How JJ Redick ‘caught the bug’ and became the Lakers’ head coach

Before JJ Redick became the Lakers’ head coach in June, and before his meteoric rise as a broadcaster/podcaster, the seeds for his current professional path were planted even before he retired as a player.

Redick was nearing the end of his 15-season NBA career when he was traded from the New Orleans Pelicans to the Dallas Mavericks in March 2021 with the hopes of contributing to a Mavericks team that was looking to build off a playoff appearance following the 2019-20 season.

But a nagging right heel injury prevented him from playing as much as expected. Redick only appeared in 13 of 30 regular-season games for the Mavericks and didn’t play in Dallas’ seven-game, first-round loss to the Clippers.

Being sidelined opened doors for other conversations with then-Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle.

“The characteristics that I had always seen in JJ was that he was a very intense competitor and appeared to be a guy that was very much into taking on big challenges,” Carlisle, now the Indiana Pacers’ head coach, told the Southern California News Group. “When we got him, he was the ultimate pro in the locker room, on the floor in practice. And when it turned out that he wasn’t gonna be able to play down the stretch of the season, we had conversations about a lot of things.

“But I asked him if coaching was something that he had ever thought of, and if he hadn’t, given his personality traits, it might be something that [he’d] want to consider.”

It’s clear Redick was more than just listening.

Carlisle said once the Mavericks made the playoffs, Redick became more interested in the game-to-game adjustments of a series, which fed his “intellectual curiosity.”

“It did seem like it was something that he had always thought about,” Carlisle said. “When you’re a player, you get so fixated on your career and staying ready and trying to improve. Sometimes you don’t think that far into the future. But with him, it seemed like something that would be worth the conversation. And obviously, it went further than just that conversation.”

Carlisle added: “He obviously caught the bug.”

Even as he hosted “The Old Man and the Three” podcast, which was produced by the ThreeFourTwo Productions media company that he co-founded in 2020, and quickly climbed the ranks as an NBA color commentator and on-air analyst for ESPN, the coaching realm stayed on Redick’s mind. He found himself broadcasting the NBA Finals in June, but he had been especially diligent in picking the minds of coaches and general managers for a year before that.

“In a way, it’s like weird to be like, ‘Oh man, I worked really hard for three years and I could have done that another 25 and everything I built is gone,’” Redick told the SCNG. “And then you’re just like, ‘No, that’s fine.’ This is what I wanted to do.”

Redick added: “I believe that everything that has happened in my life, that everything that I’ve sort of been through as a player, as a media person, as a human has prepared me to be a coach.”

A PERFECTIONIST

Redick’s career to this point is well-chronicled as a person who has spent two-plus decades in the public spotlight.

The 2002 McDonald’s All-American Game MVP and a five-star recruit, Redick was a star player at Duke for four seasons, named the 2006 Naismith College Player of the Year in his last year with the Blue Devils.

But his transition to the NBA didn’t come without challenges.

Drafted by the Orlando Magic with the No. 11 pick in 2006, Redick’s playing time was limited in his first couple of seasons on an ascending Magic team with multiple veteran players ahead of him on the depth chart.

“He had some tough times like we all do unless you’re like a super superstar as a player,” Jameer Nelson, Redick’s Magic teammate for 6½ seasons and now the GM of the G League’s Delaware Blue Coats, told the SCNG. “But he’s a perfectionist. And I think that’s what happened to him – he wanted to be perfect. We really connected then because he was struggling and I had already gone through something similar where I felt like I should be playing and all those things. I was working my tail off.”

Redick chipped away at it.

After a few seasons, he became a consistent part of the Magic’s rotation before becoming a full-time starter for Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers teams that were regular playoff participants.

Redick finished his playing career as one of the most prolific 3-point shooters in league history. His 1,950 3-point baskets rank 20th on the NBA’s career list.

But the road he took, and having to fight for his spot in the NBA as a player, is an aspect of Redick’s journey that Stan Van Gundy believes will help him as a coach.

“He’s somebody that really had to learn the game and rely on what he knew about the game and how to play it,” Van Gundy, who coached Redick in Orlando from 2007-12 and again in New Orleans in his final season as a player, told the SCNG. “It’s something he had to give a lot of thought to. NBA basketball is very hard for anyone playing it. It requires a lot of work, but some guys it requires more of to be able to compete at that level. And he’s certainly one of those guys.

“I think you can compare him to what Steve Kerr did. I think there’s a lot of similarities there.”

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Redick’s path to becoming the Lakers’ coach on June 24, his 40th birthday, has been taken before but remains rare.

Since 1980, Redick is the 17th NBA head coach without prior coaching experience at the collegiate or professional level.

The track record of success for first-time head coaches without prior coaching experience is a mixed bag.

For every Kerr, who has won four NBA titles after taking over the Golden State Warriors’ coaching reins in 2014, and Larry Bird, who won the 1997-98 NBA Coach of the Year award in his first year with the Pacers, there are far more coaches whose teams struggled on their first job.

“I’m aware of the coaches that have done this with no coaching experience,” Redick told the SCNG. “And it’s obviously been a mixed bag of success and failure, especially initially with the first job. And I don’t know that [there are] any commonalities, just because each team that they inherited was in a different position in the team cycle.

