Reports: Mike Krzyzewski Consulting With Lakers About Coaching Hire. Is JJ Redick The Leading Candidate?

An interesting twist for the Duke legend and long-time NBA player

Mike Krzyzewski retired in 2022 but he still has significant influence in the basketball world. The NBA has retained him as a special consultant and people in the game regularly come to him for advice. He still presumably has input with the National Team, now run by former Blue Devil Grant Hill, and NBA teams call him for his opinion, including the Los Angeles Lakers.

It’s like Death of a Salesman with a happy ending.

Having parted ways with Darvin Ham recently, the Lakers are looking for a new coach and one of the candidates is former Blue Devil JJ Redick.

According to The Athletic, the Lakers are looking for a long-term coach who can build at team around Anthony Davis.

Redick has not coached but he does have vast NBA experience, he’s very likely to get a good recommendation from Krzyzewski and he co-hosts the podcast “Mind the Game” with Lakers star LeBron James who would presumably be receptive to Redick also.

Since he retired, Redick has mostly been in the public eye due to his podcasts and his role on ESPN, but his comments about Bob Cousy and Larry Bird aside, he clearly has some basics already. He understands the modern NBA and he has a lot of tactical knowledge. Less clear, at least from a distance, are his people skills. We’re not questioning him there, it’s just an unknown for most people.

He would probably go through a bit of a tough stretch for a year or two as the team rebuilds when James, inevitably, retires, but it would be fascinating to see how he does.

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