out.
When Kyrie Irving became available during the same period, James made no secret of his interest in reuniting with his former Cleveland running mate. When asked if Irving could push the Lakers into championship contention, James said “Obviously it’s a question…what’s the word you use? ‘Duh’ when you’re talking about a player like (Kyrie).” The public push to attract stars wasn’t exactly new to him at the time either. In 2018, he said it would be “amazing” to play with Anthony Davis, which he ultimately got to do the following season. After his initial comments about Davis went viral, he expressed frustration with how the media portrayed them.
“Ask About Kyrie Irving, Giannis (Antetokounmpo),” James replied after being asked about Davis again. “Ask me about (Joel) Embiid, Ben Simmons. Go ahead, ask me about all of them. Luka Doncic. Ask me right away. Come on, guys. It’s not rocket science. They’re great players Absolutely, I’d love to play with a lot of great players That’s exactly who I am. People get stuck, sometimes when they wish they could control what you say and they can’t at all. control myself. “.
This last comment on the rules followed report that small-market general managers were upset that the league’s tampering rules were not being enforced after James commented on a potential partnership with Davis. This is a problem that goes well beyond James, although he apparently does his share of recruiting behind the scenes. His role in the Westbrook contest is well known. In 2021, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Lakers’ star players – which would seem to point to James – had signed Andre Drummond to the team after a mid-season buyout. Sometimes the work of improving a list is done in public. Sometimes this is done in private.
It would be hard to argue with James’ results on both fronts. He is a four-time NBA champion. While his teams haven’t been as aggressive as he probably would like lately, they have overall invested picks and money to surround him with the right talent.
So, will the Lakers make it by this deadline? They’ve already done the Finney-Smith deal, although the results have been mixed. The Lakers are just 2-5 with him in the lineup, and his shooting numbers have declined in Los Angeles. Journalist Jovan Buha said Saturday that the latest was that things were “leaning more toward a small gesture” rather than a blockbuster. They haven’t been seriously linked to any of the bigger names available at this year’s deadline, including Jimmy Butler.
There is no evidence now that James is looking for anyone in particular. Over the summer, he was reportedly willing to take a pay cut to accommodate the acquisition of one of a handful of players, including Klay Thompson, DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas, but the Lakers ultimately fell short to land any of these players. players. Valanciunas is apparently still available via trade, and the Lakers have a hole at backup center, but such an addition would hardly be seismic.
If James feels a bigger change is needed, it’s hard to imagine he won’t express it in some way over the next couple of weeks. James tends not to be particularly subtle this time of year, and Sunday’s frustrations certainly resemble sentiments he’s expressed in past trade deadlines.
