"He is not the problem" - Stephen A. Smith sticks up for JJ Redick amid criticism of Lakers' 20-16 record

The Dallas Mavericks defeated JJ Redick's LA Lakers by double digits (118-97) on Tuesday, despite not having Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, The game was never particularly close, either.

During an appearance on "First Take," ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith made it clear that it wasn't the fault of the Lakers' first-year coach, JJ Redick. If anything, he believes Redick could be a very successful coach if he had a better roster.

"I'm not blaming my man JJ Redick; I'm rooting for him," Smith said. "I want him to succeed, and I think that if he had better talent, they'd be even better than they are right now. To me, he is not the problem."

LeBron James stole the headlines with an incredible left-handed dunk over Dereck Lively II, but he finished the blowout loss with a box plus-minus of -12. As impressive as the dunk was, Smith wanted to keep the conversation around what actually matters, which is winning basketball games:

"(They're in) sixth place in the Western Conference. Everybody and their grandmamma know that they ain't going no damn place because they don't have the personnel," Smith said.

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The Lakers have valuable picks to trade

Rob Pelinka has drawn some criticism for the roster he put together ahead of the season. The Lakers recently traded D'Angelo Russell away and landed a plug-and-play player, Dorian Finney-Smith. However, he was unable to make many moves in the offseason, even though the team was in clear need of some upgrades.

Fortunately for him and the Lakers, he might be able to do something about it in the coming weeks. While they don't have many enticing players to build trade packages around, Jovan Buha of The Athletic reports that teams are keeping an eye on their future draft selections:

"People want the 2029 and 2031 picks just because of the uncertainty (around the Lakers' long-term future)," Buha said on January 6.

LeBron might retire after this season or next year, and with no clear path to contention beyond these years, some experts expect the Lakers to struggle for years before getting back on track.

That means those first-round picks could fall right near the top of the lottery, making them prime trade assets to include in any potential transaction for a win-now player.