Fatherhood vs Art
A very dark comedy via the lens of JJ Reddick, coach of the Lakers.
Welcome back everybody. The quote you’re about to read was from the post game interview on November 21st, 2024, just after the Lakers lost to the Orlando Magic. Back then, a full 2 weeks ago, the Lakers were the darlings of the NBA, oh how things change. Ps. I miss you guyz. I’ve been excited to write about this topic since Thanksgiving. Now, let’s party—
Per JJ Reddick:
“I GO TO A VERY DARK PLACE, LITERALLY, IT’S THE BASEMENT, I TURN THE LIGHTS OUT, AND I WATCH FILM. ” (Laughter)
That was what the coach of the Lakers JJ Reddick said to the media when asked about his process after a tight lakers loss to the Orlando Magic on November 21st. Here’s some reference — I fell asleep watching that game on my couch and so the interview must’ve been around 10:30pm, after the Lakers lost on a game winning three point shot by the Orlando Magic’s sharp-shooting up-and-comer Franz Wagner.
Reddick wasn’t entirely sure in the post-game interview about what had led to the loss, the Lakers had played mostly well that game, and he seemed to chalk it up to some missed free throws and giving permission to a great shooter to shoot a shot he should’ve never been allowed to be shooting.
(LAZY DEFENSE?)
But as Coach Reddick kept saying throughout the five minute interview, this was, sounding like Werner Herzog, before he looked at the tape.
His plan, after the interview, was to go straight home, and as soon as he had a turkey sandwich, (he didn’t say that part) he would turn the lights off in his basement, and watch the game over and over again, as a way to decompress.
So
This is on brand for Reddick who has referred to himself as a ‘basketball sicko” in many different venues, more times than I can count. It’s always said proudly, with perhaps a twinge of sadness or irony.
Later in the interview, the reporter who asked the question mentioned something or other Reddick had said in the recent past about how impossible it was to “shake a game off.” That, paraphrasing Reddick, whether “I liked it or not a game lived in me after it was done. Win or loss — but especially the losses.”
Okay, there’s a lot here to unpack here, but perhaps more than anything, the overarching sense I get from what Reddick is saying is that he is obsessed capital O with basketball.
He lives and breathes it.
He can’t get enough of it before during and especially after the game when he’s felt the momentum under his feet, of competition, at the highest level. This desire is also the reason he left podcasting, where he was already making bank, and came back ( he used to be a player) to the hustle and grind of the 24 hour a day year round grind of what being an NBA coach is.
Coaching, for the uninitiated, is even more taxing, in some ways, than being a player. The commitment is not as physical, but far more demanding on your time, and typically requires more sacrifice in that realm then even what NBA players have to give.
Anyway,
I understand what Reddick is talking about when, immediately after a hard fought game, all he wants to do is go home and watch film — to find mistakes, to try and figure out what could have been done differently. Thats’s exactly the way I feel when I’m done writing each afternoon, when my head is kinda foggy or rearranged in the twilight of creative reconstruction, calamity, or bliss.
(Note to self: Bad idea. Meditate instead.)
Reddick’s passion for his craft is more than just a simple passion but an urgent need. I think any artist understands that feeling. We can’t get enough of it. We can’t turn ourselves off, especially after a “performance,” when are juices are flowing, even if it makes “sense to,” even if there’s someone waiting at the door, who needs our attention.
This need to explore what’s inside of us, to Work, is something I’ve felt from the very beginning of my career. Actually, before it. Way before it. I can’t tell you where it comes from, or how it got there. Though I have some ideas. Any attempt at an explanation feels counterfeit, like a cheap sentence cooked up by some Ai out of the basement.
But whatever that urgent need is that you’ve been blessed with, that you bleed for, that you sacrifice time with your friends and loved ones for, that gets you out of bed every morning to keep fighting, running, or trying to find your story, feels so necessary to the process that without it, without Obsession I don’t know how anything that requires a high level of performance gets done.
The obsession to be the best. The drive to learn where your mistakes are. To find blindspots, to watch film, immediately after a basketball game in your basement, are the things that brought us to the game, on some level, in the first place.
An immense, inexplicable, unbridled passion that doesn’t fit into a box.
I struggle with this, now, in a different realm, because I’m a father. I’m pretty good at leaving the work in the rearview mirror once I finish a session these days, but the pull my kid has on me, oooo baby.
The desire to be great hasn’t gone anywhere but there’s a little voice in my head reminding me that there’s a person in my house who I prefer spending time with more than anything. It’s hard to bridge the gap between both of these obsessions, the need to be a father with that of an artist.
Is there time for both?
If am doing one, wait a second, shouldn’t I be doing the other?
Can I be successful at both?
Can you feel the energy slipping away as you read this?
I can a little, when I write it.
It’s a question that has no good answer, that in many ways is unanswerable. Nothing can touch the truth of what it means to be a father.
Ditto for the purity of art (or basketball). They are the two of the purest forms of expression I’ve ever felt, and yet sometimes they can feel like they’re at war with each other.
Those are not easy words to write. But perhaps necessary.
Thanks so much everybody, everybody, everyrrrrrybody this is mother-effing - me