A big congratulations to LeBron James for pulling off his latest Michael Jordan-esque move by directly or indirectly orchestrating the hiring of JJ Redick as the new Los Angeles Lakers head coach.
With this hire, LeBron is almost certain to end his career in a disappointing fashion the same way Michael Jordan’s career ended.
Many people forget that in the midst of all arguments for Jordan as the Greatest basketball player Of All Time, there were his “down” playing years with the Washington Wizards.
While still averaging double digits in points, Washington failed to make the playoffs twice in a row before he finally called it quits.
Barring an inconceivable sharp drop in production, LeBron James’ final years in the NBA should put him ahead of (in an inarguable fashion) Jordan in the GOAT debate.
While LeBron gets the edge over Jordan when looking at their respective careers in their latter years per the numbers, it hasn’t been pleasant watching King James produce brilliant numbers for a 39 year old only to fall some ways short of winning a fifth NBA title.
Looking at the latest head coach appointment for LeBron, it is safe to say that his recent run of non-NBA Finals appearances looks sure to continue.
Now on to the Lakers, a big congratulations to them for managing to take the big shine from Boston Celtics who were the toast of the basketball world. Boston succeeded in knocking the Lakers off their perch by winning its NBA record setting 18th title and pushing the Lakers into second place by beating Dallas Mavericks 4-1 in the best of seven game series.
However, all that attention that comes with winning the world’s most prestigious basketball league has been whisked away by Boston’s biggest nemesis. The shock appointment of Redick has relegated Boston Celtics title win to the back and the Lakers’ firmly to the front.
If Redick’s appointment is for the Lakers to meet title winning ambitions and expectations, then the Lakers made the worst move. If the aim is to get more eyeballs, ratings and immense presence in the media circles, then the Lakers have more than aced this move.
Should the Lakers exceed expectations and emerge as title contenders, they will be must see TV and should they implode as expected, they will still be must see TV.
In the face of a massive losing run, people will definitely be interested in how LeBron James responds to the constant barrage of questions stemming from his reported influence in Redick’s appointment.
After all, Redick was a broadcaster who had never coached basketball at any level and was nowhere close to being appointed as the head coach of the NBA’s most glamorous club.
Doing a podcast with LeBron James for some three months got Redick on the radar and with LeBron’s purported nod of approval, the former Philadelphia Sixers, LA Clippers and New Orleans Pelicans player, got the Lakers head coach job. It will be fascinating to watch how Redick deals with talk of an imminent sack in the midst of a losing run; that should be pure gold media content.
A former player who got a shock start into NBA head coaching like this is Pat Riley but Riley won all those titles and won all those games mainly due to the Lakers having a top level team built around arguably the greatest Point Guard of all time in Magic Johnson and an older but still effective Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
For Redick, he has a still great but declining (impact-wise) LeBron James, a talented but inconsistent producer Anthony Davis who is aging fast and a bunch of good players to deal with and that is sure not to be enough to get over Redick’s shortcomings.
Through his podcast, Redick showed that he is a brilliant tactical guy but head coaching the biggest basketball brand pretty much in the world goes beyond having a brilliant basketball mind.
Managing very big player egos and front office whims is a big deal that makes the reality of coaching harder than it looks in abstract terms. Unfortunately for Redick, he doesn’t check the political box as a white guy who jumped over a very long queue to land this job and NBA players (predominantly black) know this and are sensitive to it; cue Steve Nash.
Steve Nash, a far more accomplished player than Redick who turned into coaching, suffered in part because of this after his appointment as Brooklyn Nets head coach.
Nash flamed out in Brooklyn and has withdrawn from the sport spending his time as a full time father for his children. Nash, who was appointed to coach Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving had his near three year head coaching stint ending in shambles largely due to player related issues.
Sidelining top candidates like James Borrego, former head coach of Charlotte Hornets and Sam Cassell, a long term Assistant Coach who has served on the Sixers bench and was on Boston’s title winning coaching staff, hurts Redick’s ability to have a strong staff behind him.
Cassell, won NBA titles as a player and reportedly isn’t ready to serve under Redick while former Point Guard and NBA champion Rajon Rondo is rumoured to be in the mix for an assistant coaching job with Redick’s Lakers adding another green coach and more uncertainty to the Lakers mix.
Boston’s very young title winning head coach, Joe Mazzulla, made up for his NBA head coaching “greenness” despite having an extensive coaching particularly at the US College level by filling his staff with veteran assistant coaches like Cassell.
After pulling off the outlandish move by getting Redick appointed as head coach, getting LeBron James’ son, Bronny, to play with his father and check perhaps the last thing on LeBron’s list is the next expected move adding more drama to the mix. Bronny is expected to be drafted by the Lakers in this year’s NBA Draft.
Drawing from this big mess, the biggest takeaway is that if Frank Vogel and Darvin Ham were sacked for not being able to get the best from this Lakers team despite winning the NBA title and making it to the Western Conference Finals, can Redick go a step higher and win a title? The Lakers need stability but did the opposite and opted for drama beyond all that drama that plays out in the franchise’s location and makes it hard to root for them and LeBron James.