Lakers Training Camp Notebook: JJ Redick not thrilled with preseason travel, doesn’t want Lakers shooting 50 threes

After two preseason games in Palm Springs, the Lakers are back at practice, but JJ Redick isn’t thrilled about leaving soon and heading to Milwaukee for road games.

LOS ANGELES — On Tuesday, the Lakers were back at El Segundo prepping for their first road trip of the season, a preseason expedition to the Midwest to play the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday.

It’s the Lakers’ first practice since they opened their preseason in Palm Springs over the weekend, falling to Minnesota on Friday and Phoenix on Sunday. Returning to the court allowed the team to look back at the good, bad and ugly of the opening pair of games, evaluate and improve moving forward.

Here are the most notable takeaways from practice:

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Road warriors

Having a road game in the preseason in and of itself is not odd. But having a cross-country trip during the preseason for a true road game is.

After practice, head coach JJ Redick had a short but sweet comment on his feelings regarding the team's preseason travel schedule.

"Not at an ideal preseason for us," Redick said.

The Lakers often travel to non-NBA cities for preseason, like Las Vegas later this preseason or even the aforementioned Palm Springs this weekend. However, this year's itinerary is particularly peculiar with zero games in Crypto.com Arena.

This is due to the stadium's renovations. A brand new scoreboard is already in place while other areas are receiving a facelift, like parts of the concourse floor inside the arena.

These changes were promised when the stadium changed its name from Staples Center to Crytpo.com Arena.

Years ago, they managed to make the renovations during the summer and still have some preseason games, but that is not the case this year.

Austin Reaves was also asked about the travel required this preseason and his reaction when he saw the schedule announced. He answered it from a basketball sicko perspective.

"For me, it was like I didn't really care because I got to play basketball again," Reaves said. "Like I talked about the other night, I was weirdly anxious for the first game. Which I don't ever really get, but I think having the full summer off, it had been four months or so since I played a real game, so just, you know, having NBA basketball back, not just to play, but to watch is fun for me, something that I enjoy, obviously playing, but watching as well."

With a long road trip and back-to-backs, this preseason could be a way for Redick to figure out how to navigate these situations now as prep for the regular season. The plus side is that since these games don't count in the win-loss column, he can talk to his stars about how much they will play in these last four games.

The Lakers will not shoot 50 3-pointers

After the Lakers lost to the Suns on Sunday, Redick stated he wanted the Lakers to shoot 50 3-pointers a game. After practice, he clarified that it was a joke and not a comment to take as the literal goal.

"I mean, I was joking about 50," Redick said. "I got to watch my sarcasm. I think 40 is a lot, but if you're generating good ones, that's a great number. I would like us to average five or six more threes a game, but you have to be conscientious about how we're generating those threes.

"I actually think we've done a pretty good job of getting good looks. There was a couple forced ones in transition, off of the dribble in the first half and then there was a couple offensive rebounds in the second half that I thought maybe we could of kept the the ball moving and got a better shot, but I like the mindset overall to shoot when set, shoot good threes."

The joke may have been a bit dry, but given that Redick wants the Lakers to shoot more threes, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that he was serious.

Thankfully, he's asking for an increase of five or six, which has them projected to be in the top ten in 3-point shooting and not asking them to increase their attempts by 18 to reach 50 per game, a number that would've shattered the NBA season record of 45.3 set by the Houston Rockets in the 2018-19 season.

Fans will want to watch the Lakers' 3-point shooting the rest of the preseason and how it translates to the regular season during the early start of the year. They might not hit 50 a game, but expect the number to go up and the offense to look very different from last year's team.

Limbo is back!

Last year, Darvin Ham began referencing an internal stat called limbo rate about midway through the season. While Redick and the former Lakers coach are very different, he reintroduced the subject after Tuesday's practice.

"We have a limbo rate," Redick said. "Limbo is you're not crashing and you're not getting back. We were the worst team in the league last year at a limbo rate. In an ideal world, everybody crashes and we deal with the consequences of that. So we've got to sort of emphasize that and emphasize staying out of limbo. I believe that was ‘Inception,’ we all know what happens when you get stuck in limbo."

Let's hope LeBron James and company get the kickback they need and stay out of limbo as much as possible this season.

Notes and injury updates

• There have been no new updates on the injury front for the Lakers.
• There was no live DJ at practice today. We'll see if DJ Meel returns when the Lakers are back in SoCal or if the funds for live music have dried up for training camp.

You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.