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had an amazing week. Well, we had the JJ Redick news come down yesterday and we went for about ten minutes just giving my initial impressions on the hire. But I've had another day now to kind of sit down and think it all over, and I can think of nobody better for us to get into the weeds of the JJ Reddick higher than my friend Yovan Boja covers the Lakers for the Athletic and also has been doing some work for us over the course of the last year.
We're gonna get into every single angle of this. We're gonna talk about the hiring process. We're gonna spend a good amount of time on the x's and o's side
of things. I really tried to sit down today and think about all the different areas of improvement for this particular Lakers team and how JJ can help, and Yova and I are going to go back and forth about that for a little bit, and then at the tail end of the show, we are going to talk about the off season and what direction we think the Lakers at this point are going to be looking to go in terms of personnel, which my opinion is a way
bigger deal than anything having to do with the coach. Anyway, real quickly, before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops and I YouTube channels so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys, don't miss announcements, don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts on our Hoops tonight, and then keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments, all right, without any further or do let's bring on Yova.
So Yova, this has been kind of a wild couple weeks for you, I would imagine, why don't you just kind of let us under the hood a little bit. Tell us about what the last month or so has been like as you've been tracking this process. How did we land with JJ Reddick as the head coach the Los Angeles Lakers.
Well, Jason, it's been a while seven weeks for me, dating back to May third, the Lakers fire Darvin Ham. I'm on my way to a wedding in Mexico, and I thankfully like I done my prep work of had the story ready, had my Youthtube video ready. But from that point, all of the chatter that I was hearing from talking to people within the Lakers and around the league was JJ Reddick, and that was all the buzz for basically all of May and the when you fire a coach, you do so with at least a couple
candidates in mind. So for the Lakers that was JJ Reddick and tylu Now, the problem with Tyleru was he was still in a contract with the Clippers for another year. He also had the whole situation with the Lakers back in twenty nineteen up that the Lakers were trying to make amends and if he somehow it was in a lame duck situation and could get out of his contract with the Clippers, the Lakers were going to pounce on that and make him a big offer to be their head coach.
So through like early to mid May, the buzz was Tylu JJ Redick. Then it started to be the actual interview process with guys like Sam Consel, James Barrigo, Mike and Noriy David Adelman. Tylu ends up coming to an extension with the Clippers, and it's clear that maybe from his side there was a little bit of negotiating tactic where if you have interest from another team, now of a sudden, there's some onus on the Clippers to get something done a little bit quicker than they had initially wanted.
So interview process starts. J. J.
Redick meets with Rob Polinka for nearly two hours in Chicago at the pre draft comp and it is a sort of an informal meeting technically, but two hours is a long time to talk with someone, and I think you get a pretty good sense of someone and their their background and their philosophies, and you know, they did.
Touch on some of those things.
But so that that's about like mid May now and then rest of the month, it just continues to be the buzz growing of JJ Redick is going to be the guy. The one thing that is holding this process up is that he's set to call the NBA Finals for ESPN and ABC, And in the middle of the season, ESPN and ABC lost Doc Rivers, who is part of that top broadcast crew. So you then promote JJ Reddick to that spot and you don't want to lose him
right before the pinnacle of the season. So that was a bit of a hold up, you know, according to multiple people. Just you know, JJ is going to have to ride this out through the finals, and if he ends up being the Lakers head coach, it's going to have to be after the finals. Then early June it starts to really be JJJJJJ, But then this Dan Hurley situation comes out of nowhere, seemingly and all of a sudden, you know that there's like he's flying to LA there's
a meeting. The Lakers make him an offer. Now the offer people can quibble about how strong of an offer it actually was, clearly it was not strong enough to get him to leave Connecticut. And he even said, and you know, he did multiple interviews. In the Dan LeBatard interview, he says, like there was a number. I don't know exactly what it was, but I'm sure there was a number that would.
Have got me to leave.
Clearly that the six years, seventy million dollar deal was not that. So then the Lakers have to circle back with JJ Reddick and some of the other candidates and then do some damage control bring him in officially for an interview in between Game four and Game five of the finals on that Saturday. I was told by multiple
people he crushed the interviews. Was incredibly impressive. One person told me that his personality was electric and it was just like unlike anything that compared to all the other candidates. It was just like ja We knew JJ was going to crush the interview. I don't think that's a surprise, but like he really stood out from just his communication and his personality and his ability to talk through different scenarios. So he crushes the interview on Saturday. On Monday, he
has an important conversation with Anthony Davis. The two talk on the phone, and that was important because Anthony Davis had sort of been backing James Brago, who he overlapped with in New Orleans briefly after being drafted.
So, you know, he talks to JJ.
They get on, you know, the same page that they talked through the offense and sort of what the vision is for Ady being more involved in fourth quarters and crunch time, and then on you know, So then a couple of days, so the finals on Monday, JJ gets a couple of days to decompress, be with his family, think over the situation, and then Thursday morning he gets the contract offer and they agree to terms. So that is the sort of timeline of the last seven weeks.
And there was lots of swiss and turns with the Dan Hurley situation. James Brago was technically the first candidate to get an interview in person, so like, there's some detours along the way, but from the beginning, most of the buzz was JJ and this ended up playing out that way ultimately.
Yeah, the timeline seemed pretty simple to me in the sense that like, yeah, you don't want I think JJ would have honored ESPN and gone and covered the finals even if he had taken the job. I mean, obviously we know behind the scenes he kind of thought it was his to have anyway, you know. But at the same time, I could see why ESPN wouldn't want the broadcast team like just naturally discussing JJ coaching the Lakers while they're trying to cover the finals. So like, it
made some sense on that front. And then Dan Hurley's one of those guys too, where you know, if his name comes up as an option, you just have to explore it. You can't just be like, nope, we already have our guy, like go. You know, there's a certain diligence you have to do there. Even if it was a long shot, and it all seemed pretty standard in natural,
there was definitely some drama on the reporting front. I thought it was bizarre how Adrian Moorganowski was just kind of covering it as though the JJ was never in the picture and it was always about Dan Hurley. It was kind of weird. It seemed pretty natural flowing to me that JJ was their guy. Another option came to the surface, they explored it, it didn't pan out. They were patiently waiting for the end of the Finals, and
then JJ became the option. Now before we kind of get back into JJ, I was wondering, I have a couple of quick follow ups.
