'It is type of nuts': JJ Redick, LeBron and the NBA's subsequent nice teaching experiment

TWO WEEKS BEFORE the beginning of coaching camp, JJ Redick sat in a workroom on the Los Angeles Lakers apply facility together with his legs crossed, a team-issued quarter-zip up high and Nike Kobe sneakers down beneath. (“I by no means wore them after I performed,” Redick advised ESPN, “however now that I am right here, [Lakers GM] Rob [Pelinka] has the hookup.”) Redick had simply completed operating a large portion of the Lakers roster via a voluntary offseason apply, cognizant of what little time remained earlier than the curtain opens on his first season as an NBA coach.

“Put 45 [minutes] on the clock, received proper via it,” Redick mentioned of his strategy to apply that day. “All the things you do is, like, very considerate.”

Redick, 40, already seems to be the half, together with his black, coiffed hair and put-together look drawing comparisons inside the group to former “Showtime” coach Pat Riley. And he sounds the half, too. As a transparent and assured communicator, Redick navigates the interview with ease till the newly minted coach is requested a easy but important query:

Why did you are taking this job?

“Um,” Redick, after pausing a beat, responds. “That is in all probability the perfect query.”

Three years into retiring from a 15-season enjoying profession, Redick detoured from burgeoning media stardom to shoot his shot with the Lakers. He has but to educate knowledgeable basketball sport in any capability. Not as a head coach. Not as an assistant. Not even roaming the sidelines for a summer season league sport.

However the self-described “basketball sicko,” regardless of the challenges forward for a franchise seemingly in flux because it makes an attempt to navigate the tip of LeBron James‘ profession, the start of Bronny’s and preserving Laker Nation happy by competing within the current with out forsaking the long run, feels as if he’s constructed for this.

“[With] my understanding of the fashionable sport, my relationships with gamers, it felt like the suitable time for me personally to enter teaching,” Redick mentioned.

“After which clearly I wished to educate the Lakers.”

AFTER JAMES DOMINATED the New Orleans Pelicans on Dec. 7, with 30 factors and eight assists in 22 minutes to earn a berth within the inaugural in-season event championship sport in Las Vegas, the star turned a postgame dinner right into a enterprise assembly.

Maverick Carter, James’ longtime confidant and co-founder of his “Uninterrupted” manufacturing firm, invited Redick to affix them on the Michelin-starred Wing Lei, positioned off the gaming flooring by the doorway to the tower suites within the Wynn On line casino. Inside the intense eating room adorned with flowers and gold-leaf dragons, the 3-point specialist and the all-time nice realized how a lot they’ve in frequent in terms of how they see the sport.

“We mentioned type of the preliminary ideas round some place for him to speak about basketball,” Redick mentioned.

The enjoying careers of the 2 basketball lifers overlapped however by no means fairly intersected. Redick was a DNP in 5 of the six video games they shared when the Orlando Magic upset the Cleveland Cavaliers within the 2009 Jap Convention finals. He performed simply 17 minutes per sport when the Milwaukee Bucks had been swept by James’ Miami Heat within the 2013 first spherical. Early in James’ L.A. tenure, the Lakers inquired about buying and selling with New Orleans for Redick however nothing developed, sources advised ESPN.

That dinner dialog might have very properly stayed in Vegas.

“I heard [of the dinner] and was like, ‘Certain, yeah, no matter,” Jason Gallagher, who produced Redick’s different podcast, “The Outdated Man and The Three,” advised ESPN. “On this trade, you hear stuff on a regular basis. You are like, ‘Yeah, undoubtedly.’ Like, that will be sick, however in all probability not. … After which it shortly grew to become very actual.”

Redick, who grew to become the primary lively participant with a weekly podcast in 2016 whereas enjoying for the LA Clippers, received James on board. They filmed their first two episodes this previous March and launched a few weeks later.

“It was actually similar to, ‘Hey, this man desires to do it. I wish to do it. It is about basketball. It is the factor we love essentially the most, so like, let’s simply put it on the market,'” Redick mentioned.

The leap of religion paid off. “Thoughts the Sport” averaged 1.5 million views per episode and shortly amassed greater than 500,000 subscribers on YouTube.

“After the preliminary sit down, I type of pushed,” Redick mentioned. “I mentioned, ‘We won’t have this be anything than what it’s. That is as pure because it will get for this house. I do not wish to water it down with anything. That is actually good.'”

“We had enjoyable throughout our podcast,” James advised ESPN. “It is very simple to speak to JJ. … He is good as hell, if anyone watched the podcast.”

