There’s a lot of UPSIDE! – Woj on Lakers making JJ Redick new head coach 🙌 | NBA Today

There’s a lot of UPSIDE! – Woj on Lakers making JJ Redick new head coach 🙌 | NBA Today

welcome back we had breaking news here on NBA today the Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to a four-year contract with JJ reck to make him the franchises next coach hor is told ESPN reic an ESPN NBA analyst who played 15 years in the league met with Lakers VP and GM Rob palinka and owner Genie bus over the weekend and conversations on the vacancies continued throughout the week all right we got our whole panel here Bobby marks joining us Bobby your reaction to JJ reic being the new head coach of the Lakers yeah I think it’s a certainly a fres perspective here but I think it’s it’s important and I think W laid it out he’s got a higher rate staff it’s got to that’s Priority One I lived through in 2013 we had hired Jason kid right from playing um Jason put together a staff and there was a major major learning curve for the first 40 games here uh and it eventually turned around and and I and I said it yesterday what JJ reic interviewed for with this Laker roster might be a little bit different than what we see in October here so there’s got to be that Flex ility here as far as what um as far as what he is going to be coaching here but the the staff is the most important thing right now explain more about what you mean by the major learning curb what were the obstacles that he kind of had to endure yeah it’s it’s more of the the going from that player perspective to now a coach and having guys that you once played with the res demanding the respect of the locker room dealing with adversity during an 82 Game season this is not going to be you know roll this is not Boston this is not a 64 and 18 team right now this was a team that lost in the first round so there will be some adversity here along the way and it’s and it’s you know it’s basically managing Championship level uh expectations with probably not a championship level roster right now well I mean I’m going to just bring this up not that I think LeBron is going anywhere but he has a player option yeah and could go someplace and that could take into the summer and all this talk about oh they LeBron and JJ in the podcast and yada y I agree with Dave I don’t think that was an audition for the job I think they this was to I actually know how that came together it was completely outside of any scope of him maybe trying to get be become the Lakers head coach it was a long long time coming for that podcast to be to be developed um but I think it’s to me it’s like LeBron first number one they got to make sure LeBron stays right they got to make sure they know what they’re doing with D’Angelo Russell and if they don’t keep D’Angelo Russell they have to have a replacement there andan this is a roster that that is very much in flux and we just heard from from Rich Paul yesterday as talking about you know LeBron is not a package deal with bronny like but that’s that’s a test to see if he is right I mean there’s there’s teams out there in the league and I know you’ve talked him too Bobby in preparing for the draft that have this idea maybe we should draft bronny let’s let’s see if we draft him and let’s let’s test whether that’s a package deal or not there there are teams with the guts to do that which is why bronnie hasn’t worked out for more than a just a handful of teams here and and all of those are still in play so JJ just signed in signed up up but what roster is he going to be coaching uh you you know if I’m JJ I call Joe maula right Joe moula just won an NBA championship at the age of 35 Joe Missoula did it his way right with a philosophy and a system that I didn’t believe in a lot of people didn’t believe in and he got it done now you got to credit Brad Stevens for putting the right pieces around him so that his system could work surrounding jayen Brown and Jason Tatum but if I’m Rob and I’m JJ rdck I mimic or try to mimic what the Boston Celtics did getting the right pieces getting the system in place and you move on from there for as adding assistance to the bench I think it’s critical you look at what Joe Missoula had on his bench one of those guys right now is the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets another one of those guys they bought in I thought was a great move this off season and bringing in a guy in Sam Cel who won the championship with the Boston Celtics as a player I thought he played a huge role in that again if I’m JJ I’m reaching out to Joe Missoula I’m figuring out some things I’m learning some things again I think he could make the adjustment the game is a lot about X’s and O’s but I wouldn’t too har harp too much about that it’s again it’s about speaking the language in that locker room UD you talked a little bit earlier about just JJ being able to earn the respect from these players Bobby was talking about you know going from being a player in the locker room to now trying to figure out how to communicate with these guys as the head coach what do you think that JJ needs to prove to this locker room that he can take him there that he can win you know what I’m saying that they can win I think winning cures everything I think we understand he has a great basketball mind let me say this about JJ I think the timing of this I think the timing of this right now this is the right move this is the best move to make I think JJ is the best opportunity for the Lakers to get back on track he has a great basketball mind what I will say is if I was getting this job people would have said the same thing about me because of my relationship with LeBron James is it going to be LeBron James message or is it going to be you down this house message it’s not hate on JJ it’s just being honest so I’m sitting in this chair telling you what I know because I was in the locker rooms just as recently as a year ago but yes I do think JJ can get this job done and guess what the Lakers have been hearing all the talk about cynical locker room they’ve been hearing all the talk about not being on the same page so guess what they going to do make sure they on the same page they going to focus on not making a cynical locker room making sure they have good energy in the locker room cuz they hear all us saying this right now so with the timing of this the draft coming up soon I think this is the right time to make this move and I think the Lakers hearing all the talk about it being a cynical locker room and all these different things and they’re going to make a really really good effort to make sure that everybody’s on board and everybody’s on page and once again I’m gonna go back to what perk said Rondo is going to be huge if