First of all, was there.
Any consideration for Monty Williams after he became available the other day?
No, I've been told no.
There had been some Monty buzz in May of it was trending toward him potentially being fired, and there was a sense of similar to Taylou, who Monty Williams was someone the Lakers previously pursued in twenty nineteen. He was the number two choice behind Lou, and had he become available, I think, like a month ago, I think he would have been interviewed and had a legitimate chance to win the job. But I think at that point they were
too far along with Reddick to seriously consider that. And I mean if they had pivoted to well, let's stall, let's like I mean, first, they're running out of time that the draft is in, you know, five days, but also it's you know, I think at that point, had they spurned Reddick a second time for another candidate, that might have been a deal breaker.
Yeah.
I like I viewed Money Williams two as like the old guard of NBA coaches. It kind of fits into that like like Doc Rivers kind of mold where it's there's just it almost seems like they're disconnected from where modern basketball is going, and there their own personalities almost become bigger than the team. It almost just seems counterproductive. So I feel like they, you know, made the right
decision to not look down in that direction. So just really quickly before we move on, how did you interpret the whole like woje Day and Hurly thing? Was that like do you think that there was some gamesmanship going on there or was there truth to what he was saying about early being the target the whole time?
It's this part of the story is I will say, like I've been covering the NBA since twenty eleven, this is going to be my seventh season as a beat writer.
This was the craziest like wrinkled to a.
Story I can remember personally, because even coming like typically, I mean, there will be things that blindside you covering the MBA of be it trades, signings, firings, hirings, like there's an element of secrecy for sure, but this is still a situation where you talk to five different people with and around the team, and you will get five different answers, five different conspiracy theories, five different perspectives as
to what actually happened with this situation. So for me, my best read on it, I would say is there was legitimate interest from the Lakers end for Dan Hurley.
Like they made him, they flew him out, they interviewed him, They risked losing j because like there was a scenario in which this plays out and JJ just says, like, you know, peace, like I don't like you know, you guys, were you know, indicating one thing, then you flip that and now you're interviewing Hurley and like I'm out, and JJ could have and then all of a sudden, now there it's Jade Sprago or maybe it is Moni Williams
now that he's available. But like, I think that the Lakers would have been on like Plan C or D at that point. So, h there was some real risk for the Lakers in terms of pursuing Dan Hurley and having this come out the way that it did and being this like spectacle like that, there was some real risk on their end. So I do believe that the
Lakers had legitimate interest in Dan Hurley. Now was it the level of interest that they were willing to make a godfather offer that he couldn't refuse, and the type of you know, eight years one hundred million had been thrown out there, Like had they put that on the table, I think he's probably.
The coach, and they clearly were not willing to do that.
So there's an element of like, you could want something but not want it to the extent that you're going all in, So I don't it's still unclear to me
if they were quite all in on Dan and Hurley. Like, they clearly were very interested and interested enough to make an offer, but it seems to me it might have been a situation where it was more like, we want you, and we're willing to give you this contract, but we're not going to go above this, and if you're not willing to accept this, we're fine with getting our first choice pretty much the whole way, which was JJ Reddick.
So as for like the Hurly communication, you know, my sense was they reached out to him initially when they made the initial candidate pool and he was not interested at that time. Since then, ESPN and The La Times have reported that Hurley met with Polinka, apparently kind of secretly at the combine and they had some conversations there, so you know, if that's the case, then obviously you
know that there was maybe something interest around then. But still, you know, in talking to a lot of people around, the Lakers was like this was something that was kept very internal of it, very tight lipped, like it might have only been three or four people who knew about it, including players not knowing about this. So they did a good job of like moving in secrecy with the move.
And look, I think if Dan Hurley had been available from the beginning, I think he would have been the no brainer for choice, So it makes sense why the Lakers went after him. I think the thing that is less clear is how serious Dan Hurley was about this situation, right, because really, if you look at who had the most of the gain here, it was basically Dan Hurley.
And now he got elevated. Like I don't follow.
College basket, Like I knew who he was, but I don't follow college basketball that much. I know Yukon had won back to back, but it's like now I know a lot more about Dan Hurley over the last few weeks than I had previously known, and like he's been elevated to a certain status that you know, he probably deserves because of his accolades. But like, I don't think he I mean, you've clearly talked about way more now and he just did a giant press tour after this
Jury five interviews. It's like, I don't know, there's like so that that part of the doesn't necessarily pass the smell testomy. But I know from the Lakers, Like I'm not as plugged in on the college basketball side or the Hurley side, but I can't say from the Lakers
side there was legitimate interest. It's just there's also degrees of interest, and clearly they weren't willing to go past that six seventy and that to me, in the case, they were fine with JJ if he didn't work out with early, they were fine you know picking JJ.
I appreciate that JJ didn't take it personally too. Like again, like I'm excited about what JJ can be as a coach, but he doesn't have any coaching experience. Dan Hurley is one of the most respected and accomplished coaches in the country right now, you know what I mean? And like, if the volume was looking for an NBA analyst and they had been talking to me and then suddenly JJ Reddick came available. It'd be stupid for me to be offended that they would consider JJ, or probably higher JJ
over me. He's JJ Reddick, He's arguably the best in the world at what he does, you know, right now in the sports media space. And so, like, I appreciate to your point there's some risk, but like I appreciate that JJ didn't take it personally, because again, that's just an avenue you have to explore if it becomes available, you know what I mean. So I want to I want to move more to the basketball side of this, which is, to me, the far more, the far more
fascinating side. Just tell me a little bit about the interview, the formal interview when JJ came to LA. What if you were to kind of like explain, like if you had to just just kind of like translate JJ Reddick's pitch for how to take the Lakers to the next level, how would you word that for us?
