JJ Redick is taking on one of NBA’s most daunting jobs: Coaching LeBron James

It’s official. JJ Redick just got one of the most daunting jobs in the NBA.

Not coaching the Lakers, though that is a job that he accepted Thursday on a four-year deal. No, the job Redick will take on, that ranks as perhaps the league’s most difficult, is coaching LeBron James.

On the degree of difficulty scale, that responsibility ranks about as close toward “good luck” as you can get.

Yes, LeBron is still a stunning talent, and he, coupled with Anthony Davis, will provide a chance at success. Yes, LeBron’s a profile raiser and basketball savant, qualities any budding head coach would crave as they strive to burnish the beginning of a career on that side of the game. And, yes, coaching the Los Angeles Lakes is a big-time opportunity, the rarified air that comes with one of only 30 such jobs on earth but swathed in purple and gold and all that comes with those storied colors.

But there’s also the fact you better win. Today. 

Strike that.

Yesterday. 

And the reality that LeBron, with those exacting standards, frenetic drive and ability — how to put this accurately but kindly — to love you one day and freeze you out until you’re fired the next can be as treacherous as he is remarkable to coach.

Take the coaching history that surrounded his all-time great career. LeBron has had eight full-time head coaches in his career. Only two — Erik Spoelstra and Ty Lue– weren’t let go on his watch (five coaches were fired and Luke Walton “mutually parted ways” with the Lakers in 2019 before taking the Kings job). And even those two cases require some caveats.

King James wanted Spo fired all the way back in 2010, the King’s first year in Miami, right around the time he realized not all basketball royalty can rule by royal decree. I covered that team, that saga, and can remember that buzz-beyond-belief Heat team starting 9-8 and all the angst it rained down, LeBron’s ire toward his might-have-been-former coach included.

That was a sign then not just of Pat Riley’s rare ability to tell LeBron no. It was a sign of the intangibles and troubles that…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/jj-redick-is-taking-on-one-of-nbas-most-daunting-jobs-coaching-lebron-james/

Author : Bill Reiter

Publish date : 2024-06-20 22:08:17

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