he can bring in Rondo because not only does Rondo had the respect Anthony Davis he got the respect LeBron James LeBron James always talk about how great of a basketball mind that Rajan Rondo has so that can be a guy that can not only connect your coaching style but can connect your locker room now if you have a guy that can connect your locker room room and I could speak the language and be an extension of your coach now you working with some and you I understand we’re going to be talking about LeBron we’ll be talking about ad because they are the stars of this team they both played 65 plus games last year and the Lakers lost in five games in the first round so it’s going to be who they can get to be the UDS of this team next year what’s going to happen with D’Angelo Russell as Ramona referenced what can they do with um you know whether guys are going to opt in to the remaining years of their deal LeBron James included uh or what can they do with the three draft picks that they potentially can trade as of next Wednesday to go try to trade for something that’s out there to make this roster better to me that’s you know JJ was a good hire but there’s so much more work to be done for this Lakers team to be able to contend yeah for sure pull the curtain back on the process of how the Lakers landed on JJ reck as their head coach uh Christina Rob Peno was in Chicago for the pre-draft combine uh in miday and that’s where he had his first kind of get to know you conversation with JJ ruic not really an interview but more sit down about 90 minutes uh talking basketball but but not a formal interview uh but that was the place where the conversation with yukon’s Dan Hurley really started to gain traction Rob palena talked with Dan Hurley uh in Chicago back in miday and that really set him even more aggressively on course to try and hire Dan Hurley it took a few weeks before they could get Hurley to come out visit where you know he was taking the uh potential offer even more seriously ultimately you know he turned that job down I guess it was early last week uh and then the Lakers went back to JJ reic who Pena had been intrigued with from the start he had been certainly somebody he had identified with that he thought like a lot of other people in the league Executives owners thought had a chance to be a highlevel NBA head coach uh but you know they had a chance in Chicago to spend time with both obviously coming off the back-to-back national championships uh the level that Dan Hurley’s teams were performing at uh you know certainly made him extremely attractive and and his interest in listening to the Lakers grew uh as time passed went on until he made that trip to LA but uh JJ reick is was going to be a head coach in this league it wasn’t going to take much longer the Lakers knew that and I think Rob Pena’s got and Jeannie bus have you know great belief in his ability uh to not just coach this veteran this group of Veteran Stars they have but to be the coach who can put in a developmental program who can put together a teaching staff for the young players on the roster and then the players they’re going to have to draft and develop that’s more important than ever with the new salary cap in the NBA is drafting well developing your young players it is harder to do it with big trades for trading out draft picks and free agency you’ve got to build out your own infrastructure that was the Lakers goal in their pursuit of Dan Hurley and that’s their goal now with the hiring of JJ reick okay so about 10 seconds before you broke the news about the Lakers hiring JJ reck Dave had just mentioned that you had reported that they had also brought in some other candidates so ultimately why did LA decide to hire JJ out of those other candidates that they were considering they saw upside with JJ reck and you know there was not necessarily a championship coach ready made to step in the market uh it’s thin right now of really accomplished head coaches who were maybe in the prime of their career a lot of them have taken other jobs it’s a Marketplace of really good assist coaches you know some assistants who’ve had good head coaching experience and had success like Kenny ainson like James bgo who’ve gone back to being associate head coaches and so I think what the Lakers saw was upside in JJ reck and an ability with the right coaching staff uh to become a highlevel NBA coach and and so that’s that’s ultimately what uh had them interested in him in the beginning and then brought him back here uh near the end post early and this is this is a big picture view of JJ to me is look at JJ reick as a player all right Bobby you probably evaluated him in the draft at one point I he’s he’s not the best athlete he’s a really good shooter but he just thinks the game in a different way and he also got to a place and I think this is he’s credited Stan Van Gundy in Orlando um with helping him get to this place of being of understanding defense enough to where he he could be out on the floor in those spots he had a long NBA career for somebody with his makeup right wouldn’t have predicted him to have as as long a career as he did but people always wanted him on their teams every team he left he had a good relationship with a star player Joel embiid and him are still close from his days in Philly he went to Dallas I mean he Chris Paul Chris Paul right I mean every everywhere he’s gone he has built relationships and friendships with the with a lot of players on the team not just the stars but but all throughout that locker room and I think there’s that that makes for a good coach that usually translates into whatever lock room room you do but it reminds me a lot of Steve cerr in that profile and I remember being asked point blank on on 10 years ago however long that was um why Steve why is Steve Kerr such a great candidate why do the Knicks want him why do the Warriors want him he almost took that Nick’s job there’s still a contract out there that he that he could have signed um but he decides to go for the Warriors because he knew what kind of team that was and so is this JJ taking the Knick’s job right now or is this JJ taking the Warriors job we we’ll see what kind of talent the Lakers can give him because he is a great Prospect as a head coach yeah things just getting started there in LA WJ thank you that what I look [Music] [Applause] like on [Applause]

The NBA Today crew react to JJ Redick and the Los Angeles Lakers agreeing on a four-year contract to make him the new head coach.
0:00 Breaking news!
3:00 “JJ Redick should call Joe Mazzulla” – Perk
5:30 Lakers locker room
7:00 Woj joins the show to detail Redick to the Lakers
9:30 The right move for the Lakers?

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