The Los Angeles Lakers finally have their new head coach. According to Adrian Wojnarowski, LA has signed Redick to a 4 year deal to become the 29th head coach in franchise history.
While rumours of Redick’s potential hiring have been swirling for weeks now, they officially kicked into overdrive following news that UConn’s Dan Hurley turned down a 6 year, $70M offer from the team. With the back-to-back national championship winning coach out of the picture, the Lakers pivoted to Redick who they believe will help the team tactically, especially in the postseason.
Sources indicate that the 15 year NBA veteran has already begun the process of surrounding himself with established coaches to round out his staff. Los Angeles features an interesting blend of younger players such as Austin Reaves, Max Christie and Rui Hachimura, and established veterans in LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
While James has earned a reputation over the years as someone who can be difficult to coach, it should be noted that Redick comes with an already established rapport with LeBron following their joint “Mind the Game” podcast that they co-hosted together.
It’s been a busy few years for the 39 year old. Since retiring he’s launched multiple podcasts, created a media company (ThreeFourTwo Productions), signed on with ESPN as a commentator, joined their broadcast team, and recently called his first NBA Finals alongside Doris Burke.
NBA insiders have speculated for some time now that they envisioned the former Duke star to eventually wind up in coaching in some capacity. However taking on the Lakers job as his first foray into the field is a daunting task.
Not only is it arguably the most heavily covered and scrutinized market in all of basketball, but the franchise has a perennial “championship or bust” mentality associated to it. After going 47-35 in 2023-24, and boasting little cap space or enticing trade chips, Los Angeles will be hard pressed to vault past the likes of the Thunder, Nuggets, or Timberwolves in the ultra-competitive Western Conference.
However, what impressed owner Jeanie Buss and GM Rob Pelinka the most about Redick is that he’s a student of the game, and brings a strong foundation of X’s and O’s to the table. Something that’s largely been missing since the Lakers won their last championship in 2020.
While financial details of the contract have yet to be released publicly, it’s been speculated that Redick’s deal will be less than what was offered to Hurley a few weeks prior in terms of AAV.
Photo: Keith Allison. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.