Yeah, So JJ met on Saturday with you.
You previously met with Rob Polinka, spoken with him multiple times over the course of multiple weeks, but this was his first chance to meet with Genie Buss Joey Buss, Jesse Buss and the real stakeholders in the Lakers and.
Have conversations with them.
So, you know, my understanding was he he met individually with each person and then there was also some some group conversations, but you know, each person had their own set of questions and different parts of the organization and just you know, basketball philosophy that they wanted to break down with him. And again I was told he was incredibly impressive, the most impressive of I mean, they only met with three different candidates Barrego, Hurley, and Reddick in person.
All of the other interviews were done remotely, uh, you know, primarily with Rob Polinka. So I guess among those three candidates, I was told JJ was the most personable. Uh. It was just the most detailed and he had, you know, multiple answers for any hypothetical that they were throwing at him. So one thing that he really pitched himself on was like, I know, I don't have any coaching experience at the
professional level, but I'm going to be adaptable. I'm going to come in with an open mind, and you know, I'm not coming from a certain coaching tree or a certain coaching philosophy like I'm going to be establishing this in this position, and I'm going to adapt to the
roster and the season and how things are going. And I think coming from you know, the situation with Darvin Ham and how that unfolded, there was an element of stubbornness with a lot of his mistakes, and that was really the biggest gripe with Darvin Ham was, you know, just the lack of adaptability with the rotation with lineups, with his coaching philosophies, be it pick and roll schemes or how the offense was being run. That Darvin Ham
was married to his philosophies. And JJ Redick came in and they had basically the exact opposite approach of I'm willing to adapt and continue to adapt and continue to
tinker and try different things. And then the other thing, which I think is arguably like it's not Ex's and O's, it's not basketball strategy, but his communication skills and the ability to effectively communicate with players and command the locker room and get a level of buy in was something that really appealed to them, especially coming off of Frank Vogel lost the locker room in his final season. Darvin Ham lost the locker room in his final season, and
part of it was with Frank. I think he's on the nicer side, he's a bit soft spoken.
With Darvin, there's.
Elements of that, but there was also some elements of disorganization in terms of game plan and strategy.
So I think JJ not only having.
A certain level of adaptability and coming in with an open mind of like I want to collaborate with the from office, collaborate with the players, and really make sure everyone is buying into the same vision of how we
are running this team. There's that element, but it's also the element of effectively communicating with players and making sure you know that the plan is going to be the plan, and you're going to know where you are in the pecking order, where you are in the hierarchy, and if that changes, we will have an open and honest conversation about that instead of because I would hear like and stuff starts to trickle out, but you would hear stuff of like you know, with Darvin, this isn't the PYLO
on Darvin. This is just to kind of contrast it. But like with Darvin, there might be like a certain plan at shoot around, and then in the pregame meeting that plan changes and guys would feel like, I don't really know like why this is changing, or I'm not given a reason. I'm just kind of told like, hey, you're out of the starting lineup tonight, or hey we're
going with this look tonight. And with JJ, I think like, and he certainly, I'm sure knew some of this stuff and was able to properly cater to the audience, and that's part of his skill, you know, clearly, But I also think like, if we're looking at his strengths coming in from day one, I think it is his adaptable mindset, and that's based on just listening to his podcast, listening to his basketball philosophy, but also his communication skills, and
he is far and away a better communicator than Darvin Ham or Frank Vogel, and I think that that's going to be an asset that from day one he's able to communicate with the players in a direct way and even a confrontational way, but I think a way that's going to benefit them where they're going to have the hard conversations early and it's not always going to be pretty, but I think that's one of his clear skills from day one.
Yeah, I think specifically with the younger roster too, Like if we look back last year now, I think will I think they will bring in a vet or two this year to try to kind of balance that, because I would venture to guess if you asked Lebron on some truth serum, like what were your thoughts on the roster last year, one of the things he would say is he'd probably say we were a bit too young, and that I think it reflects in some of just the lack of attention to detail that you saw on
a possession by possession basis. You know, JJ, I think is going to have a relatively easy time bringing the certain amount of you know, uh presence or aura to communicate with a young player and get him to kind
of like listen to what he has to say. But I think it will be contingent on Lebron kind of backing all of that, in AD backing all of that, And so as long as Lebron and Ad kind of stand behind JJ early on to help add you know, legitimacy to the things that he's saying, I think that a lot of JJ's communication will resonate you know when I think about it, Bear with me here for a minute, because I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of go through my thought process on this.
But like.
His love for the game and his competitiveness, I give him like an a plus. You just don't make it to the NBA as JJ Reddick if you're not just a crazy, a crazy m effort for lack of a better word. And like, I actually think that JJ. We see this JJ that we see in the media, but I think he's got a nasty side, which I think will serve him well as a coach because I think there's a I think there needs to be an element of that you were talking about Frank Vogel being a
little soft spoken. Like, I think JJ's is going to be an animated coach, and I think that's going to be a good thing. I mean, when I look around the NBA and I think about the best coaches, Spolstra, Popovich, you know, occur tylu, you know, Michael Malone, like those guys are pretty animated and active and involved with what
they're doing. Right the experience side, to me, experience is like one of the more overrated things, you know, when it comes to this sort of thing like, I'd rather have a talented, inexperienced person over a mediocre experience person any day of the week, especially when it comes to these kinds of overly competitive professions. So the real thing that I think is fascinating is the actual basketball organization piece.
And so bear with me, I'm just kind of going to kind of go through some of my thoughts on where I think JJ can really help. So I want to start with offensive organization. So one of the things that frustrated me last year was the Lakers took some massive leaps in their five out offense and just seem to have awesome ball in player movement for extensive stretches and got a lot of really high quality looks that manifested in them being one of the best offenses over
the tail end of the season. But I thought that there was a lack of value on individual possessions in a kind of a tendency to get away from that from time to time. You know, one of the guys that I think did a really good job of breaking
this down this year is Tim Kranews. Tim kranis who does stuff just a lot of x's and O stuff, but he focuses a lot on the Lakers, and he was crazy enough to sit and chart like every single damn possession that the Lakers had this entire season, and he did a really nice job of kind of demonstrating the difference between when the Lakers ran set offense versus
when they ran freelance offense. And freelance offense has a very important part in the game of basketball, and it needs to be to think of it as like five out motion. It's just kind of like read and react basketball that you lean back on after you've run a set action or after you end up in the half court. But I think the Lakers could be served well by being more deliberate about getting to a set early in the possession and then playing in the flow out of that.
