13 video games into the Los Angeles Lakers’ season, freshman head coach JJ Redick shouldn’t be the headline story – and that’s a narrative in and of itself. There are, after all, loads of different storylines for the Lakers already this 12 months: for starters, the rumblings that they haven’t achieved sufficient to supply a reliable supporting forged round superstars Anthony Davis and LeBron James, the previous of whom is having an MVP-caliber begin to the season. Then there are the cries of nepotism on the signing of James’ son, Bronny. They will not be true championship contenders, however at 9-4 the Lakers look, at the very least, like a solidly good NBA crew. One may by no means guess that their coach has only some weeks of expertise.
Redick, the sharpshooting NBA veteran turned podcaster turned broadcaster turned head coach, confronted loads of scrutiny when he was appointed this summer season, coping with accusations that he’d “skipped the road” or that he’d solely been granted the job alternative to be able to appease LeBron, Redick’s podcast co-host as just lately as this 12 months. It’s been extensively reported, in spite of everything, that the one head teaching expertise Redick possessed earlier than he received the Lakers gig was along with his son’s youth crew. After I requested him, just a few months in the past at his introductory press convention, what he was most wanting ahead to disproving from the refrain of naysayers, he (now infamously) stated he didn’t “give a fuck”. It’s doable, after all, that the as soon as chronically on-line Redick might have been attempting to persuade himself of this sentiment as a lot as he was attempting to steer the remainder of the world. However it’s clear that the one-time Duke legend has tuned out the noise sufficient to remain targeted on the duty at hand.
Heading into the season, there have been murmurs that the Lakers felt they’d discovered their “subsequent Pat Riley”, and whereas that set a preposterously excessive bar for a first-year head coach, there are a number of similarities. Redick and Riley are each former gamers, briefly broadcasters, who’re slickly dressed, easy speaking and clever. However their most necessary shared trait is an obsession with the game. Redick lives and breathes basketball. NBA alum Baron Davis just lately stated he noticed him going over recreation tape in a automotive wash, which Redick himself sheepishly confirmed.
Redick has described his personal structure as that of a “basketball sicko” (even going as far as to proclaim that hiring fellow “sickos” for his teaching workers was “non-negotiable”), so upfront of a latest recreation at Crypto.com area I ask him to outline his would-be catchphrase. “Someone who’s obsessive about basketball, somebody who’s prepared to get into the weeds on a regular basis,” he says. “One way or the other I relate the whole lot again to the sport of basketball, one way or the other each connection in my life has been fashioned or bolstered by the sport of basketball.”
His gamers characterize him equally, describing him as passionate and devoted, and extremely, extremely aggressive. “He’s very enthusiastic,” says guard Max Christie. “Enthusiastic concerning the recreation, about profitable, about us. About the whole lot he does.” Small ahead Cam Reddish tells me of Redick, “He’s not a yeller, however he’s gonna maintain everybody accountable, you recognize what I’m saying? Like he’ll yell, however [he’s] not simply yelling for no cause.” I ask Reddish what he feels Redick’s id is, to date, as a coach. “He’s a winner,” he says. “He needs to win. He needs to win the whole lot.”
As early as media day, Lakers gamers have been praising Redick’s preparedness and playbook (and firing off some not-so-subtle digs at former head coach Darvin Ham, fired this spring and now again in Milwaukee on Doc Rivers’ workers, within the course of). Davis talked about that very same preparedness after the Lakers’ victory on opening evening, kicking off a three-game win streak to open the season. “The gameplan, the schemes that he had on each ends of the ground, he trusts us,” Davis stated. “We belief him, so far as what he teaches us, what he needs us to do on the ground on each ends.”
It’s fascinating to distinction the veteran Rivers’ Milwaukee Bucks, who’re, to place it mildly, struggling to start out the season, with Redick’s Lakers. Each groups are constructed round a formidable however getting old famous person tandem (Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, and Anthony Davis and LeBron James, respectively). Each groups have some fascinating supporting forged members, however might positively stand to see enhancements in that area. The Bucks, nevertheless, received simply 4 of their first 13 video games. It will be foolhardy accountable Rivers totally, however he shoulders a part of the blame, and his huge teaching resume and pedigree performed a big half, little doubt, in his hiring. Contrasting the 2 groups’ successes (or lack thereof) so far does increase the query whether or not the prerequisite of expertise in teaching, is, maybe, overblown.
Certainly, regardless of the historic reluctance handy the keys over to an unknown amount, a few of the qualities unique to a fresh-off-the-rack head coach might show advantageous. With out the inevitable baggage that comes with a years-long teaching tenure, freshmen head coaches could also be each extra amenable to taking probabilities, and fewer more likely to elicit eye-rolls from their gamers within the course of. And with former gamers, as is the case with Redick, having performed just lately sufficient that many, and even most, of your roster remembers watching you’ll be able to show useful for incomes gamers’ respect as properly. Rookie Dalton Knecht, a capturing sniper in Redick’s personal picture, has lengthy derived inspiration from Redick’s recreation. “I watched him in faculty, studying how he set his man up, and the way he got here off screens, to get the ball and get extensive open seems, and I did that quite a bit in Tennessee,” Knecht tells me after a win at house towards the Grizzlies. “And now I can simply ask him in individual, like, ‘Hey, how do you do that?’ and he’s been useful each single step of the way in which.”
There are, after all, downsides to a maniacal dedication to the craft. After I ask Redick how he feels being a self-proclaimed “sicko” has impacted his teaching strategy, he shortly quips again, “I can inform you the way it’s impacted my private life…” When requested to expound, he provides: “I used to be clearly a part of basketball [during his stint in broadcasting], however you are taking a break for 3 years, and then you definately get again into it, and also you’re simply simply reminded of how a lot of your bandwidth and mind simply gravitates in the direction of basketball,” he pauses and breathes deeply, “and that may have an effect in your private life.” It definitely couldn’t have been a simple promote for Redick to ask his spouse to uproot their younger household from their longtime house in Brooklyn all the way in which throughout the nation to Los Angeles for the gig, however the basketball-obsessed coronary heart needs what it needs. “I simply felt like that is what I used to be purported to be doing,” Redick stated at his introductory press convention, of following the doubtless precarious path to teaching.
Selecting a first-time head coach with an illustrious NBA profession doesn’t all the time go off with out a hitch, as evidenced by the brief and less-than-sweet stint Steve Nash had in Brooklyn. But when Redick can sustain the 57-win tempo he’s set to date, different groups may assume twice earlier than choosing a tried-and-true decide from the fired-head-coach carousel they’ve tended to select from of their candidate swimming pools. As Redick has proven, within the custom of Riley earlier than him, if a man is wise sufficient, savvy sufficient, and “sicko” sufficient, that will simply be sufficient. And “no expertise crucial” listings on NBA head teaching job boards might very properly be the way in which of the long run.
