Rob Pelinka and JJ Redick held their annual press conference ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers’ season on Thursday afternoon and the big news coming out of it was that the head coach had signed a contract extension this summer.
The news came as a bit of a surprise considering Redick was only one year into the four-year deal he signed to be the Lakers’ coach last offseason. The organization obviously believes in him though, and rightfully so after leading the team to a 50-win season and the 3 seed in a loaded Western Conference in his rookie year as a coach.
Pelinka did not reveal the details of Redick’s extension, but according to Shams Charania of ESPN, it tacks on two years to put him under contract for five more seasons at around $45 million:
“I’m told the Lakers gave JJ Redick a two-year extension, so that’s gonna go for five years through 2029-30 at $45 million. So this makes it clear JJ Redick is the coach, not just now, but moving forward for the long-term beyond just the LeBron James era in Los Angeles. And as these coaching contracts continue to go up, as his deal is starting to end and as he has one year ticked off, they wanted to make sure they gave him two extra years. So he’s locked in there until 2030.”
For the first time in a while, the Lakers organization seems to be aligned from top to bottom on the direction they are heading. The Lakers now have a superstar in Luka Doncic to build around and a coach in Redick to guide them for years to come.
JJ Redick pleased with Lakers’ commitment to conditioning
One thing JJ Redick stressed to the Lakers players after his first season was that they needed to get into championship shape. Now that the offseason has come and gone, he is pleased with how his team took that to heart.
“Well, I’ll say this, we’ve asked all our guys to be in championship shape,” Redick said. “And not starting on Tuesday. And so, the commitment level across the board from our team has been very high this summer.
“We’ve had organized workouts. The guys have played pickup, really every day. We’ve added conditioning at the end. They’ve all been committed to it. I think for me, that’s probably been the biggest thing. It’s not a basketball thing that he can or cannot do. It’s just all of us being in elite shape.”
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