However whereas their product was aimed toward celebrating the purity of the game — the journeyman position participant and the all-time nice filming segments during which X’s and O’s had been usually drawn with a Sharpie on a pile of paper in episodes for viewers accustomed to basketball content material predicated on opinion — the launch got here with a stark reminder of the politics concerned within the professional sport.

When the primary episode launched March 19, James’ Lakers had been coming off a stretch in once they’d gone 6-7 after the All-Star break and coach Darvin Ham’s job was being known as into query. Some seen the podcast as unfair to Ham — despite the fact that Redick and James touched on Lakers subjects solely flippantly.

The heightened consideration James and the Lakers’ model brings is extraordinarily useful for getting a brand new podcast off the bottom. However is it an enviable setting for a coach? In spite of everything, even Redick’s school coach and mentor, Mike Krzyzewski, mentioned no to the Lakers once they got here calling.

TWENTY YEARS BEFORE Redick grew to become the twenty ninth coach in Lakers historical past, Krzyzewski turned down the possibility to be the twentieth — and to switch Phil Jackson — in the summertime of 2004.

Pelinka, working as Kobe Bryant’s agent on the time, remembers the dialog at late proprietor Dr. Jerry Buss’ home. Weeks earlier than Shaquille O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat, the group gorged on slices from California Pizza Kitchen and contemplated the crew’s future when Coach Okay’s title was cooked up.

“It was like, ‘Hey, what are you in search of Kobe? And he simply began speaking about self-discipline and militaristic and inspirational and hard-nosed and Coach’s title simply got here to gentle,” Pelinka advised ESPN. “After which earlier than, you realize it, the Lakers made an try to rent him.”

Krzyzewski, 57 on the time, heard L.A.’s pitch and took the Fourth of July weekend to mull it over, calling Redick, who had simply completed his sophomore season with the Blue Devils, to inform him he can be radio silent for a few days.

“Coach was the first motive that I went to Duke — to play for him,” Redick mentioned. “So I undoubtedly known as some mates at completely different faculties. I used to be like, ‘Hey, uh, do you guys have a spot? I is perhaps transferring.'”

Krzyzewski — who to today says “the thought of teaching Kobe was enormous” and likewise was tempted by the “generational wealth” included within the reported five-year, $40 million deal — turned down the provide. He coached at Duke for 18 extra seasons, successful two extra NCAA nationwide titles — and ended up teaching Bryant to 2 Olympic gold medals.

“I feel if I used to be 57 now and it was provided, I’d go,” Krzyzewski, 77, advised ESPN. “I nonetheless love Duke. School basketball is terrific — the product. All of the stuff it’s a must to do for it, it is not as gratifying because it was 20 years in the past. Not less than for me.”

When he noticed a report this spring that Redick was serious about leaving his podcast, broadcast and analyst work behind to educate within the NBA, he known as to check his mentee.

“Simply to search out out, is that this a lark or is it, you realize, an ego journey?” Krzyzewski mentioned of his discuss with Redick. “As a result of, not that I am saying he is in search of that, however it may be intoxicating to get consideration and another way. Like, he already proved himself within the media world, received to the best rung instantly on TV.

“It was principally to search out out, are you severe? … And he mentioned, ‘I’m severe.’ He mentioned, ‘I wish to be an NBA coach. I feel I could be a actually good NBA coach.'”

Stated Redick: “Loads of that preliminary telephone name was simply explaining to him what was on my coronary heart and my thoughts and type of what I wished to do, which was coach. And I feel that that received him extra excited, to be trustworthy with you. …That was not a ploy for media consideration, imagine me.”

Redick first caught the teaching bug within the spring of 2023 when he interviewed with the Toronto Raptors, he mentioned. It received stronger when, that summer season, he labored with former New York Knicks guard Quentin Grimes and different younger NBA prospects within the Hamptons, placing them via particular person exercises the way in which Hakeem Olajuwon was well-known for properly into retirement — with one distinction between him and The Dream. “That was a volunteer scenario. I am not charging individuals $50,000,” Redick mentioned with a smirk.

By the point the Charlotte Hornets and Lakers expressed curiosity of their teaching vacancies, he was satisfied it was his calling. He simply wanted some convincing that the Lakers had been the suitable match for him.

From when Redick first talked in regards to the place with Pelinka in Might through the NBA draft mix in Might, to formally changing into a Lakers candidate together with New Orleans assistant James Borrego and UConn coach Dan Hurley, a number of individuals near Redick advised him it will be a nasty concept to take it, sources advised ESPN.

You are already doing so properly in media, they mentioned. Simply wait and different alternatives will come up, he heard. Hey, somebody goes to have to switch Gregg Popovich in San Antonio sooner or later, you might be the man to educate Victor Wembanyama, they reasoned. Have you ever paid consideration to the Lakers currently? They seem to be a circus, was the chorus.