And there are too many possessions where like they would try to push in transition to run early offense, which is good. You want to push up the floor when you can, because if you can get the defense in
rotation without having to run a set, that's great. But there were too many of those possessions that when the transition push was kind of cut off, that they would flow into just like some basic ballscreen or ISO or dribble drive and the possession would fall apart early instead of pulling out running a set and then getting into action from there, getting into your five out motion from there, and so just simply increasing the percentage of possessions when
the Lakers actually run a set play versus and kind of cutting down on the possessions where they push and transition and then just kind of get into the flow before getting any sort of advantage. I think the attention to detail, valuing each individual possession more will help, as cran just pointed out so well, all over the course of the season, and as you can tell just by watching the film when the Lakers would run their sets, they got great stuff all the time. There's just too
much talent on the floor. There's too much basketball IQ in terms of the ability to read and react out of it. The weaklink was Ruey at the start of the season, and by the end of the season he started to feel when he was supposed to cut along the baseline, when he was supposed to flow into the next action. They have the talent to be a truly great offense as long as they value each individual possession. A couple individual things too, like cutting down on pull
up twos. They took twelve per game last year and shot just forty percent on him that was zero point eight points per shot. D LO took a ton of them that were really bad shots that he was barely hitting, like thirty nine percent of Austin Reeves was the only player on the team that actually got more than one point per pull up jump shot. And so I think like just cutting back on some of those, especially the
ones early in the clock. The getting Anthony Davis more involved piece is really interesting to me, and we can get let's just let's bounce back and forth on this for a minute and then we'll come back, because I do have some thoughts on JJ on the defensive end of the floor, but with getting Ad more involved, I one hundred percent agree as it pertains to the overarching forty eight minute game, Like there were way too many stretches where it'd be like a big third quarter run
for the other team and AD hasn't touched the damn ball for two and a half minutes, you know what I mean, Like that sort of thing happened way too often. However, crunch time. You know, AD has his own issues in those situations. You know, he has. He can struggle to read the floor from time to time. His inability to hit a jump shot can be an issue from time to time. The crunch time offense wasn't an issue for the Lakers last year. They were top ten in the league.
They had a one nineteen offensive rating in the clutch, and they had a one twenty one off offensive rating in the clutch in the three postseason games where they ended up in clutch situations. So, like, again, I'm not necessarily opposed to it. I just don't necessarily think that's the strong suit of AD's game. I think the bigger
thing is just sticking with the the uh. Like JJ's a big believer in three man action, making sure that if Lebron has the ball in these clutch time situations, that Ads not just standing in the corner spacing or just setting a basic ball screen. Because if Ad just sets a basic ball screen, most teams are gonna switch that, and then AD is just gonna go stand in the corner or stand in the dunker spot. Three man action
makes it so much harder to switch. And there were moments, especially in the Nuggets series, where the Lakers run a bunch of stack pick and roll down the stretch of the game with d Lo backscreening for Ad in those ball screens, and they got great stuff out of it, and they can that I think is great. Keeping Ad involved in three man action at the end of games is great, But I don't think just force feeding Ad
in the clutch is gonna solve the problem. And then the last thing I'll say before I bounce it back to you, They've got to invest more at the start of the season and throughout games in Anthony Davis's jump shot. I think, especially as Jared Vanderbilt gets reintegrated next year, especially if they end up having some sort of big look where AD's at the four, I think they're gonna need Ad to take at least five to six jump shots a game and be willing to take three point shots,
especially out of the corner. And then if I shouldn't even say just out of the corner too, like he's got to take picking pop jump shots too, because those are open in the offense. But like there is way too often during the regular season where that just disappeared from AD's game and he'd take one or two jump shots a game for a month and it's like no matter how good he is as a jump shooter if you don't invest in it so that he can build
rhythm that won't reap rewards down the end. And so I really want to see him just be more invested in over the course of the season as a jump shooter as well. But in general, I agree with getting Ad more involved in the offense. I just don't necessarily think force feeding him in the clutch is going to solve all their problems. Do you agree?
Yeah, yes, I do.
And you mentioned the three man actions, So that's something that we heard during this process of reporting was the Lakers and now JJ Reddick are looking forward to these three man actions with Lebron Ady and Austin Reeves. I think you are going to see some stack pick and rolls in span pick and with those three and a lot more three man actions. And I think the framing has been interesting where it's been. You know, obviously, you know at some point Lebron is going to retire and
it's going to be Anthony Davis's team. So there has been a focus and an onus on how can we get Ad more involved, how can we continue to funnel things through him a bit more? But the three names that we've heard over the last few weeks as like, you know, focuses for the Lakers in terms of player development and how they fit with the roster is Austin Reeves, Ruey, Hutchimora, and Max Christy. And I think that's kind of interesting
with you. I mean, you still have Jared Vanderbilt there, you still have Gave Vincent, you have Jalen Hood Schafino, Maxwell Lewis so like some younger players, but like those have been the three names that the Lakers have been sort of treating as the foundation of the team in
addition to Lebron and Ad. So I think elevating Max Christy will also, you know, that's a whole other conversation that we've had I'd at various points, but like, I think he can step in and potentially be like a top eight guy next season for them Ruey, either as a starter or as like a six man type like microwave forward off the bench.
So I think the.
Lakers, I mean, like it seems to be an acknowledgement of like who the best players on the roster are or who the better players on the roster are and the different ways to empower them.
But yeah, I think like the Lakers would.
