Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Has JJ Redick Improved? Should He Still be the Coach of the Future for LA?

Starting point is 00:00:00 J.J. Radick has two 50-win seasons under his belt. Is it fair to say he's the coach of the future? That's next. You are Locked-on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for joining Locked on Lakers. I'm Brian Kaminetsky. joined today by the great Harrison Fagan of SB Nation. Andy, I think we'll be back on Wednesday if he can emerge from his depressive. state that has been brought on by hamstrings and obliques and all of these things. I think Andy actually helped pay for Lucas Flight to Spain to see the LeBron James of Hamstrings. And we'll see how that goes, Luca, in Spain.

Starting point is 00:00:54 We talked about that on Monday's big show with Harrison Fagan. He is kind enough to stick around for this afternoon's program as well. I want to talk about JJ Reddick because you, Harrison, have taken this. the provocative position among people who are in the Lakers community, provocative position among Lakers fans at least, of not hating whoever is coaching the Lakers, of not thinking they saw, of not thinking this person needs to be fired right away. JJ Rattick has two 50 win seasons under his belt as a coach. He has only won 50 games because he's never coached anywhere else.

Starting point is 00:01:32 have what why why why are you so uh why you so up on jay why aren't you holding him to a higher standard he's lost at least 20 games in two seasons what's going on harrison you know it's funny you're you're painting this out like i'm a j j reddick fan i actually like i find him very annoying but like i think he's a pretty good coach and you know i just don't see how you could really argue all that much to the at the very least he's proven he is an above average to potentially elite regular season coach. I think where there are justified questions about him still are in the playoffs, like is he going to be able to react quickly enough?

Starting point is 00:02:12 You know, all of the stuff that we've been talking about all year since the Wolf series, basically of like, you know, is he too dogmatic in his principles and in his like things that he won't done? I think we've seen some movement on that this year. But we've also seen a lot of like, I am committed to the guys that are in my rotation. And if I don't like the way that you play basketball, you don't fit this mold of what I want from this position, that I'm just not going to. to play you. I'm not going to try and adjust what we're doing to make you more effective.

Starting point is 00:02:36 This is the Jared Vanderbilt conversation. Yes. Yeah. I refer to this as Andy as the Jared Vanderbilt conversation. But I want to get, I want to spend some time on that because Vando is really actually. Talking about. Kobe Buffkin. What are you talking about? I need. It's not a dog. Kobe. The the, the, the, the, the Don't connect part of it is funny just because like, everybody's like, you got you totally did. Like, no, Dalton actually had opportunities earlier this season. He was terrible. I really can't blame him for the Dalton thing. No. People are like, this is a high draft pick. I'm like, yeah, you know, so was Jaylen Hood

Starting point is 00:03:10 Chafino and he justifiably did not get playing time. Not to get sidetracked too deep. My theory with Dalton is that, you know, because when you, I'm not, I've watched maybe, maybe two complete college basketball games in the last decade. I find the product when all you do is watch NBA, I find the college product to be, generally unwatchable. My theory, I don't think he ever entered the building, right? He didn't work out for the Lakers because there was no reason to.

Starting point is 00:03:44 It was not expected that he would fall far enough. My theory is, had they gotten him into the building, they would have realized that he has perhaps a lower basketball IQ. That his sense of the game was going to be a limiting factor. It was going to be problematic. but they never did because he wasn't there. You know, when Dalton, a lot of guys say, I'm just, I'm a hooper. In Dalton's case, that's a problem.

Starting point is 00:04:13 Like, they need him to be a little bit more aware and he's just not. And I think that because he fell to them, they never got that chance to really see that up close. That's my Dalton theory. It actually sort of dovetails nicely with my Dalton theory, but the reason he fell is because of his interviews. So, you know, they sort of go hand in hand. I hadn't, yeah, I haven't thought about the Lakers, like, didn't get to interview him before,

Starting point is 00:04:39 although that's probably almost certainly true, given where he was projected to go by most mock draft. But I just generally get the sense that, like, teams talk to this guy and they were like, oh, like, you are not like a top, you're not our top 10 pick. You're not who I am staking my job, too. Yeah, and all of these are really nice ways of talking around what we're really saying. So back to JJ. And I agree with you that like this dogmatic question is a really big one. And one of the areas that I actually think there's been a lot of growth from year one to year two is in that flexibility.

