Since taking over as the Lakers’ head coach, JJ Redick has claimed to have stopped using Twitter, a place where he was once chronically online.
Thursday showed, however, that he may not be entirely offline.
LeBron James had another remarkable showing for the purple and gold, scoring 40 points to help the Lakers snap their two-game skid with a win in Portland on the second night of a back-to-back.
In a long, long career of memorable games and moments, this individual game likely won’t be remembered, but it’s a testament to his longevity that he’s still doing it at this point in his career.
That was not lost on Redick, who opened his postgame presser adding all that context to describe how impressive LeBron’s performance was while adding a little…modern vocabulary to it.
“He really just defies anything that’s normal and not just physical feats and the plays,” Redick said. “It’s the mentality. I believe I saw the other day he’s a billionaire and he’s playing on the second night of a back-to-back at 40 after 22 years with every freaking record and accolade. And the kids will say that I’m glazing him. He’s one of the greatest competitors.
“[Assistant coach] Nate [McMillan] and I were talking about it before the game, like he’s amazing to coach. He brings it every single day. He sets the standard for how you’re supposed to approach this craft. That, to me, the most incredible thing. Just the mindset to do it, get up the next day, do it, get up the next day, do it, over and over and over again.”
Jimmy Butler likes beefing his way out of a bad team situation – bad for him, anyways. One legendary target of his beefing was the entire Minnesota Timberwolves organization. Butler is a force on the court, and a force as a person with a big ego and bigger expectations. That meshed well with Tom Thibodeau, but didn’t mesh well with his fresh faced teammates, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
So, he did what any rational person would do – picked a fight with them and Minnesota’s entire front office during a scrimmage heard round’ the world (and by Rachel Nichols like an hour after it happened).
I mean, he’s not wrong! Call it whatever you want, but Redick is completely fair. There’s no reason for LeBron to keep doing this at this point in his career other than for the love of the game.
Even then, you wouldn’t fault him for mailing it in on a night like Thursday. As he noted in his walk-off interview, the team didn’t land in Portland until about 3 A.M. local time. For him to turn around and put up a performance like that, it would be incredible if he was 20 or 25 or 30 years old.
But he’s 40. In Year 22.
Do not take LeBron for granted. This is not normal. We will not see this from another player again and we won’t see it from LeBron much longer. Enjoy nights and games like this from LeBron.