The Los Angeles Lakers' search for a new head coach is over: It's JJ Redick, the player-turned-podcaster/broadcaster who, according to The Athletic's Shams Charania, Sam Amick and Jovan Buha, the team thinks could be "their version of Erik Spoelstra and Steve Kerr." (Los Angeles has also, per The Athletic, compared his path from the court to the booth to the sidelines to the one that Pat Riley took decades ago. No pressure.)
The Lakers' search for a new coaching staff, however, is ongoing. The Athletic reported that the recently retired Rajon Rondo is a candidate, as are Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Jared Dudley, Boston Celtics assistant coach Sam Cassell and Portland Trail Blazers assistant coach Scott Brooks.
These names aren't new. On May 26, Marc Stein of The Stein Line reported that, should Redick land the job, he was expected to target Cassell and Dudley, as well as New Orleans Pelicans assistant coach James Borrego. (Both Borrego and Cassell were also candidates for the head-coaching position.) On May 29, the Los Angeles Times' Dan Woike reported that Cassell, Brooks, Rondo and Dudley were all under consideration, as was Greg St. Jean, who was an assistant coach with the Phoenix Suns last season and had been with the Lakers from 2019 to 2021.
Rondo played for the Lakers from 2018 to 2020 and again for the first few months of the 2021-22 season. He and Redick were in the same draft class (2006), and, in Rondo's brief second stint with the Lakers, he was teammates with Dudley. In 2013-14, Dudley and Redick were teammates with the Los Angeles Clippers and Cassell was on the coaching staff. Cassell coached Redick as an assistant under Doc Rivers from 2014 to 2017.
If Brooks, who was the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder from 2008 to 2015 and the Washington Wizards from 2016 to 2021, is on the staff, it will not be the first time that he has helped a first-time head coach make this transition. When the Blazers hired Chauncey Billups in 2021, they hired Brooks as his lead assistant.
