The Los Angeles Lakers’ trade for Luka Doncic was one of the most seismic deals in the history of the NBA and completely changed the fortunes of their franchise. But it was always going to be a process for head coach JJ Redick to integrate him in the middle of the season as practice time is limited.
Even still, Redick and the Lakers coaching staff did as good a job as possible and the team had an excellent end to the regular season before falling into the playoffs. But now going into next season, Redick will have an entire offseason to better integrate Doncic into the offensive system and has confidence in what he, LeBron James and Austin Reaves will grow into.
“Greg St. Jean was with Dallas that year so he’s kind of spoken to me about that and it’s nothing malicious, it’s nothing intentional, but these things take time, particularly with star players,” Redick said at the Lakers’ end-of-season press conference. “There’s a reason, in modern NBA history, go back the last 30-40 years, there’s been a handful or less than a handful of All-Star players traded in-season that led directly to a championship. These things take time.
“So I think there’s a great benefit in a full offseason. I know those guys will be communicating, hopefully we can get them together at some point for some sort of minicamp. And then going through training camp, preseason, that’s sort of where you build a foundation and the building blocks for the rest of the year. I think there’s value in repetition and frankly, we didn’t get a ton of repetition and that’s the nature of making an in-season trade. But certainly feel very confident and very optimistic about those three going forward.”
Doncic, James and Reaves showed glimpses of what they can become during the season and this offseason should allow for them to build even more chemistry. But it is Luka who is the face of this Lakers franchise going forward and Redick ultimately wants to bring out the best version of the superstar.
“I was only in Dallas for two and a half months. We both had an immediate bond to each other despite our age difference, despite he wasn’t a father then, I had two kids,” Redick noted about his relationship with Doncic. “We’ve kept in touch, we’ve spent a little bit of time together in the last three years so I think that bond that was already there gave us a great starting point as a player-coach.
“I think our first conversation when flew into LA that night, he wants to be coached, he wants to be held accountable. He’s expressed to me and what I’ve expressed to him is very similar, I want to bring out the best version of Luka and that’s what he wants from me. And so that’s the partnership going forward, that’s the expectation and that’s sort of the baseline of what we’re trying to do. Lets try to bring out the best version of Luka, and hopefully win a championship doing that.”
It is important for everyone to be on the same page in order to achieve that great success and Redick and Doncic seem to be locked in together. If Redick can do what he intends and bring the best out of Doncic, success for the Lakers should follow.
Lakers’ Luka Doncic loves having JJ Redick as coach
The relationship between Luka Doncic and JJ Redick is in a great place and the former praised his head coach for all he did in his first season as coach of the Lakers, and enjoys playing for him.
“I think he’s a hell of a coach,” Doncic said. “Not many coaches do the stuff he did in his first year, his rookie year or however you want to say it. So I’m really glad I got to be coached by him these couple of months. I feel sometimes like I’m back in Europe a little bit, so I love it. We have a great bond. It’s been nothing but amazing with him as a coach.”
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