The Los Angeles Lakers feel lost. An embarrassing Christmas Day loss to the Houston Rockets marked three losses in a row and six in their last 10, and head coach JJ Redick was not pleased. He promised to make the next practice “uncomfortable” and called out his players, and now, he speaks out after practice.

Redick was directly asked whether the players being referred to in post-game conferences about the team’s lack of effort and execution were now aware of themselves.

“There wasn’t anything that needed to be addressed that wasn’t addressed,” Redick said. “There’s times as a coach you can’t address everything every day in front of the group… we do a good job of, if there’s something that needs to be addressed in the moment, it gets addressed. I don’t feel like we live in a passive-aggressive environment, so.”

Redick made it clear that every issue he’s hinted at publicly have been confronted behind closed doors, even if not every conversation happens in front of the whole locker room. That balance came into question when the Lakers coach was asked about how tough truths are handled in the locker room.

Obviously, LA’s roster has everyone; from role players to franchise players, and Redick acknowledged that accountability loses meaning if it’s not applied across the board. He did, however, stress that it starts with himself.

“I’m always going to look in the mirror first,” Redick told the media. “I think it’s easy as a player, as a coach to say, ‘Well, it’s this guy’s fault or it’s we’re not doing this because X, Y and Z’… It was also for our staff, myself, to listen to the players and what they need.”

Redick revealed that the word “disconnect” kept coming up in player conversations, even if no one could define it in the moment. He revealed that, in response, the staff treated the meeting as less like a lecture and more like a reset, and for a team searching for an identity, that matters just as much as drills or rotations.

This isn’t unprecedented in the NBA; legendary coaches have used similar moments of public (or semi-public) criticism to enforce standards, often leading to short-term tension but long-term buy-in when followed by resolution.

A strong parallel is Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs, who has long exemplified brutal honesty and accountability without favoritism. Popovich frequently held even stars like Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili to the highest standards, publicly and privately calling out repeated mistakes or lack of focus while insisting on “total, brutal, between-the-eyes honesty.”

Popovich’s willingness to criticize publicly when needed (while prioritizing internal fixes) mirrors Redick’s reset meetings and self-reflection, showing that such tough love, when paired with ownership and listening, can realign teams rather than destroy them.

The Comment That Sparked It: Redick’s ‘Uncomfortable’ Practice Warning

JJ Redick’s frustration didn’t surface quietly. After the Christmas Day loss to the Rockets, the coach was clear that the effort wasn’t accidental slip-ups, but a choice.

“Too often we have guys that don’t want to make that choice,” Redick explained to the media in the postgame conference. “It’s pretty consistent who those guys are. And so, Saturday’s practice, I told the guys, it’s going to be uncomfortable… I’m not doing another 53 games like this.”

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That framing changed how his message landed. By suggesting a consistency in who failed to meet the standard, the conversation become accountability, i.e., who the expectations to do well applied to, and whether everyone on the team was being held to the same bar.

For a team built around star power and veteran voices, that implication feeds the perception of tension, even if that wasn’t Redick’s intent.

Tonight marked an effort to move the conversation from frustration to understanding. Redick’s stance has evolved from demanding effort into an examination of how the team’s environment might have allowed the disconnect to grow in the first place.