It was the humiliating snub that saved a season.
It was essentially the most stunning embarrassment in Lakers historical past.
Dan Hurley, thanks.
Thanks for turning down $70 million from the Lakers to remain at UConn. Thanks for strolling away from Hollywood to hang around in Storrs. Thanks for doing the unthinkable to a workforce determined for the not possible.
Thanks for the rejection, as a result of it was the start of a rebirth.
As a result of Dan Hurley mentioned no, JJ Redick mentioned sure.
Lakers coach JJ Redick, speaking with guards Luka Doncic and Gabe Vincent, has been capable of get stars and position gamers to just accept his and the teaching workers’s plan for the workforce.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
Commerce of the yr.
Can everybody now admit that hiring JJ Redick as an alternative of Hurley final summer season has been an important growth in remodeling an extraordinary workforce into a possible champion?
Buying Luke Doncic was nice, however it’s Redick who has seamlessly built-in him into the offense.
The emergence of Austin Reaves has been fascinating, however it was Redick who enabled and empowered him.
The renewed inspiration of LeBron James has been spectacular, however it’s been primarily based on respect for Redick’s voice and his imaginative and prescient.
With disarming honesty, unrelenting ardour and unvarnished empathy, Redick has guided the Lakers by means of early-season embarrassments, bonded them by means of midseason roster modifications and now has raised their depth simply in time for a deep spring run.
“As a team, I feel like we can win a championship, to be honest with you,” mentioned Reaves after the Lakers’ third-seed-clinching win over the Houston Rockets on Friday night time. “The reason of that is, I know that everybody in the locker room believes that and has also bought into whatever your role is to help us do that.”
That perception comes from teaching, from Redick down by means of his prime assistants, Scott Brooks and Nate McMillan, a robust veteran braintrust that neatly and continually connects.
“That’s why I give this coaching staff a lot of credit,” mentioned Reaves. “They come in, they planted their system and they held guys accountable to what they asked them to do and everybody bought into that.”
The top of gross sales is, in fact, Redick, this group curated along with his cool mixture of brains and humanity that has turned a workforce into one thing extra intently resembling a household.
He has, truthfully, made extra of an affect in a single season of teaching than in 15 years in uniform. On Friday I needed to ask him, was teaching really extra rewarding than taking part in?
Lakers coach JJ Redick recounts that he and his household misplaced their rental home within the lethal Palisades hearth throughout a information convention on the workforce’s coaching facility on Jan. 10.
(Damian Dovarganes / Related Press)
“Yes” he rapidly mentioned.
“Why?” I requested.
“So I’ve been trying to figure that out for the last six months, I’m not sure,” he mentioned. “But I will say, I think anybody that was around me as a player knows how much I enjoyed the job every day and knows how grateful I was to be in the NBA every day and very grateful to have a 15-year career. I like this more.”
So the flashy former scorer has extra enjoyable guiding gamers than capturing over them, and who knew?
Not me. Whereas I’m now praising him as an important rent, I need to acknowledge that I used to be as soon as among the many loudest to combat it.
When the supply was made to Hurley to exchange the fired Darvin Ham final spring, I liked the thought. I liked Hurley. I pictured the two-time NCAA defending champion lighting a fireplace, altering the tradition, bringing his East Coast toughness to the delicate confines of El Segundo.
Redick was the one different severe candidate on the time, and that I didn’t love. He had by no means coached wherever past youth league, he had by no means gained a championship as a sharpshooter, and he was presently finest often called a TV analyst and the co-host of a podcast with LeBron James. He wasn’t certified past being LeBron’s buddy, and hiring him could be a mistake that will set the franchise up for extra wasted years.
I used to be able to welcome Hurley, writing, “No brainer. No question. No more looking. If the Lakers really think they can get him, they need to go get him.”
Then within the early days of June, Hurley stunningly turned them down, satisfied by his spouse, Andrea, to remain on the East Coast and pushed by his fighter’s intuition to try a UConn three-peat.
A few weeks later, the Lakers employed Redick, and a lot of the basketball world shuddered.
“So now it’s painfully clear that JJ doesn’t stand for Just Joking,” I wrote on the time. “So now this is real. Real unusual. Real unsettling. Real unfortunate.”