I remember with Frank Vogel, they'd run those pin down actions for ad that where he could curl or he could pop from the left side of the floor, and like they would occasionally do that with Darvin, but they didn't do it consistently enough. And I think that's the other thing is like, you know, and this was something that we reported out during this process, was like JJ's
meticulousness and his attention to detail. And he's a guy who's very i mean honestly borderline OCD and in some way, like you talked about doing his three hundred and forty two shots from the same spots on the floor every day during the offseason, and like he's very routine based to to you know, is.
Everything he does.
And I'm sure, like I'd love to pick his brain on the podcasting side as to like how he improved as a podcaster, because I'm sure he was very routine oriented with that and probably would watch back to film and take notes and like break it down almost like breaking down basketball. So like that's just how he's wired, that's his personality. And that was not and again it's not to keep bringing up Darvin Ham, but like that
was something that the Lakers struggled with last year. And I think JJ coming in and I think he is going to be tracking some of these things. And that's another thing that JJ is much more pro analytics than any coach the Lakers have had, like ever, and the Lakers are kind of always like, you know, they were one of the last teams to send an analytics group to the Sloan Mit Sports Conference, and they're one of
the last organizations to beef up their analytics staff. So like the Lakers have always kind of been behind the curve with analytics and modern basketball even I mean even the last few years, like they've been among the league, you know, you know, among the last place of three point attempts, and like last year they shot the ball much better, but they were still twenty eighth in attempts. So it's like they have to modernize their offense as well.
And I think one of the things that JJ has constantly talked about is like he has a good relationship with Joe Miszula, And you know, I don't think Laker fans do love this, Like his son's favorite team is the Celtics, and like so he consumes the Celtics a lot.
And what did the Celtics do?
They take forty plus threes a night, And there's obviously ways you generate those threes. You're not just taking threes to take them necessarily. But I think for the Lakers, like modernizing the offense and actually like and everything was rim based, and I think there is an element of like, yes, you have Lebron, you have Ad.
You should be living in the rim.
You shouldn't be making those guys take like, you know, ten plus threes a night.
But there's also.
A balance to it where I just think in twenty twenty four and beyond, you can't be twenty eighth and three point attempts per game and expect to actually contend for a championship.
So I think unless you, you know, have your dominating all.
The other category, which the Lakers weren't necessarily doing either. So I think for them, part of it's going to be, you know, to your point with Ad, like getting ads jump shot going and potentially more threes, and that's that's been a talking point every preseason for like the last three years. So it remains to be seen if he'll actually do that. But even if eighty isn't taking more threes.
If they can find ways to just generate five to seven more threes a game and shift that away from some of the pull up jumpers, some of the mid range stuff, and just modernize their offense, I think that could go a long ways. I mean, they were again second in the league, you know, from February on, that could be first by a bit right over the course of a full season, potentially depending on how they reshape
the roster. So I think JJ is going to come in with a very organized, very analytically driven and I think he's going to bring an element to the Lakers offense that they have not had really ever, you know, since the league has shifted over like the last decade.
Yeah, you hit that, you hit the nail. Ned Like if you could turn those twelve pull up twos into seven pull up twos and those five all become either rim attempts or three point attempts, like, that's the thing. It's not. It's not so much the number of threes, because you know, it's more efficient than threes rim attempts. So it's like, as long as you're just trying to tilt your offense towards those two types of attempts in
a way from the lower value attempts in the middle. Now, some of it's unavoidable, like Lebron James is forty next year, so like he's not gonna stop taking pull up twos, at least not to some sort of dramatic extent. But like if you can get it, like if Austin's taking them in Lebron or taking them, but no one else is taking them, and they're primarily in rescue possession situations, meaning like late clock, need to get something going, you know, just to kind of get something up on the rim
before the end of the clock. I liked your mention of kind of JJ's focus on analytics, Like I like that he specifically mentioned in the reporting that I saw the focus on empirical evidence, which is basically like being able to Again, there's always there's there always two sides to this, because you don't want to overreact to evidence, especially in a small sample size if you have an
overarching basketball philosophy that you're trying to build out. So for instance, like the Laker early five out results were bad, and so if you actually just listen to the evidence, you'd be like we were a better offense last year when we were running these spread pick and roll, cleared side pick and roll, just kind of like old fashioned four out brute force type of offense. If you bail on five out, you don't get the results that we got in the tail end of the season when everything clicks.
So it's always a delicate balance. But at the same time, it's like there was abundantly clear evidence that the Torrian Princes at the three stuff wasn't working for the majority of the first part of the season, and they never bailed on that until it was too late, and then
they were in some massive hole in the standings. And so I think just a better relationship with the data, better understanding of how it works, in a better like willingness to listen to it will go a long way toward towards helping the Lakers kind of avoid some of those pitfalls. Defensive end is where that can be really useful. So, like I was looking through the numbers today, the Laker defense was pretty bad, especially bad in the regular season
after their offense started clicking. Now they had some moments in the playoffs where they defended really well. I thought they defended the Nuggets pretty well for large stretches, but then they really struggled in crunch time. But I thought that was more personnel related. And there's this I want to be clear before I go any further on this, there's a personnel element to this that has to be
factored in. The Lakers do not have a starting caliber player that is an excellent perimeter defender and a plus offensive player doesn't exist on the roster, and that's something that they absolutely have to address going into this postseason, which we're going to talk about here in just a minute.
But the Lakers gave up the three the third most three point attempts in the league per game, They allowed the sixth highest opponent three point percentage, they allowed the the tenth most points in the paint per game, they allowed the fourth most second chance points, and they allowed the fourth most fast break points. So like they were there wasn't a phase of defense where they were great except for not fouling, so which probably had a lot to do with everyone getting easy buckets on them.
Right.
