Los Angeles Lakers Used JJ Redick As Smokescreen For Head Coaching Search & It Worked Perfectly

JJ Redick was never going to be the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Early Thursday morning, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Lakers are working on offering a lucrative, multi-year contract with University of Connecticut head basketball coach Dan Hurley to become the next coach of the Lakers.

This is a significant hire as one of college basketball’s top coaches leaves the NCAA and turns to the professional game. Hurley’s Huskies just repeated as NCAA champions in the tournament this year. The Lakers must’ve made an incredibly aggressive offer to pull off this massive hire. 

Wojnarowski continues in his report, stating that Hurley was always at the top of the Lakers’ search.

“Hurley’s been at the forefront of the Lakers’ search from the beginning of the process, even while the organization has done its due diligence interviewing other candidates,” Wojnarowski explained.

Well, isn’t that some new information?

Just the other day, The Athletic reported that the Lakers were zeroing in on longtime NBA sharpshooter and current media personality JJ Redick to become their next coach.

Notably, Redick hosts the very popular “Mind the Game” podcast with Lakers star LeBron James, who happens to have a player option and is expected to be a free agent this summer.

The Lakers  played Shams Charania, The Athletic, and even Redick himself like a flute. Every single NBA aggregator on social media ran with the report that Redick was in line to become the next head coach in Los Angeles.

Even Redick himself was forced to discuss Charania’s report on DraftKing's “GoJo and Golic,” where he seemed pretty certain that there’d be something to address this offseason.

So where did Charania get this information? Surely, as one of the NBA’s top insiders, this wasn’t just pulled from thin air. Did Jeanie Buss and the Lakers leak this information to him as a smokescreen while they spent the next few days ironing out Hurley’s contract?

If that’s the case, it certainly worked. The entire NBA community was sitting around waiting for the formal announcement that Redick was hired. That’s how these things usually happen.

The only other way that Charania could’ve missed this badly is if he received some bad information from Redick’s camp directly. However, typically these big-time insiders require multiple sources of information, so they can cross-check that they aren’t being duped.

It’s interesting to note that Redick once called out Charania for having too much access to the NBA in an interview with Bill Simmons.

One thing is certain. Wojnarowski sat back in the shadows and let Shams double down in the spotlight that Redick was going to be the head coach. On Thursday, Woj flexed his muscles again by breaking this massive story in the game of basketball.

The Lakers must be pretty optimistic that Hurley will accept this job offer. Because there's likely no going back now.