The Los Angeles Lakers hope new head coach JJ Redick will be the man in charge for a long time. General manager Rob Pelinka has spoken about Redick’s high IQ and what he can bring to this team and with the latter being only 40 years old, he is also more in tune with newer ideas that perhaps some old school coaches may not be as privy to.
This is something that Pelinka recently spoke on at Redick’s introductory press conference. The Lakers general manager noted that he and Redick have already had conversations regarding some more innovative ideas to help with player development with the younger generations of NBA players.
“That’s a great question, Dylan, and I think you’ve hit on a really important theme,” Pelinka said. “JJ and I have had some really robust conversations around innovation and sort of even gamifying player development. If you think about a 20-year-old basketball player today and maybe a 20-year-old basketball player, I don’t know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, the modiums of learning are completely different.”
It is certainly a different time now and Pelinka and Redick aren’t only looking to implement technology in terms of development, but also in helping the Lakers learn the system as well through an app.
“I mean, we all probably, some of us have kids, we have nephews, nieces. Kids and athletes are learning in new and innovative ways,” Pelinka added. “So we’ve talked about how do we translate coach Redick’s offensive system to app-based or a phone-based deliverable where players can be buying into a philosophy and learning it in a way that meets today’s young player. And I think innovation has got to be at the core of that.”
Connecting and communicating with players is an absolute must for coaches. Hopefully Redick will be able to do just that and embracing tech could be a way to make that process even easier. Whatever the case may be, it looks as if the Lakers will be jumping firmly into that world and building out an entire staff to help with it.
“We have a vision for, to your point of hiring out his support staff in sort of this tech, bullpen way of getting innovative minds to help bring his basketball strategy and bring his basketball philosophy to life in a way that our players can grasp it, learn it and actually grow their basketball IQ,” Pelinka noted. “I think there’s no one in the room that would argue that JJ is not one of the highest basketball IQ players and thinkers in today’s game. How do we now take that and deliver it to our players? That’s our goal here and something we’re really, really excited about.”
The vision is there and now it will be up to Pelinka, Redick and the rest of the Lakers to properly execute this and help this franchise get back to the top of the NBA world.
JJ Redick discusses framework of his ideal Lakers coaching staff
But just because JJ Redick plans to have some more innovative solutions doesn’t mean he doesn’t want some old-school voices on his coaching staff as well.
Redick recently spoke on his ideal coaching staff, saying that he wants a couple of experienced former head coaches at the front of the bench on his Lakers staff while also looking for some young, hungry, up-and-comers on the end of the bench.
But experienced or not, Redick also noted that he wants assistants who will disagree with him and that he looks forward to having those discussions with his staff when the time comes.
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