Rob Pelinka, the Lakers common supervisor, noticed it in another way
“It was just really important to us as we made this hire to find a head coach that could sit across the table from some of the smartest and best players in the world,” Pelinka mentioned on the time. “This is the stage for those players to be able to relate to, coach, hold them accountable, lead them, inspire them. And we felt like JJ was very unique in holding all those qualities to do that.”
JJ Redick, proper, laughs as Lakers common supervisor and vice chairman of basketball operations Rob Pelinka addresses the media throughout a information convention to introduce Redick as the brand new Lakers coach.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Occasions)
It seems, and never for the primary time with this unusually particular workforce, Pelinka was proper and I used to be unsuitable.
First, this season Hurley was a strolling distraction at UConn, his offended sideline antics continually grabbing the headlines and making one marvel how lengthy would he have lasted with the Lakers earlier than fully melting down?
In the meantime, Redick was instantly establishing himself right here with basketball smarts and famous person relatability. Barely a month into the season, he aced his first check after the Lakers endured a two-game stretch of horrible performances, getting blown out in Minnesota and Miami, the latter a 41-point loss.
“I’m embarrassed; we’re all embarrassed,” he mentioned after the Warmth defeat. “It’s not a game that I thought we had the right fight, the right professionalism. … There has to be some ownership on the court and I’ll take all the ownership in the world. This is my team and I lead it and I’m embarrassed. But I can’t physically get us organized. I can’t physically be into the basketball. … I’m not blaming players … I own this, but we’re going to need some ownership on the court as well.”
A December that started with the blowouts ended with D’Angelo Russell being blown out to Brooklyn to mark the second evolution of the workforce. This alteration, moreover that includes the arrival of the underrated steal of the season — Dorian Finney-Smith! — additionally resulted in a brand new bond between Redick and Reaves.
With the irritating Russell gone, Redick grew to become the primary Lakers coach to completely entrust Reaves with the position because the workforce’s third possibility. Reaves has since performed so effectively, that grouping of LeBron, Luka and Austin has now develop into one of many NBA’s Massive Three.
Lakers coach JJ Redick, middle, has guided the workforce deftly this season together with prime assistants Scott Brooks, left, and Nate McMillan.
(Kevork Djansezian / Related Press)
Friday night time, after casually scoring 23, Reaves glowed after I particularly requested in regards to the affect of the brand new coach.
“Huge,” mentioned Reaves. “When the Lakers hired him … I knew his IQ of the game, but obviously there was all the talks about, you know, he’s never coached at any type of high level or anything like that. Since Day 1, he’s been super professional, super locked into one goal, that’s getting the team to buy into what the coaching staff wants. He’s been huge in what he’s done, I can’t give him enough credit for what he’s done for me and the team, happy to go to war for him any day.”
With the brand new calendar yr got here new, unimaginable challenges, and Redick dealt with each concern as if calmly sinking a game-winning trey.
His rental dwelling burned down within the California wildfires? Redick grew teary when first publicly recounting the trauma, however has since strongly stood apart metropolis officers in main the cost to rebuild the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
His total workforce tradition was upended with the buying and selling of Anthony Davis for Doncic? In his largest win of the season, Redick in some way satisfied two superstars and one budding star to every regulate their roles.
To start with, many anxious that the gamers would ignore him as a result of he had no teaching credibility. However because the season progressed it grew to become clear, Redick is so basketball vibrant and communication savvy, the gamers couldn’t assist however hear.
Practically a yr in the past, a lot of the basketball world was pouring chilly water over the concept that JJ Redick might be a profitable NBA coach.
Lakers coach JJ Redick embraces guard Luka Doncic after he substituted for him throughout his 45-point effort in Dallas.
(Sam Hodde / Getty Pictures)
On Friday night time, after their win over the Houston Rockets gave them 50 victories for under the second time in 14 seasons, that chilly water was administered over his head within the locker room by his gamers in celebration.
Roughly eight ice buckets value.
“I just want to apologize to Kathy (Montoya, Lakers vice president of game operations and entertainment), hopefully in the next nine days the $17,000 in damage to the carpet we can get fixed,” Redick mentioned.
Quite the opposite, it’s been a number of years for the reason that floor beneath the Lakers footwear has seemed so lush and felt so stable.
“It’s a credit to our players … they’ve all participated in a winning culture,” mentioned Redick.
A JJ Redick tradition. A realistically championship tradition.
Commerce of the yr.
