DALLAS, TX - APRIL 26: J.J. Redick looks on during the game between the LA Clippers and the Dallas Mavericks during Round 1 Game 3 of the 2024 NBA Playoffs on April 26, 2024 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2023 NBAE (Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images)

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The Los Angeles Lakers are reportedly turning to JJ Redick to help them achieve their championship aspirations.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported the two sides agreed to a four-year deal to make Redick the team’s next head coach on Thursday. The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Sam Amick and Jovan Buha reported that the deal is “in the neighborhood of $8 million per season.”

Wojnarowski added that Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka “became sold on Redick’s ability to connect with players and his basketball IQ and believes surrounding Redick with an elite coaching staff will help to shorten his learning curve into his first coaching job.”

Redick had long been a rumored candidate for L.A.’s head coaching job and the franchise turned its attention back to him after UConn head coach Dan Hurley declined a reported six-year, $70 million offer to join the organization.

The ESPN analyst “moved into the forefront of the search a week ago after the Lakers’ pursuit of Connecticut coach Dan Hurley was ultimately rebuffed,” Wojnarowski reported.

Redick was by far the biggest wild card in the Lakers’ coaching search.

The retired three-point specialist quickly rose to prominence within the media ecosystem thanks to his nuanced analysis. He parlayed that into what’s now going to be the brief run of the Mind The Game podcast with Lakers star LeBron James.

Still, this is a big gamble by Los Angeles. As much as he may know about the game, Redick has yet to work in any coaching role in the NBA and he’s now about to assume one of the league’s most demanding jobs.

Two things were true after the 2023-24 season concluded for the Lakers: It was time for Darvin Ham to go, and not all of the team’s failings were on the coaches.

Shortly after the team’s elimination in the first round of the playoffs, The Athletic’s Charania, Buha and Amick wrote a lengthy postmortem that laid out the frustrations with Ham. His rotations were puzzling at times and he lacked the necessary public relations savvy that’s required to be a front-facing figure for such a massive franchise.

The biggest problem facing the Lakers, however, is that they have a flawed roster oriented around an aging superstar and another who has struggled to stay on the floor in the past. And it’s not immediately clear what they can do to significantly improve their championship odds.

James and Anthony Davis each appeared in 70-plus games and both performed at high levels.

James averaged 25.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 8.3 assists, and he shot a career-high 41.0 percent on three-pointers. Davis put up 24.7 points, 12.6 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per contest and was understandably frustrated to get snubbed as a Defensive Player of the Year finalist.

To win an 18th NBA title, the Lakers need their two best players to stay healthy and play like All-Stars. That’s exactly what L.A. got, and all it resulted in was the seventh seed in the Western Conference and a first-round series in which it routinely unraveled against the reigning champion Denver Nuggets.

Say what you want of Ham, but there’s only so much a coach can do to scheme around Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell being his third- and fourth-best players in a postseason series against a genuine contender.

Maybe a younger version of James could carry this roster further. He probably had worse supporting casts during his first run with the Cleveland Cavaliers. But he’s not that guy anymore. His game has incrementally fallen off.

Looking forward, the concern for the Lakers is they have no guarantees James can stay this productive moving into his age-40 season or that LeBron and AD will combine to miss just 17 games. If either regresses in any way, this franchise is headed for serious trouble next year.

Pelinka will inevitably do something to transform the player personnel, but whatever path he chooses will carry a lot of risk.

ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported in January that Los Angeles was already discussing blockbuster moves for a big star, with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell and Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young cited as examples.

Beyond mortgaging what’s left of the team’s draft capital, that kind of deal would likely require giving up Reaves or other reserves of only slightly lesser quality. Building an even more top-heavy squad around James and Davis has already backfired once, and that was before the new collective bargaining agreement made it harder to execute the superteam blueprint.

Going in a different direction and attempting to strengthen around the margins would allow for Pelinka to utilize his trade assets in addressing multiple concerns. But it feels as though we watched that strategy, too, unfold already prior to the 2023 trade deadline. Pelinka’s maneuvering helped propel the Lakers into the Western Conference Finals, where they were still second-best against the Nuggets.

Hiring a new coach was Pelinka’s first order of business to open the offseason. It won’t be his most consequential.