JJ Redick said his surprising hiring as the Los Angeles Lakers head coach means he won’t be doing his podcast with LeBron James anymore.
Redick hopes they can create even better content next season as they try to win a championship with the Lakers. The Lakers introduced Redick as their coach on Monday, which was also his 40th birthday.
At a news conference with general manager Rob Pelinka at the Lakers’ training complex, Redick joked about how unusual it is that he got hired, looking at team employees, media members, and some of his new players.
“I’ve never coached in the NBA before,” Redick said seriously. “I don’t know if you guys knew that.” Redick’s only coaching experience is with his sons’ youth teams, but he plans to make up for that with a lot of basketball knowledge, personal charm, an experienced coaching staff, and a desire to be innovative.
“This has been a surreal process,” Redick said. “I take this responsibility very seriously… The Lakers have fans all over who are very passionate, and they expect a championship, so it’s my job to build a team that can win a championship. That’s what I agreed to do.”
Redick also said he didn’t get any help or advice from James to get this opportunity. James has to decide soon if he’ll come back to the Lakers next season or become a free agent.
Although Redick didn’t say anything new, he talked a lot about how he wants to use James next season with the Lakers, like having him shoot more 3-pointers because he’s good at it.
Redick mentioned he didn’t talk to James about the Lakers’ long search for a coach until they offered him the job last Thursday.
However, Redick has had many conversations with Lakers star Anthony Davis, who was more involved in the team’s decision-making process than James.
Redick and James won’t be recording their podcast together anytime soon. Redick knows he’ll have to stop recording podcasts. “For now — and hopefully it’s a long time — I won’t be doing any podcasts. We might do something when I have a break from what I’m doing. I’m going to be very busy for the next month.”
The Lakers agreed to hire Redick last week after UConn coach Dan Hurley declined a big offer to move from the back-to-back national champion Huskies to the NBA. Neither Redick nor Hurley has ever coached in the NBA.
Redick met with Pelinka before the Lakers tried to hire Hurley, and he was working for ESPN while the situation was happening. “I wasn’t upset in any way,” Redick said. “Dan Hurley won two national championships at UConn. I won two championships in the third and fourth grade. I understood.”
Redick played 15 seasons in the NBA for six teams as a successful shooting guard after playing four years at Duke. He was Duke’s top scorer ever under Mike Krzyzewski.
After retiring in 2021, Redick started a media career. Recently, he began the “Mind the Game” podcast with James and also became part of ESPN’s top commentary team, covering the NBA Finals this month.
Last year, Redick decided he wanted to be an NBA head coach after interviewing for a job in Toronto. Since then, he has talked extensively with top coaches to learn all aspects of coaching.
Redick’s insightful podcast with James showed his deep understanding of the game. This led to him being seen as a possible, though unconventional, choice to replace Darvin Ham, who was fired on May 3.
Despite leading the Lakers to two winning seasons and the 2023 Western Conference finals, Ham was let go by Pelinka and owner Jeanie Buss. The Lakers lost in the first round of the playoffs to Denver, who were the defending champions. They only won one game in their playoff series against the Nuggets over the past two years.
“In the sports industry, it’s sometimes easy to fall into doing the same things everyone else does,” Pelinka said. “When we started this search, we wanted to do something a little different.”
Several Lakers players, including Spencer Dinwiddie, Christian Wood, and Gabe Vincent, were at the news conference. Redick talked positively about the Lakers’ team, saying it’s reasonable to expect a championship. “I think the current roster isn’t far from being a championship-caliber team.”
