Hey everyone, I’m Dan Woike, beat writer for the L.A. Times., and welcome to the Lakers newsletter, a check-in on all things Lakerdom as the NBA playoffs roll on without them.
Does that mean I get to go on vacation? That the action and intrigue stops? Of course not.
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The team doesn’t have a coach, it’s trying to find it’s best path forward with its roster, and the draft is on the horizon with the Lakers owning a first-round pick at No. 17 after seeing high-impact rookies picked right after their choice a year ago.
So, yeah, a lot to deal with.
But I want to write about something that’s been on my mind, something that I’ve struggled to understand, and something that I think is worth constant monitoring.
It’s about LeBron James, power and what he does and doesn’t need to do.
News that James hasn’t consulted with the Lakers about JJ Redick and the broadcaster’s coaching candidacy broke Monday morning via Shams Charania, and you can be forgiven if you don’t quite buy it — despite it being true.
After 21 NBA seasons and more points scored than any other player, it’s hard to imagine James as apathetic about something as big as a head-coaching hire. On the surface, that is kind of what’s happening here.
Yet just by being around, by reminding everyone that he has options when he sits courtside for a playoff game in Cleveland, by still having some wiggle room with his future since he holds a player option for next season, James is very much a part of the Lakers’ coaching search.
He and his timeline are the same as the Lakers. Good luck separating them.
Power, in some cases, can come from mere presence. Pressure can be implied — and not spoken.
While people with knowledge of the situation have said that James isn’t dictating anything to the Lakers, that he’s not even consulted with them about Redick, while people have said that the Lakers know their focus should be more on Anthony Davis than on James, and while people have said that James’ desires on the bench and on the roster — famously with Tyronn Lue and Kyrie Irving — have come and gone without action, it’s still enough about James that his influence can’t be ignored.
While his leverage has certainly lessened deep into his career (and in particular after the Russell Westbrook trade disaster), it’s not completely absent.
As the playoffs move into the conference finals, the Lakers still don’t know what James will do next season. The assumption, and it’s a very strong one inside their building and around the league, is that he’ll opt out of his current deal and sign a new two- or three-year contract with the Lakers for maximum money.
But that hasn’t happened yet.
A person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak on the record said James and Davis eventually will need to sign off on the coaching hire. It’s a practice that’s widely accepted around the NBA, star players operating more as stakeholders than employees when it comes to finding a partner to work from the bench.
Redick and James, who co-host a podcast together, don’t have any kind of long-term relationship outside of competing against one another. There is, though, obvious mutual respect for each other’s basketball intelligence — and if the Lakers don’t view that as an advantage from Day 1 for their new coach, they’re kidding themselves.
James doesn’t need to drive any of this — that’s been Rob Pelinka with help from Kurt Rambis. But he’s 100% still in the car.
What James says and doesn’t say to the Lakers about this hire matters. Yet it doesn’t matter as much the way the Lakers move forward because of James’ presence in their organization.
If the Lakers hire Redick, it won’t be because James told the team to do so. It will be because they feel Redick — and the staff assembled — would put the Lakers in the best position to maximize James’ final years in the league. And because it would make James happy.
They need to consider him, and they’ll need to consider him as they weigh whether or not to draft his son, Bronny James.
James is still good enough, and last season was available enough, that he’s still a piece that the Lakers should attempt to build around — a wild truth for a player set to turn 40 in December.
The pressure is on the Lakers and Pelinka, and whoever they hire as coach, to get it right. And that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t need to even be spoken.
Lakers forward Anthony Davis, blocking a shot by Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, earned another All-Defensive team honor on Tuesday.
(Jack Dempsey / Associated Press)
Anthony Davis earned a first-team All-Defensive team spot Tuesday, getting the fifth-most votes. It’s his third first-team honor and his fifth All-Defensive spot in his career.
He was the anchor of the Lakers’ defense, which operated without the roster’s best perimeter defenders in Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent.
Davis finished fourth in voting for defensive player of the year.
“Big Glow” by Bartees Strange
This is a Bartees Strange space from the “I Saw the TV Glow” soundtrack. It deserves your attention. Moody. Driving. Succinct. It’s a jam.
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