{"id":847953,"date":"2026-10-01T01:21:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T01:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/847953\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T01:21:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T01:21:20","slug":"jj-redick-felt-like-he-was-pretending-to-be-the-lakers-coach-at-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/847953\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ Redick felt like he was pretending to be the Lakers coach at first"},"content":{"rendered":"

JJ Redick acknowledged something<\/a> he hadn\u2019t planned to divulge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked how different it feels being in his third year as an NBA coach than his first, he opened up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably shouldn\u2019t admit this,\u201d Redick said at Lakers practice Wednesday, \u201cbut early in my coaching career I felt like I was cosplaying a little bit, you know? It\u2019s like I was pretending to be a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luka Doncic talks to JJ Redick against the New Orleans Pelicans. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

Redick was stunningly hired to take over the Lakers\u2019 helm in June 2024 after Darvin Ham was fired.<\/p>\n

Why was it so eyebrow-raising?<\/p>\n

He had no coaching\u00a0experience. He was taking over a 17-time championship franchise. There was no margin for error.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Talk about pressure.<\/p>\n

Redick has always come across as ultra-confident. He had to be. But on Wednesday, he let us peek behind his tough veneer.<\/p>\n

Even the coach of the Lakers can have imposter syndrome.<\/p>\n

Good thing for the Lakers, their gamble has panned out.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick reacts on the court during the third quarter of a game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\n

Last season, Redick became the first coach since Phil Jackson to have back-to-back 50-win seasons.<\/p>\n

Redick has drawn comparisons to Pat Riley<\/a>, who had very little coaching experience (two years as a Laker assistant from 1979-81) before taking over the helm in 1981. Riley went on to win four championships in LA. Last season, he was honored with a statue outside of Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n

As for Redick, he still has a long way to go. The Lakers haven\u2019t gotten past the second round of the playoffs since he took over, though Luka Don\u010di\u0107, Austin Reaves<\/a> and Walker Kessler desperately want to help him change that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s got a little more gray hair. but he\u2019s been great,\u201d Reaves said when asked about Redick\u2019s growth over the last three seasons. \u201cCare factor\u2019s high, intelligence is high. He cares more than anybody else and wants to win just like we do. So, you know, having that as a coach, you respect that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This much is for sure: Redick has gained the respect of everyone in the locker room over the last two seasons. No one is second-guessing the Lakers\u2019 decision to hire him anymore.<\/p>\n

And Redick no longer feels as though he\u2019s faking it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think you get more reps, you get more comfortable,\u201d Redick said.<\/p>\n

That said, Redick is very much still learning.<\/p>\n

Austin Reaves, JJ Redick and Luka Doncic of the Los Angeles Lakers pose for a portrait during NBA Media Day at UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the first to admit when he thinks he could\u2019ve handled situations better. There was the time he snapped at a reporter who asked if he was going to lean on his assistants for substitution patterns ahead of Game 5 of the first round of the 2025 playoffs. Or when he and Doncic shared a tense moment<\/a> on the bench last season. After both of those moments, he vowed to do better. <\/p>\n

Redick is willing to do the hard work. He\u2019s introspective. He obsessively rewatches games in a dark basement.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s his harshest critic. <\/p>\n

That led to a major change last season. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had a great revelation towards the second half of last year that I talked about with my performance coach this summer,\u201d Redick said. \u201c\u2026Some of the things that helped me as a player are deterrents for me as a coach. I think particularly with last year\u2019s team \u2014 and I don\u2019t know how this year\u2019s team is going to be \u2014 but I felt like calm is better.<\/p>\n

Luka Doncic talks with JJ Redick during a time out. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I played \u2014 I talked with Coach K [Mike Krzyzewski] about it this summer \u2014 when I played, I played with an anger. There was an inner-anger that drove my competitiveness. That\u2019s not always a good thing as a coach, particularly now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Redick, who was known as a dagger 3-point shooter during his 15 seasons in the NBA, realized he needed to adjust his style.<\/p>\n

He set the tone. If he was too intense, it resonated differently as a coach than as a player. Instead of being inspiring, it was detrimental.<\/p>\n

So, Redick adjusted. <\/p>\n

After laying into the Lakers following an embarrassing 119-96 loss to the Rockets on Christmas, Redick was noticeably calmer when they dropped the rope in subsequent games. And as the season progressed that started happening less and less. <\/p>\n

Then in the spring, the Lakers showed what they were made of by going on a 16-2 run. Everyone around the league began to wonder if they were championship contenders before Doncic and Reaves suffered injuries on April 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Redick then inspired the Lakers to believe they could win<\/a> without their two-highest scorers in the playoffs. They went on to beat the Rockets in the first round before being swept by the Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals. <\/p>\n

This season will be yet another learning curve for Redick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s ready for whatever comes. <\/p>\n

He knows he belongs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s very obvious to the rest of the league, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JJ Redick acknowledged something he hadn\u2019t planned to divulge.\u00a0 When asked how different it feels being in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,160,1331,251,150,368,6,478,470,4073,4072,675,66,1405],"class_list":["post-847953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-basketball","tag-california","tag-j-j-redick","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanspelicans","tag-pelicans","tag-sports","tag-walker-kessler"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117363034275635131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}