Lakers agree to four-year with JJ Redick to become next head coach
The Los Angeles Lakers have reportedly completed their coaching search and JJ Redick will be the 29th head coach in franchise history.
The Lakers coaching search appears to be completed with the franchise hiring JJ Redick to be the next head coach. On Thursday, after a long coaching search, the Lakers agreed to a four-year deal with JJ Redick, as first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
ESPN Sources: JJ Redick has agreed on a four-year contract to become the next coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Rob Pelinka offered job this morning and Redick’s started working on a staff to surround himself with experience. pic.twitter.com/G66eVFRALp
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 20, 2024
JJ Redick has verbally agreed to become the next coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Times has confirmed.
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) June 20, 2024
This hiring has long felt inevitable and especially so after the report that the Lakers were “zeroing in” on JJ Redick as the next head coach prior to the NBA Finals. Over the weekend, Redick finally had a formal interview with the Lakers in Los Angeles between Games 4 and 5 of the Finals, further adding to the sense of inevitability.
On Wednesday, Woj reported that the Lakers had yet to offer Redick the job, which explains the detail in his report on the hiring.
According to The Athletic, Redick’s contract will be around $8 million annually.
Redick is signing a four-year deal worth in the neighborhood of $8 million per season with the Lakers, according to sources briefed on the deal.
The search for the next coach took months, with candidates such as Sam Cassell, James Borrego, and Micah Nori being interviewed. Chris Quinn was also a name consistently mentioned in rumors.
Clippers coach Ty Lue was a person the Lakers were reportedly interested in, but he never became available. He was previously in the running for the Lakers' head coaching job during their last search and seemed to be their top option this time. However, given he’s under contract and pushed back on the notion of joining the better Los Angeles team, the Lakers had to look elsewhere.
There was also the Dan Hurley saga. The Lakers courted him hard, having him come to Los Angeles for an interview as well only for him to turn them down to remain at UConn.
Besides searching high and low for every possible candidate, the Lakers also brought in Mike Krzyzewski as an “unofficial resource” in the coaching search. Krzyzewski coached Redick during his college days at Duke, so it seems Redick had many friendly faces throughout this process.
Redick had a respectable career as an NBA player, averaging 12.8 points and shooting 41% from beyond the arc. After playing, he became a broadcaster for ESPN and also delved into the world of podcasting starting a show called “Mind The Game” with LeBron James.
Despite the affiliation with LeBron, it was made clear that James was not involved in the Lakers coaching search.
This will be his first coaching job at the professional level, similar to NBA players who began coaching after playing, such as Steve Nash and Pat Riley. He will have to start from scratch building up his coaching staff, as the Lakers let everyone go when they fired Darvin Ham after two seasons.
This live story will be updated as more information becomes available.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.