Recent reports from The Athletic’s Shams Charania suggest that the Los Angeles Lakers are “zeroing in” on current ESPN NBA analyst JJ Redick as their next head coach. And naturally, there has been a ton of discourse as to whether or not he is the right man for the job.
Redick parlayed his success at Duke throughout his four-year collegiate career into a 15-year NBA career, which he then turned into a successful career in media first independently through his podcast and later at ESPN and a new podcast with LeBron James.
Say what you will about Redick’s podcast with LeBron James perhaps playing a part in the Lakers’ interest in him as a head coaching candidate. But Redick has vast experience both playing the game of basketball at a high level, and breaking it down through his role as a lead ESPN broadcaster.
His broadcast partner, longtime ESPN play-by-play man Mike Breen, appeared on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Wednesday to discuss Redick’s potential coaching tenure in Los Angeles, saying that he believes that his partner has “all the characteristics” that it takes to be a great NBA head coach.
“I have my own coaching tree now,” joked Breen on the podcast. “His knowledge of the game is scary. And you can tell, when he talks to coaches they respond. When he talks to players they respond. And you add that with his love of the game. I’ve always heard wherever he played, he was a great teammate so he understands all that. You never know til a guy’s in the position, but I think he has all the characteristics to be a great head coach.”
As Breen illuded to, only time will tell whether Redick ends up being a successful head coach if he does indeed get and take the offer to be the new Lakers head coach. But given how quickly Redick was able to rise up the ranks at ESPN as a broadcaster, it seems like he has the ambition of achieving a ton of success in any venture that he chooses.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.