So, like, I think there's an analytic approach to defense as well as it pertains to like you've got to find out what you can protect for sure, in this case, in all likelihood, protecting the paint is probably going to be the goal of this particular team, But we don't know what the roster looks like. But there are certain things that, regardless of your personnel, you can clean up through coaching in terms of preaching, attention to detail, and focus on fundamentals. So like, this team has to be
a good defensive transition team. You can't be giving up as many points in fast break situations as they did last year. This team has to find a way to at least take away either the rim or the three point line. It can't be neither. If it's neither, you have no chance to be effective defense. So like, again, if we come out of this and Max Christie's the best perimeter defender on the roster going into training camp, then that probably needs to be a roster that loads
up the strong side and shuts down the paint. That has to be like at least somewhat of the fundamental strong point. Or if they're more built around taking away the three point line, then there needs to be a focus on that in terms of not overhelping, staying home on shooters, giving up rim attempts at the expense of taking away those three point shots. What it can't be is what Darvin Ham built out last year, which is
a defense that is good at nothing. And so again like just identifying whatever direction he wants to go with this with this roster when it's all built, and just kind of constructing a game plan that at least tightens up some of those areas, because at the very least you have to be like, if this is going to be an offensive oriented team, like, let's pretend they go in on an offensive minded you know, trade piece that they bring in and it's Austin lebron Ad and some
other great offensive player, and we're the super high powered five out offense and we're top five in the league in offensive rating. Blah blah blah blah.
That's great.
You still have to be at least a mediocre defense. They have to be in that ten to fifteen range at a minimum if they're an elite offense to be a legitimate threat. And that can be done just like the Denver Nuggets did last year, as long as you polish up all of those details and you're great at least at some things. And so again, just paying attention to the data, the attention to detail holding players accountable.
I think that's gonna go a long way all right, before we get into the offseason, I'm gonna have some rapid fire questions for you surrounding surrounding the JJ higher. What is Lebron's involvement been with on the JJ Reddick front in terms of him getting the job.
Apparently it's not been involved.
That's been what we reported at the Athletic that that's what we've heard from sources within the organization and also outside of the organization. I mean, Rich Paul came out and basically out statement to Sham's about Lebron not backing JJ and basically just because of our podcast partners doesn't mean he wants him to be his head coach. So I think really this traces back to the Russell Westbrook situation and some of the fallout with that and the
blame game from that. So I think ever since then, the front office and Lebron have not been.
They've not been.
Working as closely as they were up to that point. So I think that it's it's been a little bit more of a separation of church and state, so to speak. And I think with Lebron it was sort of like like, you're I'm probably gonna get the blame here.
If JJ, if they hire JJ.
And it doesn't work out, Like I'm going to get some level of blame here because we have this podcast together. So I'm just like, I don't have a say in this.
I'm removing myself. So you know, to my knowledge zero, I mean, of course, on some level, like him having a podcast, we can't ignore him having a podcast with JJ and then seeing eye to eye on basically every everything, excuse me, everything basketball wise, Like there's some level of like, okay, well you got the co sign there, but from my you know, to my knowledge, he was not involved in this process.
So what do you think the Lakers mean when they say they view him as pat Riley or Eric Spolstra.
Well, pat Riley, I think there's a clear you know that one. It's not just like the way he dresses or or the hair. It's it's more so like making the jump from being a player to the broadcast booth to the coaching chair and a matter of just a few years now, pat Riley, did you know he was an assistant coach for a couple of years, so he at least had a little bit of experience before becoming
a head coach, So that is one key difference. It's also in late seventies early eighties, like they had one assistant coach, so it was like a much different process, and it was probably like a slightly easier process, right or even very much easier.
But so that's one thing. But they see like the charisma.
The gravatas, like him having that tough, competitive.
Spirit, and they see a lot of the traits that the Lakers.
Saw in pat Riley that made them want to elevate him to being their head coach as traits that JJ Reddick has as well.
So nothing like basketball exits.
No's necessarily, but more so like just the the personality, the charisma, the competitiveness, the like the desire to win at all costs.
They see that in JJ Reddick. So that that's and.
The Lakers, of course, like they tend to, you know, compare things to their past and the glory days, so like it is, you know, it's kind of funny that like that was the comparison. Now the Eric Spolstra Steve Kerr is more so, like they want JJ to become a program builder, a culture setter, like those are the terms that they use and have a coach in place
for the next ten fifteen years. And it is interesting to me that he only signed a four year deal compared to the six year deal that was offered to Dan Hurley. But they're viewing this as like Lebron and eighty probably have two more years maybe three MAX together, and then there's going to be the next era of Lakers basketball, and can you build something sustainable here and be a stalwart and be you know, an iconic coach that transcends this era of Lakers basketball, that transcends maybe
multiple iterations of Lakers basketball. And you know, Steve Kerr obviously has been fortunate to have Steph and Draymond and Clay together for that whole time. But like looking at Eric Spolstra when he came in, I mean, he came in right before the Heatles, and then you know, see he had that version of like Dwayne Wade going out getting thirty and ten every night, but they were a pretty bad team. Then they get the Heatles, then they have that kind of down period and then they rebuild
and get Jimmy Butler and Beam out of Bayo. Now they have this iteration and now they might be going in a different direction potentially this offseason. So, like Eric Spoltzo has been there for multiple generations of heat basketball, and I mean it's it's a very high bar for JJ tow be coming in it'd be compared to those guys.
But he's about to turn forty next.
Week, and he you know, he's incredibly young, and so like this is if he wants to, he could coach till he's sixty five seventy, and you know, whether that ends up being with the Lakers or multiple teams, like only time will tell. But they want that type of guy of like just a smart person who's going to adapt to how basketball is changing and year over year change their coaching philosophy, change like how they view things, and that is something that JJ's pitching that he's going
to do. And so I think those comparisons are more like a modern version of that. But the pat Riley wanted, I think it's more just like the glory days and they're just the path that they follow to becoming coaches.
Yeah, there's a lot of pressure there, but I think that JJ will handle that kind of pressure well and use it to fuel him two more quick ones before we get to the offseason. Did the podcast get mentioned at all during the interview process?
Not to my knowledge, but I was not in those conversations, so I can't. I'm I mean, I would guess probably, but not to my knowledge.
If you had to quickly list off what you expect the assistant coaching staff to look like, what do you think? Yeah?