Starting point is 00:05:16 I actually think Redick has done a pretty good job this year of stepping back from the stuff he's obviously comfortable with. They're playing defensively way differently than I think he would want under normal circumstances. And he's giving, you know, they've changed how they're doing stuff to fit their personnel. I think offensively he's done a nice job of finding a way to organize players and like this, this switch with LeBron as an example. Like I think he's actually been pretty good about stuff like that. I mean, I know Andy wishes he'd play Vanderbilt a little bit more, but he's not the first coach, at least in my mind, to struggle to find ways to keep Jared Vanderbilt on the floor.

Starting point is 00:05:59 Yeah, and that's for sure true. And I agree with everything that you just said about like he has shown increased flexibility this year. But there are still some signs of sort of and, you know, to some degree, all coaches are committed to their ideals. Like there aren't a whole lot of coaches that just have, it would be weird if you had no ideals of how basketball should be played. You just like, you just walk in. You're like, oh, who do we got today? All right. You know, you have something that got you to that level and like some way of.

Starting point is 00:06:26 And you need some level of consistency. Like it has, you can't just change it every day. Yeah, unless you're Spoh. And then you just come up with whatever the optimal, like, like layout is for whoever is in front of you at any given point. But most people don't have like sort of that Rain Man-esque, like ability to just like look at the guys and lay them all out. But I, the, you know, the Minutes thing is actually sort of an interesting like, you know, it goes along with this like I am committed to what I want to do and I don't want to change things. things and whatever, like, I'm going to play guys long minutes because I need to make sure that the guys in the rotation behind them know that I think that they suck and are not ready to

Starting point is 00:07:06 play. And, you know, like, it's an extension. Hold that thought. Hold that thought because I have a potential counter to that argument of what I think JJ would say if you presented him with that question. And so we'll get to all of that. Next, I do want to let people know first that Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Indeed. Workplace chaos. Deadlines are stacking up. Your inbox is overflowing in the one position you have to build, sitting open. And when the pressure is on and you need the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs.

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Starting point is 00:10:46 I believe in your words were that they suck. My counter to that might be that those guys aren't very good. That JJ is in fact correct that most of the guys at the end of the Lakers rotation just aren't that good. Now, you could argue he needs to play them anyway. But the flip side of that is we've been talking about this for a couple years. the Lakers are an incredibly top-heavy team that lack real depth. Like we were joking, Andy and I were joking, like texting back and forth. Like, the Thunder kind of can't put out a garbage time lineup.

Starting point is 00:11:26 Like, they just can't. Because even like the guys who never get to play who are like in and out of the G-League, they finally get them. That guy's pretty good. You know, that Carlson fellow, he can kind of play. Like, I don't know who that is, but he's not bad. These dudes are buried on that roster. And so I think with somebody like Vando is very clear that, you know, JJ just finds his flaws not worth accommodating to get to his strengths.

Starting point is 00:11:59 I think that's pretty obvious. But the flip side of that is his flaws are kind of problematic and can be difficult without a ton of different guys around him to make it work over the long term. I don't know who else is really supposed to be playing. Dalton's not very good. You know, Brony, I think, has made strides, but doesn't belong in an NBA rotation. You know, Nick Smith, after the Nick Smith game, hasn't been great, you know.

Starting point is 00:12:27 Drew Kimmy doesn't shouldn't be playing. And, you know, Maxi shouldn't be playing that much. Like, I don't know who he's supposed to be. I'm not worried about JJ not trusting Maxi. J.J. trust Maxi plenty. He does. And he deploys Maxie in smart ways. It's like every eighth game, I need you to go these four things for 19.

