thelesterlee
From the moment LeBron James arrived in LA, the Lakers have had an internal power struggle between the owner—a 60-year-old woman who inherited the team from her father and now gets most of her basketball-related advice from a former player’s wife—a former agent turned GM—who built a championship team in 2020 that he immediately blew up—one of the greatest basketball players of all time—who may have forced the GM to blow up that championship team for Russell Westbrook—who I’m fairly certain went 0-for-1,000 in a Lakers jersey.
The one thing all of these feuding factions could agree on was firing head coach, Darvin Ham, after the team was eliminated in the first round, losing to Jamal Murray and the Denver Nuggets once again.
And the war reignited as two Darvin Ham replacements emerged: JJ Redick and Dan Hurley.
On Tuesday, Shams tweeted the Lakers were ‘zeroing in’ on JJ as their next head coach.
On Thursday morning, Woj tweeted the Lakers were prepared to hire UConn head coach, Dan Hurley.
The Lakers civil war has reached the Internet news breakers. Sides have chosen their reporters. LeBron’s team must’ve told Shams about the JJ Redick stuff—perhaps to put pressure on the front office to formally print out a contract for JJ to sign—all while the front office was actively pursuing a real head coach who isn’t buddies with Bron, telling Woj about their negotiations with Hurley.
The Woj/Shams stuff will always be funny as their jobs are to either break news that would be released by someone at some point regardless or to staple propaganda onto all the light posts and community boards in town next to the lost dog posters, yard sale locations and termite exterminator’s phone numbers.
As the Lakers fight each other while Woj stands over Shams, one foot on his chest with a fist in the air like Ali to celebrate stepping over his Redick story, let’s talk about, ya know, who should actually coach this team.
Who would be the better head coach?
One of these candidates does color commentary and hosts two podcasts. The other, has won back-to-back National Championships.
So it’s a toss-up.
If you listened to JJ Redick’s podcast then first of all, NERD. But JJ obviously knows the x’s and o’s of the game. Nothing that man loves more than talking about back cuts and screen actions using nomenclature only professional basketball players should understand.
But he is, and I mean this in the most disrespectful way possible, a podcaster. If I ran a basketball franchise, I promise you, I am not hiring JJ Redick and his strange star-fucking sidekick Tommy Alter, to coach my squad.
The only advantage JJ has is his relationship with LeBron—who seems like a nightmare to coach. 14 players on the team are looking at LeBron for approval so you need him to co-sign every decision the coach makes or else suddenly Rui Hachimura and Austin Reeves no longer believe in him.
Ty Lue was LeBron’s best head coach, mainly because it felt like they were genuinely friends. Perhaps Frank Vogel or Mike Brown are better coaches but having a secret handshake with LeBron adds like a +15 to the team’s awareness.
However, Dan Hurley has been the best coach in college basketball since arriving in Connecticut and if we’re acknowledging the risk taken by hiring someone with no NBA coaching experience, you should probably hire the candidate who has coaching experience in general but being a great one already helps too.
You also have to consider LeBron is 900 years old so no one in that front office should be taking his advice on anything. The Lakers are already about to draft his son even though he’s one tough practice away from LeBron becoming John Q.
Dan Hurley has proven his ability to establish a program and develop young talent within that program, a skill needed when LeBron retires after next season. I’d rather have a coach with a history of succeeding with young men than the guy who does movie drafts with Barstool Big Cat.
Who do I want to be the next Lakers head coach?
It would be cool to see Dan Hurley become an NBA coach. So many coaches these days are just re-hires who failed elsewhere or had the unfortunate luck of coaching Kevin Durant. Or their boring assistants like Joe Mazzula.
Dan Hurley has a personality and a different perspective on the game that the NBA is missing right now.
But for the sake of Deaderiousness, JJ Redick needs to be the Lakers head coach. It’ll be a year full of drama and bullshit and I will be there with a fork in my left, knife in my right devouring it all. People will dissect every sideline interaction between JJ and LeBron like the Sharon Stone Basic Instinct scene.
JJ is an inexperienced sociopath who’s a stickler for details and routine and LeBron loves doing whatever he wants, and he’s earned the right to do so, but wait until the team has a grueling practice that LeBron gets permission to miss so he can attend some wine tasting in Nappa.
The Lakers are going to be on fire. The streets need this chaos.
Plus, maybe this ushers in a new era of podcasters turned head coaches. Don’t be shocked to see Zach Lowe interviewing for the Hornets job. Joe Budden should 1000% get an opportunity to coach an NBA team next.
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JJ Redick or Dan Hurley? Leave a comment below. Respond on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s chat, bay-beeeee. Let me know who you think should be the next Los Angeles Lakers head coach.
