JJ Redick Ignores Warnings About Lakers HC Job Bodes Well For LA Amid NBA Rumors | News, scores, highlights, stats and rumors

The last Los Angeles Lakers coach to spend more than three seasons at the position was the great Phil Jackson.

Jackson, for the record, last led the team in 2011. When JJ Redick took over as head coach of the Lakers in June, he became the eighth different captain the Purple and Gold have had since Jackson left.

None of this, of course, needs to be passed on to Redick, who has one of the sharpest basketball minds in the world. Yet it was certainly shared with him as he contemplated leaving his burgeoning media empire behind and entering the coaching profession in one of the club’s busiest environments.

Several people around him even told him it would be a bad idea to take the Lakers job, according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.

The fact that Redick has dismissed these concerns and accepted the challenge should get this franchise and its fanbase excited.

“There’s a competitive itch that I have every day of my life,” Redick said. “And no matter how many shots I took, I wasn’t satisfied with them. And so I felt a real calling in the field of competition.”

Redick did not have to accept this offer. He was a rising star in the media world and had had options to go elsewhere. He interviewed with the Toronto Raptors last season. He attracted interest from the Charlotte Hornets this offseason.

Even without coaching experience, it’s not a stretch to suggest he could have chosen his spot. Between his podcasting gig and ESPN work, he would have remained front and center in the basketball world, all the while dazzling people with his ability to think and communicate the game.

Then again, maybe this was his place. Perhaps someone who is warned about a “bad idea” and dives head first into it anyway is the perfect person to thrive in this environment.

He could have run away from this challenge. Instead, he embraced it.

“Honestly, I want to coach the Lakers,” Redick told reporters during his introductory press conference in June. “I want to coach the team. I want to be a great coach in the NBA. And I want to win championships. And I want my players to maximize their careers. That’s all I care about.”

Championship talk may seem wildly ambitious, as he essentially inherits a roster that went 47-35 and lost in the first round last season, but wild ambition could be the key to making this work.

It’s clear that Redick needs healthy versions of LeBron James and Anthony Davis to be even remotely competitive this season, but the coach needs a lot more to get this club to a championship level. James and Davis both reached the 70-game mark last season, and the only mentions of the Lakers in competing conversations were the obligatory ones to feed the content machine.

To succeed where Redick’s predecessors failed, he will need to maximize players like D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura. Redick will have to help evoke Austin Reaves’ expected leap year. Redick must help Dalton Knecht hit the ground running, get Gabe Vincent up to speed, help Max Christie navigate his likely role expansion, find ways for Christian Wood to add two-way value and create the right developmental blueprint for Bronny James.

And Redick has to do all of this from the fishbowl that is the LA media market.

The challenge is enormous. These warnings have not been made in vain. But maybe, just maybe, Redick’s mentality will prove exactly what it will take for the Purple and Gold to be their best selves.