Starting point is 00:12:44 Like, he's really smart about Maxi. I just don't know, like, who is he supposed to be playing more that he isn't? I'm kind of okay until they have a better roster with how he handles minutes. Like, I don't have much of a criticism. I think that that's fair. But I also think that, you know, when you look around the league at a lot of these teams, like that this is not. not JJ's fault, but the Lakers back end, it's not JJ's fault, the back end of the roster isn't good. But, you know, with the amount of talent that teams are finding on the scrap heap every single

Starting point is 00:13:18 off season, you know, like the Lakers back end of the roster should be better. I agree. And the only counterpoint that I would make is how do we know for sure that all of these guys are bad when they mostly have played in garbage time with like unserious sort of like, you know, permutations around them, you know, and how are we, how are they ever supposed to get the confidence to be good. If they're constantly being told, no, you suck,

Starting point is 00:13:44 you only play when we're up, you know, 30, you know, or down 30. You don't think he literally tells him that, do you? Honestly, it would not surprise me. Hey,

Starting point is 00:13:56 Drew, Timmy. You suck. He records them a personalized podcast segment where he, like, tells them about how they're, how their vork is bad. It's a cameo that they don't pay for.

Starting point is 00:14:06 It didn't ask for. It's like, Hey, what's up here? It's your coach, JJ Redick. I just wanted to let you know, you are horrible. See you at work. That's the app-based deliverable, like, development system that the Lakers, that, like, hired the coder for.

Starting point is 00:14:23 And we're talking about it, JJ's intro presser. It's just like JJ telling you you suck in a personalized video. It's AI, JJ Redick telling you that you suck. A lot of people would say that AI, JJ Redick isn't much different than actual JJ Reddick. But that's, yeah, there's, okay, so there's another. place that I think JJ's made some progress. I think he is not nearly, he is certainly as pedantic as he was last year,

Starting point is 00:14:47 but I don't think he's as tightly wound as he was last year. That is true. He does seem to be a little bit more loose. The biggest, the big moment this year of like, dad, I am turning this car around energy, unless all of you people shape up,

Starting point is 00:15:04 was after the Miami game when he was like, we're not doing this anymore. We're going to make big changes. It's going to be guys going to have to be uncomfortable. This practice tomorrow's going to be, you know, Pat Riley-esque. And then he got there and it was like, okay, well, that was too much. And he sort of dialed it back. But other than that, I think he has been more mellow this year than last.

Starting point is 00:15:26 I actually think it's important because I don't think he could have last a decade as tightly wound as he seemed last year. He wasn't going to last four years as tightly. He wasn't going to last the initial contract if he was as tightly wound as he was last year. So do you think he's like from temperamentally is he the kind of guy? Because clearly the player, it seems like the players are playing for him. And they like him and they they find him very prepared and they, you know, all of this stuff. They love his ATOs. Do you see him as like they have a new owner, new owner, second year coach.

Starting point is 00:16:01 I realize he's got an extension. But paying people to not coach the Lakers is, you know, it's a tradition at this point. in the organization. Mark Walter, just keeping some continuity. He's like, we don't want to have like at least two fired coaches. The bus family did it. And like I, I'm honoring that legacy by making sure that we have at least three coaches on the payroll. Do you, do you see him still coaching three, four years down the road, five years down the road, which in this NBA is a long time?

Starting point is 00:16:34 Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. It was like three, I think so. Um, you know, four or five, it's like not that many coaches last seven years anymore, get that much time. So it's kind of hard to say, you know, and they did give him the second extension. I don't think that that will be that much of an issue for Mark Walter. Like if he feels like, if he feels like team is going to be better by getting rid of JJ Reddick, like they're just going to make that much.

Starting point is 00:16:58 JJ is not making enough for that to be worth the calculus. And it doesn't even count against the cap. So like, it's the same thing with like, you know, it's like Steve Ballmer wouldn't be worried about hiring coaches or, you know, that kind of thing. it just doesn't like affect your ability to compete. You can go get another coach. I do, I before they were, number one, I don't think it's time to fire JJ Redick.

