The LA Lakers started their season with a win against the Timberwolves. While all the eyes were on Bronny James’s debut, Lakers head coach JJ Redick was also making his debut on the sidelines. Although it was Redick’s first game in charge, his team put on quite a show, especially Anthony Davis, who was on fire, scoring 37 points. Redick also defied the odds and broke the Lakers’ opening night curse with the victory, ending a streak of seven consecutive opening-game losses. This impressed many experts, including former Bulls player Jay Williams as he made a bold comparison.

On ESPN’s Get Up, Williams boldly claimed, “I don’t judge a team until 20 games into the season,” and then added, “The margins of the game were way better executed in JJ Redick’s first game than I’ve seen the entire year with Darvin Ham last season.” Overall, Williams stated that the Lakers look like a much better team under new head coach JJ Redick.

Redick’s side were 2-4 in the preseason but with just one game into the season, it is a pretty big statement coming from Williams. Although, the Lakers played great it might be too early to make comparisons. After all, Ham was HC for 2 seasons from 2022-24 and took the Lakers to Playoffs in both of them even reaching the Conference Finals in 2022-23.

However, JJ Redick became just the 17th coach in history to take the role of HC without any prior coaching experience. It is clear that he’s going to give the job his all and nothing less, Redick is a very passionate man when it comes to basketball you can feel that whenever he speaks about it. He doesn’t miss any details and he gave a good example of that during the post-game press conference, let’s dive in.

“You think I’m joking? I’m neurotic” JJ Redick makes an unusual plea to the NBA

During the post-game press conference, the Lakers HC addressed the team’s shooting abilities. “We took, I think, 19 threes in the first half. Which is right on pace with where we want to be for our season average,” he added. However, he added, “There was even some threes there in the second half that I thought were wide open, we just couldn’t knock them down. I’m going to send in a request for the league tomorrow that we can play with worn-in basketballs.” This left everyone in the room baffled but Redick explained the reasoning behind his remark.

He added to his unusual request, “I’m being dead serious … I’m not sure why we’re playing in real games with brand new basketballs. Anybody who’s ever touched an NBA ball brand new, it’s a different feel and touch than a worn-in basketball.” He made sure the press knew he was serious about the matter and explained how a worn-in ball feels much different from a brand-new one. He also said, “You think I’m joking. I’m neurotic” and laughed.

However, Redick was serious about this unusual request but call it neurotic or his attention to detail it is pretty safe to say the new HC is not leaving any stones unturned during his time in Los Angeles.