“What I will say is the coaches that I talk to on a regular basis that I’ve obviously talked to since I’ve gotten the job … a thing they’ve said to me is, ‘You have to just do it your way.’ That’s a non-negotiable. I can’t have a mindset of trying to be someone I’m not because I’m supposed to do things this way or the last coach did it this way or Steve Kerr did it this way his first year. What worked for him might not work for me.”

Redick added: “I certainly hope to get the same results in his first year.”

Coaches who have been in a similar position as Redick have stressed key points of advice.

“I learned was you don’t have nearly as much time as you need,” Kerr said. “You come in with a plan and you want to go over 10 things and the players are ready to leave after four of them. And if you think you can keep them on the floor for six more, you’re wasting your time. What I learned was really to try to be efficient in practice and get the most important things in.”

Vinny Del Negro echoed Kerr’s sentiments.

After playing professionally from 1988-2001 and working in the Phoenix Suns’ front office as director of player personnel and assistant GM from 2006-08, Del Negro got his first head coaching job with the Chicago Bulls in June 2008. He coached the Bulls for two seasons before coaching the Clippers from 2010-13.

Del Negro also mentioned the importance of the experience on Redick’s staff, led by former NBA head coaches Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks.

“One of the good things from that aspect is having a Nate McMillan … having a Scott Brooks, having veteran guys around you that have been through it, so you can bounce things off them on a daily basis,” Del Negro told the SCNG. “There’s so much, but you prioritize, and you work at it every day. And you continually build those relationships. And work through the issues on a daily basis, as long as you have great support from up front.”

Based on his players’ feedback, Redick is already ahead of the curve.

“The biggest thing is we’ve been super organized and we’ve been super good at kind of like upholding discipline at times,” third-year wing Max Christie said during training camp. “Having a set amount of time for a drill – we’re not going long, we’re not going short. We’re being really efficient with our time. That’s kind of a keyword he’s been using for everybody throughout the whole offseason, just being efficient with our time that we’re in here.”

WHY NOW?

Redick had options after his playing career ended.

Van Gundy told the SCNG that he knows “for a fact” there were teams interested in Redick as an assistant coach. But Redick chose the media route, where his basketball intellect was not only displayed on public platforms but he also got to learn from coaches who are now his colleagues.

“The benefit of the broadcasting gig is that you’re around all the different teams and coaches all the time,” said Kerr, who had multiple stints as a broadcaster sandwiched around being the Suns’ GM before becoming the Warriors’ coach. “You’re seeing different styles. You’re picking the brains of the coaches. I know I brought a lot of ideas that I learned from other coaches who I met through broadcasting games.”

Redick knew he wanted to become an NBA head coach after interviewing for the Toronto Raptors’ coaching vacancy, which was filled by Darko Rajaković, last summer. But going through on-court work with a couple of NBA players last summer ahead of the 2023-24 season – an experience Redick described as “more coaching than just, ‘Hey, we’re gonna take you through a workout’” – was a “lightbulb” moment for him.

“The two [factors] for me that were the primary driving forces of making the decision to go into coaching were competition and service,” he told SCNG. “There’s something really cool about the impact that a coach can have.”

Still, other coaching opportunities could have come along – inside and outside of coaching. Ones with less scrutiny and more stability than the Lakers have recently had.

Redick is the organization’s seventh full-time coach since Phil Jackson’s departure in 2011. None of those coaches lasted longer than three seasons. As one of the league’s legacy franchises, there’s an inherent pressure. That’s before even factoring in the expectations that come with having LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the roster, both of them coming off All-NBA seasons.

And that’s exactly what made the job attractive to Redick.

“I know that [there are] people I know and I kind of fall in this camp of, I get more enjoyment and fulfillment when there [are] stakes, when there [are] consequences to competition,” Redick told the SCNG. “This is not a situation where there’s a long runway of rebuilding or developing five first-round picks. It’s like a perfect marriage of the now and the future.

“You have established Hall of Famers that are still playing at an extremely high level. You have up-and-coming players that we can tap into and pour into even more. And then you have a bunch of guys that we’re going to try to develop into really good NBA players. I’m not scared. I said this to [Lakers general manager] Rob [Pelinka] when I was getting interviewed: I can have an idea of ​​what the scrutiny is going to be. I’m expecting it to be unimaginable, while also expecting it to be worse than I could ever imagine. And I’m like, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ That’s fine. It’s all good.”

While acknowledging “we all want to win” and how detail-oriented he is, he’s also learned as he’s gotten older to let go of outcomes and focus on the things he can control – the input, shaping his goals for his first season as a coach.

“For me, I’m looking at it, did we maximize this group? Did our players get better? And then the third thing is the easiest thing, which is did everyone in this building enjoy coming to work every day? This would be my 16th year in the NBA and I probably had a handful or slightly less than a handful of special teams. I never won. I asked [Brooks] that question. He’s had a handful of teams. Nate, same thing. You know it, you feel it every day you come into work when you have a special group.

“If we have a special group, we’ll win some games and we’ll be in a position to compete for what we ultimately want. It also means our players are getting better and we’re enjoying coming to work every day, you just feel it. It all goes together.”