“I feel in response to the individuals who say, ‘You had such an excellent factor happening,’ they had been right. I loved three years of retirement. I actually did. The issues that I used to be in a position to do in media haven’t been misplaced on me … and all of the stuff that we did within the podcast house. I am very pleased with it.

“There is a aggressive itch that I’ve each single day of my life. And irrespective of what number of swings I took, that was not getting happy. And so, I felt an actual calling by way of the aggressive aspect.”

Redick did have one main concern he wanted answered: Did L.A. simply need him due to his relationship with LeBron?

Pelinka was cognizant of the inflection level during which his crew discovered itself. James’ profession was nearing the tip. L.A. had plans to draft James’ son, Bronny, making a roster dynamic unprecedented in league historical past. Anthony Davis was nonetheless in his prime, however the Lakers didn’t capitalize final season when Davis was wholesome sufficient to play 76 video games. The remainder of the roster was largely unproven and the league’s new salary cap system makes finishing trades as difficult because it has ever been. To not point out that Hurley, similar to Krzyzewski from the faculty ranks earlier than him, mentioned thanks however no thanks.

So Pelinka made an enchantment to Redick.

“It was very clear to us,” Pelinka mentioned. “We weren’t making an attempt to exit and rent a coach to educate LeBron’s remaining chapter. We weren’t. This was, might we discover somebody that will be actually good at that? And I’d assume LeBron can be very proud that somebody like that can be serving to his son study the sport. Somebody that cerebral and that aggressive and that motivated.

“But it surely’s organising for the opposite aspect of that. And that type of goes again into how are we going to arrange … in order that when LeBron does step away, there’s not the cliff that possibly another franchises have skilled.”

REDICK WAS EATING lunch together with his dad when he fielded maybe an important telephone name of his life. Plucked from the tv and podcast studios with no earlier teaching expertise, he was provided an opportunity to name the photographs for one of the glamourous franchises on the planet — and had somebody he wanted to speak to earlier than he might settle for.

“‘Dad, I received to go make one name,'” Redick mentioned, recalling how he pushed his chair again from his desk on the stately Washington Duke Inn on Duke’s golf course on June 20.

“So, that is after I first known as LeBron. First time we had talked about me teaching. And I got here again. I sat again down. I mentioned, ‘All proper, I am in.'”

Redick’s prioritization was telling. Pelinka and crew governor Jeanie Buss provided him the gig and can ostensibly be his bosses. However Redick’s success, or lack thereof, will largely depend upon getting essentially the most out of a man who’s simply six months his junior suiting up for his twenty second season.

After forging a reference to James over their shared love of the game, Redick being “in” as the following coach of the Lakers will check if that sense of purity can stay.

And if it wasn’t difficult sufficient already to be the coach answerable for managing James at this stage of his profession, he has to do it whereas additionally combating a notion he was hand-picked by James for the half. “It is a juicy-ass story, however it’s not true,” Gallagher mentioned.

What’s true is there shall be way more scrutiny on Redick for the way he handles teaching LeBron’s 19-year-old son Bronny than there was teaching his sons, 10-year-old Knox and 8-year-old Kai.

Quite than understand teaching LeBron and Bronny as a no-win scenario, Redick has compartmentalized. Teaching LeBron, he says, is an opportunity to strategize with one other savant of the game. Teaching Bronny is an opportunity to pour right into a younger participant decided to make it, one thing he can relate to because the man gathering DNPs in his early days in Orlando. And Redick concurrently possesses the audacity to assume he can construct a profession with the purple and gold whereas understanding that not one of the previous six coaches since Jackson have lasted greater than three seasons.

“There is no assurances on this trade,” Redick mentioned. “I acknowledge that at any time limit, I may very well be let go. That is a actuality.”

And James, whose remaining seasons will coincide with Redick’s first as a coach and Bronny’s first as a participant, desires to make it work to arrange his son, his co-host turned coach and the Lakers franchise past his enjoying days.

“I wished the Lakers, as a participant and as a fan of the franchise, to have the ability to rent the coach that ought to be there,” James mentioned. “Not solely as I am ending my profession, however lengthy after I am gone as a result of there’s been so many guys in that seat over the previous few years. And to have the ability to discover somebody that may very well be secure in that place may be very key for any franchise.

“And for me to be part of a legacy franchise, I really feel like that was vital.”

And Redick is simply sufficient of a basketball sicko to assume he’s the man meant to drag it off.

“It is type of nuts,” Krzyzewski mentioned. “However good nuts.”