“People are gonna earn minutes. I think that goes for everybody,” JJ Redick teased, with a wink at the lineup chaos after Jarred Vanderbilt shone in the first two preseason games. Vanderbilt then got the spotlight, starting the first 14 games of the season, coincidentally, exactly when LeBron was sidelined with sciatica. Now that the King is back, he slips right into his role, and Vanderbilt? Well, he was left to “earn” those minutes all over again.

“I communicated with him before LeBron came back that there were certain things that he needed to be able to do consistently to play,” JJ Redick explained, clarifying Vanderbilt’s absence from the rotation over the last five games.

He added that he had already discussed the possibility of a tightened rotation with him, given the plan to

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