JJ Redick was officially introduced as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday, and the first question on everyone's lips was whether or not he would retain his old job as a podcaster. That question was answered definitively. "I am, for the time being, and hopefully it's a very, very long time, I am excommunicated from the content space," Redick said. "There will be no podcast."
As for the on-court matters? Well, those questions are a bit more complicated. Redick was clear that figuring out how this team will play will be a collaborative process between him, his staff and the yet-to-be-constructed roster. There's only so much we can take from a single press conference, especially when the coach being introduced has no experience at the professional level.
But Redick and general manager Rob Pelinka did offer some important insight into what the next era of Lakers basketball will look like. Here are some of the highlights from their press conference on Monday.
1. Anthony Davis was more involved in the hire than LeBron James
Typically, teams work closely with their best players when they are looking for a new head coach. That is especially true of players of a certain stature. LeBron James and Anthony Davis, All-NBA players that led the Lakers to the 2020 championship, certainly qualify. But according to Pelinka, one of them played a much bigger part in the process than the other.
According to Pelinka, James was "very supportive of our organization in this process. And that's a different word, and I want to be mindful of the word, than involved. So I would say it again, LeBron was very supportive of us and our process, but chose not to be involved, and we respected that." But Davis, on the other hand? He "chose to be very involved and was very involved. I talked to him throughout the process and got a lot of help and wisdom from him, and he was very excited for today."
On the surface, this might seem a bit surprising. James and Redick hosted the Mind the Game podcast together. Reports during the process suggested that James Borrego, not Redick, was Davis' preferred head coaching candidate. However, this has been the company line throughout the hiring process. Rich Paul, the agent to both James and Davis, acknowledged that himself in an interview with Bleacher Report's Chris Haynes. "In my opinion, the Lakers' focus should probably be more so on Anthony Davis than LeBron at this point."
Davis is 31 and under contract with the Lakers for several more seasons. James is 39 and can become a free agent in less than a week. It stands to reason that Davis would want a bit more input on who is coaching the Lakers next season. James, meanwhile, is facing an uncertain future on several fronts. He may or may not be a Laker next season. He doesn't know how much longer he will play. He also doesn't know where his son, Bronny James, will be drafted this week. The Lakers are expected to consider him with their second-round pick at No. 55 overall.
But ultimately, all of this fits neatly into the idea that the Lakers are transitioning away from James as their centerpiece and toward Davis. Redick spoke a bit on how he hoped to use the All-NBA center next season, calling a potential "hub" on offense as other centers like Nikola Jokic and Domantas Sabonis are for their teams. If James is indeed transitioning into a lower-usage role or even plays for another team next season, running more of the offense through Davis will be critical.
2. Pelinka noncommittal about trading draft picks
Redick's success or failure as a coach is going to be defined by the roster Pelinka builds for him. Even now, mere days before the draft, we aren't sure what that roster is going to look like. Are the Lakers going to emphasize continuity and largely run this group back? Or are they going to invest the picks and youth needed to make a major trade and really go for it now, while James and Davis are still stars?
Well, Pelinka didn't commit in one direction or another. He argued that the new CBA, particularly when it comes to the luxury tax aprons, is going to make finding a blockbuster difficult. "I do think in this system, as I opened, some of the trades are more difficult, especially if you have a second-apron team and a first-apron team, and there's a chance we'll be in the first apron, the trades are less prevalent than they used to be," Pelinka said. "So, will we look for trades that help us become a better team? Absolutely. Are those trades, do they have the same probability that they had under the old system? No, it is a different system. So we've gotta be mindful and thoughtful of that."
The Lakers have been linked to a number of veterans this offseason, including Trae Young, Dejounte Murray and Donovan Mitchell. They have three tradable first-round picks in 2024 (No. 17 overall), 2029 and 2031. Last year's team went 47-35, but did so with LeBron James and Anthony Davis healthy for most of the season. In a loaded Western Conference, it's hard to imagine the Lakers seriously contending without making substantial improvements.
The tone of the press conference, from both Pelinka and Redick, was one of patience. They continually emphasized player-development as an organizational priority. "I do think, as I stated at the beginning, part of the road to a really really good team, and you can look around the landscape of the league right now, with many young teams doing really really well, is gonna be to lean hard into that player-development piece," Pelinka said. "And of course, part of that is drafting the right way. We've had a great track record here of drafting good players here and developing them and we're gonna continue on that path as well."
Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and restricted free agent Max Christie have been cited as organizational priorities throughout the search. If the Lakers hold onto their picks and keep those younger players, it's probably because the team is planning for the longer-term. With James at 39, that might be the end of his personal championship window if he stays in Los Angeles. If the right trade comes along, the Lakers will make it. But it certainly doesn't sound like they're going to make a blockbuster out of desperation.
3. The Lakers are looking to modernize
If there was one instructive quote about Redick's coaching philosophy, it was this: "I'm gonna use math," he quipped before repeating himself. Virtually everything he said followed that line of thinking. He said openly that he wants James, who shot 41% on 3-pointers last season, to shoot more 3s if he's back next season. He said the same of Rui Hachimura. The Lakers have been a low 3-point volume team since James arrived. Redick is seemingly eager to change that.
But his quest to modernize the Lakers extends beyond on-court strategy. The front office has long been known for its family-business approach. While there are a lot of influential voices on major decisions, the Lakers have never been known for spending to build robust scouting or analytics departments. Reports have indicated that they plan to invest more in those areas under Redick, and Pelinka explained that one key way they plan to do so will be by emphasizing technology moving forward.
"JJ and I have had some really robust conversations around innovation of sort of even gamifying player development. If you think about a 20-year-old basketball player today and maybe a 20-year-old basketball player, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, the modiums of learning are completely different. I mean, we all probably, some of us have kids, we have nephews, nieces. Kids and athletes are learning in new and innovative ways. So we've talked about how do we translate coach Redick's offensive system to app-based or a phone-based deliverable where players can be buying into a philosophy and learning it in a way that meets today's young player." And I think innovation has got to be at the core of that. We have a vision for, to your point of hiring out his support staff in sort of this tech, bullpen way of getting innovative minds to help bring his basketall strategy and bring his basketball philosophy to life in a way that our players can grasp it, learn it and eventually grow their basketball IQ."
The Lakers have spent years behind the times. It's been evident in their playing styles throughout the James era and even before. The league changed around them and they refused to change with it. But they've made an unconventional hire in Redick, and they appear ready to give him the resources he needs to bring the entire organization up to speed.
