The Los Angeles Lakers and JJ Redick have agreed to a four-year deal to make the 39-year-old former NBA participant the crew’s new head coach, crew sources stated Thursday.
The contract is within the neighborhood of $8 million per season, based on sources briefed on the deal.
The Lakers zeroed in on Redick over the previous 4 weeks, with crew management and Redick assembly on Saturday to debate the place. Throughout conferences with Lakers vice chairman of basketball operations and common supervisor Rob Pelinka, and his go to with Lakers possession, Redick confirmed promise, crew sources stated.
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Contained in the Lakers’ determination to rent JJ Redick and the way he shapes their future
He was thought-about the front-runner in league circles for a lot of the teaching search, which was ongoing since Los Angeles fired Darvin Ham in Might after two seasons.
Redick’s standing because the front-runner for the job briefly modified when Connecticut coach Dan Hurley and the Lakers expressed mutual curiosity earlier than Hurley interviewed in Los Angeles. He rejected the Lakers’ six-year, $70 million supply final week, based on crew and league sources.
The Lakers’ brass then regrouped and circled again to candidates, together with Redick, based on crew and league sources. The ESPN commentator and podcaster beforehand met with Pelinka for almost two hours the week of Might 13 on the NBA Draft Mix in Chicago.
Redick labored on the published for the NBA Finals, which ended Monday when the Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks in Sport 5.
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New Orleans Pelicans affiliate head coach James Borrego was the opposite central candidate over the previous few weeks. Borrego met with Pelinka in Los Angeles on Might 20 for over two hours. He additionally met with Lakers stakeholders on the crew’s follow facility on Might 29. Anthony Davis and Borrego, who overlapped briefly in New Orleans, re-established their rapport just lately. Yahoo beforehand reported that Borrego was additionally advancing within the head-coaching search with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Lakers have been excessive on Redick’s potential and seen the 15-year NBA veteran as a Pat Riley-like teaching prospect, based on league sources. Redick checked most of the packing containers for the Lakers as they searched for his or her subsequent coach.
Redick has but to teach above the youth stage. He’s probably the most forward-facing of the candidates given his high-profile enjoying profession, run as a media character and his latest “Thoughts the Sport” podcast with LeBron James. Nonetheless, James made it identified he was staying out of the crew’s teaching search, based on folks concerned within the matter.
The teaching rent is pivotal as Los Angeles hopes to retain James, who should resolve whether or not to train his $51.4 million participant possibility for the 2024-25 season by June 29. The Lakers are open to any contract construction that can preserve James in Los Angeles, league sources stated.
Redick spent 15 seasons within the NBA with six groups, most notably the Orlando Magic and LA Clippers. A famend shooter, he posted a profession common of 12.8 factors per sport with 41.5 % 3-point capturing, 44.7 % from the sphere and 89.2 % from the free-throw line.
The place does Redick’s departure depart ESPN?
The excellent news for ESPN concerning Redick’s departure to the Lakers is that Mike Breen stays within the lead play-by-play chair. You’re all the time working from energy when your high broadcast crew has the perfect game-caller of his or her era. However ESPN doesn’t have any computerized strikes proper now in relation to Redick’s alternative.
The community nuked its longtime crew of Breen, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson after which Doc Rivers left for the Milwaukee Bucks in in regards to the time it takes Noah Lyles to run the 100. It might have a 3rd new combo in somewhat greater than a 12 months to begin subsequent season if it provides to Breen and Doris Burke. Well being-willing, hopefully Breen, 63, continues into his 70s. However the analyst place is vital. Any rent seemingly must be both a youngish (in media years) high-profile former participant or coach. One factor to control — and that is simply us spitballing — is how Dwayne Wade does as an Olympic basketball analyst for NBC in Paris. That’s somebody who has the star energy ESPN would theoretically be in search of as an NBA analyst. — Richard Deitsch, sports activities media author
Shams Charania and Sam Amick contributed to this report.
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(Photograph: Jamie Schwaberow / Getty Photos)