So the four names we reported at the Athletic are Sam Cassell. The Lakers would love for him to be a lead assistant, Scott Brooks, Jon Rondo, and Jared Dudley. I don't expect all four of those names to be on the bench next season. I would expect maybe a
couple of them. Uh, Sam could be in Land to be promoted in Boston with Charles Lee going over to Charlotte that Scott Brooks was recently let go by Portland, and then Rondo's dealing with some off court legal stuff, so that's that's the potential, you know, hold up there. And then Jared Dudley, I mean, he was on Dallas's bench and they just made the NBA Finals, so he could potentially be in Land for a promotion there or just staying there because of the state that that team
is in right now, So I like Stanman. This is just pure speculation here, but Stanman Gutty is a name that to me, I think would be an interesting one of just you know, he's calling games for T and T right now. But JJ has said that that is the best coach he's ever played for, and I think he would make a lot of sense either as an offensive or probably more of a defensive coordinator, but like either way, kind of being that lead guy if the
Lakers can't land Sam Cassel. So pure speculation there for those who are about to agree to that, but I think stanm Aan Gutty would make a lot of sense. So I've heard though they want at least one former head coach, if not two, on this current staff or on JJ's staff, as kind of a buffer with experience and just to help guide him through his first year.
Yeah, I'm I am most concerned about them giving him somebody to help with just like the personality dynamics and navigating just the flow of an eighty two game season and some of the postseason highs and lows that can take place after wins and losses. In terms of the tactics, I actually get really nervous about former head coaches because like some of them tend to be a little bit stuck in their ways. The NBA is very different than what it was when Stanman Gundi was last coaching at
the NBA level. So like, but I don't worry about JJ with the tactics at all, because he's just he's crazy. He's crazy competitive, he loves the game. That dude will That dude will be buried in basketball ideologies for the next month, like for the next three four months prepping for this season. I have no concerns about his ability
to handle the tactic side of things. It's just will he be able to handle the personality dynamics that are very different being a coach versus when you're just in the locker room as a player, And so like getting some head coaching experience just to help him navigate that I think would be really useful. All Right, we're just going to spend about five to ten minutes on this. But obviously it's been what seven eight weeks since you
and I last chatted. What do you think the current ideology is at the front office in terms of the direction you think they'll go this summer in terms of player personnel.
So what I've been hearing the last few weeks and what I've been reporting out has been the team leaning more toward small to medium upgrades to this roster, likely in the form of a couple separate deals with role players. So the mid sized contracts that they have are Austin Reeves, Ruy Hutchemora, Jared Vanderbilt, potentially the Angel Russell if he
opts in, and Gabe Vincent. So of trading some combination of those guys, either packaging a couple of them together or doing a couple separate deals and then using your picks, maybe using a Jalen Hoodschafino to get a couple of upgrades Vietnam.
Primarily like they need a wing.
Upgrade that they need ideally, like Ruy Hutchimora and Jared Vanderbilt have like a basketball baby, and like that is the starting small forward for the Lakers. That player is hard to find. But you know, I think not having to do sort of like offense defense with those two and having to pick and kind of give up one
side of the ball. So that's going to be a point of emphasis for them, is trying to find that elusive three and d winning, which they had multiple of them a few years ago, if you remember KCP, Kyle Kuzma and Alex Caruso, and now that they've really struggled to find two way talent over the last few years, so.
That that is like priority number one for them. Is figuring that out.
Now if D'Angel Russell opts out and leaves or ops out and is signing trade it somewhere like all of a sudden, you have that point guard hole and you only have the non taxpayer mL to replace him with. So the Angel Russell really is the pivot point here, and I haven't got a great read on what he's likely going to do. I mean, I thought the Molik
Monk contract was pretty interesting. It was a little bit lower than I was expecting for Molik Monk, and that could just be a sign of with the new second Apron rules and even the first Apron rules, teams are going to be more conservative with their spending on non
all stars and superstars. So a guy like the Angel Russell in theory, you couldn't maybe make the case of, you know, could he get twenty million from a team or twenty five like maybe on paper that could be his value, but in actuality like it might not be the case. So a guy like the Delo has to pick between do I want eighteen million four one year and then test for agency the following season, or do I want maybe a smaller annual value.
Deal for multiple years.
So but my sense in all this is the Lakers have been leading more toward smaller moves in part just because it gets really difficult to build out a good roster in twenty twenty four when you have three guys making forty plus million dollars. I mean, look at the Phoenix Suns like that ultimately was I think what you know did them in was just and there was a
limitation there. I think to how those guys fit, I think there'd be a more natural fit between a guard Lebron and ad Like I think positionally it kind of makes a bit more sense and like you could you could see the vision there. But after the Russell Westbrook situation, with the new second apron rules and the limitations with building out the roster and the limitations that come with just even crossing the first apron, I think they're leaning that way now.
I will say, like the Dan.
Early thing, it shook me a little bit in terms of like their ability to sort of misdirect. So I want to add the caveat of like, there's certainly the possibility that, like the buzz coming out has been supporting cast upgrades and you know, more minimal to margin all upgrades. But maybe there is a something that are working. But the problem with that, though is we just don't even
know who's available. Like right now, Atlanta has not clarified who's going to be available between Trey Young and de Chantey Murray.
It could be both, could be, neither could be one.
Donovan Mitchell has not signed his extension yet with Cleveland, so like that's a big one. Darius Garland is going to be kind of like the fallout guy with Die if Donovan stays versus if Donovan asks out. So like there's still a lot of uncertainty as far as like which stars are even available right now. But I would not be surprised if like that the Lakers kind of pull a smoke screen and all of a sudden, it's like, well they trade for star X that we were not expecting.
But as of now, everything I've been hearing has been more let's upgrade, like the starting small forward spot, may maybe the point guard spot if Dlo is gone, and then let's go into next season with some measure of continuity and then a couple of upgrades.