Starting point is 00:17:19 Not that that's what you're saying. He's clearly shown development in year two as a coach, which I know is not what anyone wants to hear when they're like trying to win, you know, ostensibly trying to win a title. I would argue that they didn't really try that hard to win a title this year, but this is supposed to be a competitive team.

Starting point is 00:17:33 And so nobody wants to hear about development. But we have seen development from JJ. Yeah. And honestly, I think this coaching staff, you know, I was, I was skeptical when they came in. And it was like basically all the guys who were willing to take as little money as Junie Bus was willing to offer them. And I was like, but I actually think that having some of those like lifers around JJ has been helpful for his government and sort of like a lot of his like getting to know how. So like I'm not against keeping some of those guys around. But I would like to see him get, you know, I would like to see the Lakers go higher like a really expensive lead assistant or something like that. who can bring like a new, you know, a new set of ideas into the room, like, you know, beef out like sort of the brain power on that bench. And, you know, maybe you keep, you keep one of the old guys around to just sort of like,

Starting point is 00:18:20 you know, to talk about, like, have the perspective of, you know, decades in the NBA. But you don't necessarily need like both Scott Brooks and Nate McMillan. Right. And I wonder, too, if like part of the infrastructure bill will be like putting even guys in between, like, you know, coaching consultants. And that's not just bringing more people into the, into the building. But I think he's done good work. I think one of the biggest disappointments that I have is that one of the things

Starting point is 00:18:51 that we won't get to see is growth between year one and year two in the playoffs because you know of like what is he supposed to do this year. I was looking forward to that. I will say, you know, if he can scheme up a way to win a first round series, with 41-year-old LeBron. Like, I think, give him another secret extension. I don't care. Like, you know, like, who is more, my last question for it, I'll let you go.

Starting point is 00:19:20 Who is more likely to last longer in the org, in the org, him or Rob? I actually think it's JJ. I agree. Like, JJ just, I think Rob was a snake oil salesman very, like, very, like, evolved into, being able to manipulate specifically the Lakers brain trust. Whereas I think JJ is a guy that like just like pretty much anyone would find impressive.

Starting point is 00:19:46 And so I think like my guess is that Rob doesn't get to fire like another coach under sort of dubious circumstances. You know where he's like he's not just going to get like the complete, you know, trust of Mark Walter to just be like yeah, no, whatever. Fire another coach. I don't care. You know, it would be one of the, it would be a Mike Malone

Starting point is 00:20:04 and Calvin Booth thing. I think if that was going to happen. And you know, you can say what you will about like, you know, most GMs don't like to inherit a coach. It just, it does happen all the time. JJ seems like someone that a lot of basketball people do get along with. And like it does seem to clearly know the game at like a really high level, have like a lot of ideas and things like that. And so I just like, of course he knows the game. I think he's a genuinely promising coach.

Starting point is 00:20:30 I agree. I think he has his flaws, but I think he's a genuinely promising coach. And like, I think that he has shown more on his resume than to me. Rob has. I agree. I think it's either Rob gets fired first, they both get fired at the same time, but I think JJ getting fired first is the lowest odds there. He is Harrison Fagan. He is the, I think, driving force behind all of SB Nation. I don't know where you land on the org chart, but in my mind, you are the most important person, then. Yeah, CEO, SB Nation CEO, Harrison Fagan, I believe is the official job title. That's what it says on my business.

Starting point is 00:21:08 cards that they did not issue to me. That they did not allow me to make. I made these myself. But you can get them printed up anywhere these days, thanks to the internet. We appreciate you taking the time and stepping in with Andy out. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 38,000 subscribers. That is a small stadium's worth of people. We will see everyone on Wednesday.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Has JJ Redick Improved? Should He Still be the Coach of the Future for LA?

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