LeBron James on the reality of the Los Angeles Lakers: "We have to play almost perfect basketball to be able to win"

JJ Redick has spoken multiple times this season about his belief in being a process-oriented coach with the Los Angeles Lakers. LeBron James has also discussed this mentality. For any athlete, especially someone who built their NBA fortune as a shooter despite missing more threes than they made, this mindset is crucial. Redick has explained that if he knew he was working the right way, he could be at peace with the outcome once the ball left his hand.

Before Sunday's game between the Lakers and the Clippers at the Intuit Dome, Redick reiterated this philosophy. Following the Lakers' decisive 116-102 loss, he mentioned it again. "Every time we made a mistake, they made us pay. But our guys competed. We fought. We stayed together," Redick said after the defeat. "For us, this was a good process. We didn't get the result we wanted."

However, that message seems not to be fully sinking in for a frustrated locker room dealing with the Lakers' inconsistencies. LeBron James was direct in pointing out that the team's construction is the reason for their thin margin of error. When asked if there were internal ways to increase that margin, James was firm: "No," he replied. "That's how our team is built. We don't have room for errors, for many mistakes."

In a follow-up question, he was asked if the Lakers had to play near-perfect basketball most nights to win. James, once again, highlighted the team's structural weaknesses. "We don't have a choice," he said. "I mean... that's how our team is built. And we have to, we have to play almost perfect basketball."

LeBron is clear about it

James' statements could be seen as a moment of frustration after the Lakers lost for the fourth time in six games. However, Redick has also been realistic about the team's odds every time they play. When asked about a stretch of the schedule that kept the Lakers in Los Angeles for 10 out of 12 games, going 5-5 in that period, his tone oscillated between optimism and fatalism.

"You can look at a schedule and say this is an easier or harder stretch. Nothing will be easy for our team. And I realized that very early in the season," Redick said before changing his tone. "And that's okay. We will keep fighting. We have 18 losses, so in the loss column, we're sixth. We'd like to be higher. I think there are a couple of games we'd all agree we should have won. We haven't had any of those games where you say, 'Well, we kind of stole that one.' We'll steal a couple at some point. We just have to keep trusting each other and we'll be fine."

Redick emphasized that the numbers don't lie. Despite a record of 22-18, the Lakers have a negative points differential of -2.6, one of the worst in the league, surpassing only Utah, New Orleans, and Portland. "We don't have a big margin for error. We can't create that margin organically," Redick stated. "It needs to be emphasized daily: attacking the paint, playing with a mindset of inside-out passing, making the extra pass. We don't have a player on our team who necessarily draws two defenders to the ball. We don't have a player who can beat his defender one-on-one, get into the paint, and distribute to the perimeter."

"That's just not our team. So we have to do it through connectivity, through execution. And when we do that, we're really good."

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