I like that strategy within the context of Lebron and Ad being healthy, Like if I just knew they were gonna have another season like they did last year. I like that strategy just simply because, like I thought, Lebron and Ad both played at a top ten level through the entire season, and especially in that first round. I thought both of I thought both Lebron and Ad. I thought Lebron and Ady just they straight up out played
Yo Kitchen Murray head to head. I thought Ad kind of more or less met Yo Kitchen's level, and Lebron was better than Jamal Murray outside of a few clutch jump shots. But down the roster, Aaron Gordon, KCP, Michael Porter Junior, those dudes just absolutely dusted the D'Angelo, Russell, Ruy Hatchi Mura group, like they really struggled and so like, Austin Reeves was pretty good once again, shot fifty five
percent on pull of jump shots. He's at twenty one playoff games now, seventeen points per game on sixty one percent for shooting, which is awesome, and so like, I kind of liked that idea within the context of what we've seen in recent NBA history too, because like Dallas misses the playoffs last year, make a couple of personnel tweaks, like here's a good point of attack defender and Derek
Jones junior. Here a Ford in PJ. Washington, here's two vertical spacing threats, and Lively and Gafford bam, all of a sudden, they're in the finals. So like, if your top two is as good as Lebron and ad Are and your third best player is as good as Austin Reeves is, then subtle tweaks can go a long way. Golden State twenty twenty one, their mediocre missed the playoffs. You know, bring in a you know, an Auto Porter junior, Bring in you know, Gary Payton, bring in the you know,
Andrew Wiggins kind of buys into his role. Klay Thompson comes back, all of a sudden, they end up winning the championship. So like, again, I don't I think it's a little bit more complicated just with how talented the top of the league is. But if the reality is is the de Lo Ruey piece was the weak point
last year. I was actually this morning watching a bunch of film, just kind of getting just reminding myself what the Laker offense looked like, because it's been so long since I've watched it, And like Ruy, Ruy turned out to be the weak point on both ends of the floor.
Too many possessions were ending with him getting wide open corner threes that he couldn't make, too many driving closeouts into the lane where he'd smoke a layup or take some sort of bad mid range pull up jump shot, not tracking Michael Porter Junior on the other end of the floor, losing track of him, not battling enough physically underneath the basket. Like Ruy just had a bad series. But Ruy to me is a bench player who's masquerading as a starter for the Lakers. D'Angelo Russell is a
redundancy next to Austin Reeves. And so if I believe, I genuinely believe this, if the Lakers could get two high quality starters, not stars, just starters that play at the two and the three between Austin Reeves, Lebron James and Anthony Davis, that just automatically puts them into a different tier as a basketball team. I think that would put them up in that group with the teams that are out of the play in that are towards the
top end of the of the Western Conference. But it's hard, it's those are the two most desired positional archetypes around the league in terms of role players are the two and the three guys that guard opposing perimeter players and that are offensive threats off the ball when teams throw extra attention towards your stars. So it's a lot to ask to go out and find that type of player. But like, as long as Lebron and Ad are healthy, I like that strategy. My main concern is what do
you do if AD misses thirty games? What do you do if Lebron misses thirty games? If Ad misses thirty games, you absolutely have to have some kind of legitimate center that can play and defend the rim and win contested rebound battles. Jackson, Hayes and Christian woodren't those guys, So they have to find a legitimate backup center option because chances are Ad will have to miss some chunk of games this year and then on the Lebron James front.
If he misses time, the Lakers ball handling takes And that's where it could be an issue where if you did have just role players and you didn't bring back let's just for the sake of argument at Dejonte Murray, if you add a Dejontay Murray in a legitimate backup center, you just have more fortitude to deal with Lebron and AD injuries. But then the flip side of that is like, you're not winning the title unless Lebron and Ad are
healthy anyway. So like, I understand that perspective in the sense that you're basically betting like our best version of ourselves is healthy Lebron Ad playing at a top ten level, Austin being the MAINO genobili of the team, and two starting quality two and three that all come together for
a postseason run. So like, again, there's just a certain amount of risk when you're building around a forty year old Lebron James and an Anthony Davis who's had a propensity to be you know, deal with injuries from time to time. But I am curious to see and to your point about like them coming out of the woodwork with some sort of you know, random deal. It really
just matters what's available, Like that's really what matters. Like if you have a phone call with somebody and that's like, oh shit, we can get this guy or that guy, then yeah, you got to explore it. But like if those aren't available and these high quality role players available, you got to go that way. It's not worth it to just invest in two low quality starters either, right, So, like again it's it's really hard to make a call on these things just because we're so disconnected from it.
But anyway, Yovan, we've already taken too much of your time. I really appreciate you making this work on short notice. It's good to see you again. It's been too long. I would imagine you and I are gonna have a lot to talk about over the course of the next month. Isn't it funny how the NBA season works where it's like it's just it's like, oh, here's the trophy. On Monday, it's the Celtics are are champions, and then it's like JJ Redicket's hired, the draft is on Wednesday, free agency
starts that weekend or whatever, like it just never freaking ends. Man, before we get out here, why don't you tell us about what you're working on over at the Athletic right now and on your YouTube channel.
Yeah, so I will be reporting out the JJ Redick press conference whenever. That likely Monday or Tuesday. He actually turns forty on Mondays, so I wonder if he gets the day off from doing the buzzsaw of media that that's gonna be fitting for him asking about podcasting and all that stuff. But uh, yeah, so we'll be reporting all that out at the Athletics, So make sure to subscribe and then also make sure to check out my YouTube channel. You can just search you govom booha or
Booja's block. That is my video podcast on there. So we'll be also reacting and uncovering everything that we're reporting out, so be on the lookout for that.
Thanks again, Yovan. Everybody get over there and subscribe to Yovon's YouTube channel as well as supporting his workover at the Athletic. We are going to take the rest of the weekend off. On Monday, we have Sam Vassini, also from the Athletic, coming on the show. We're going to break down the NBA draft everything I talked about at the end of this week in terms of the five
biggest takeaways from the postseason and the mail bag. Thanks to the JJ redick Hier, we are pushing that to Tuesday Wednesday next week and then we will be reacting to the NBA Draft on Thursday morning. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show and we will be back after the weekend on Monday.
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