The Lakers head coaching search continues to heat up in an unexpected way with Mike Krzyzewski reportedly helping the front office.
With the Lakers firing Darvin Ham after two seasons, they find themselves searching for their eighth head coach in the past 12 seasons.
Los Angeles has been slow in its head coaching process and still has not begun interviewing candidates. Compare that to the Phoenix Suns, which fired their head coach, Frank Vogel and immediately signed Mike Buddenholzer to a five-year contract.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing that the Lakers haven’t been quick to decide who should coach next. The position is an important one, especially during an offseason when multiple starters such as LeBron James and D’Angelo Russell have player options and the team plans on being aggressive in free agency.
Given this turning point in Lakers history, the team is not only being calculated in its decision-making but also bringing in outside intelligence to help with the process.
According to Shams Charania and Jovan Buha of The Athletic, former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is part of that process.
Multiple sources briefed on the matter say one person who has become a respected unofficial resource for the Lakers during the process is legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, whose deep knowledge for candidates, such as Redick and others, provides a lens into the culture the organization wants and the characteristics of a potential staff around the next head coach. Krzyzewski’s history with the Lakers goes back to 2004 when Dr. Jerry Buss made a strong yet unsuccessful offer to hire Coach K.
There is no denying that Krzyzewski is part of basketball royalty, given his storied career at Duke, so bringing him on as an advisor of sorts can’t hurt. His connection with JJ Redick is clear and that can work to Redick’s benefit, given their great relationship.
This connection will help the Lakers get more intel on Redick. With his decades upon decades of experience as an elite head coach, he should be able to assess whether a person is fit for the position relatively well, even if he’s never coached at the NBA level.
Even if his lack of head coaching experience was a hold-up, he did coach the Olympic teams and garnered the respect of the USA’s biggest stars, helping them win multiple gold medals.
Lakers fans might want to read the tea leaves and assume Coach K's involvement means Redick is likely to be the coach, but that’s more of an assumption than a foregone conclusion.
Krzyzewski appears to be a resource and it's not necessarily a bad thing to have a heavily experienced coach as part of the process. Even if he doesn’t have connections to other candidates, he has decades of experience coaching and has gained the respect of his peers and those he has coached along the way. That’s a valuable resource.
Ultimately, the most important thing is for the Lakers to select the right coach and steer this franchise in the right direction. Hopefully, having a person of Krzyzewski’s pedigree helps them accomplish that.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.
