As JJ Redick prepared to coach the Lakers against the Celtics on Sunday, Pat Riley was honored outside Crypto.com Arena with the team’s first statue of a coach.
The franchise’s past and present had collided, with the 41-year-old ace hoping to one day emulate the 80-year-old legend’s achievements.
Since Redick was hired to take over the Lakers in June 2024, he has drawn comparisons to Riley.
They are both former players. After they retired, they both became broadcasters. Riley had barely any coaching experience (two years as a Lakers assistant from 1979-81) before landing one of the most prestigious jobs in the league in 1981. Redick had no coaching experience. They both have strikingly slick personalities.
And they were both tasked with leading the team through major transitions. Riley helped the Lakers pass the baton from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Magic Johnson, while Redick oversees the Lakers’ transfer of the guard from LeBron James to Luka Doncic.
When Redick was hired, he knew the franchise was hoping he would fill the legendary coach’s Armani shoes. The question on everyone’s mind was clear: Could he be the next Pat Riley?
“Pat, to me, kind of set the standard for modern NBA coaches,” Redick said.
For Riley, the respect is returned.
“He’s a fiery guy,” Riley said of Redick. “He could shoot the hell out of the ball. He was tough as nails, you know. I don’t know. Sometimes I look back and remind myself of that time and I looked at JJ and I think they picked the right person. There’s just a quality about him that I think is above and beyond.”
Redick is still evolving into who he is as a coach. He’s still finding his style. His voice. But this much is certain: he is an incredibly hard worker. His basketball IQ is respected by everyone in the locker room. After the matches, Redick locks himself in a dark basement and pores over the film. He’s a basketball sucker.
He can undoubtedly be described as intense, a quality for which Riley was infamous.
Magic Johnson gave a handful of reporters an inside look at how Riley led his teams after the 8-foot-tall, 1,100-pound statue of his former coach was unveiled Sunday during a star-studded ceremony.
“He didn’t let us take a day off, or a play-off, or a moment off,” Johnson said.
Johnson praised Riley for his masterful in-game adjustments, calling him “a visionary.” He also pointed out the courage it took Riley to make Johnson the team’s No. 1 offensive option while still sharing a uniform with Abdul-Jabbar, who turned 35 in Riley’s first season as the Lakers’ head coach.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, huh?” Johnson recalled his reaction at the time. “A guy who at the time was the best player to ever play the game and you go to him and say someone else is now going to do most of the offense?”
Johnson called Riley fearless and extremely tough.
He would make the Lakers run for 40 minutes straight during practice. He had them make three-man moves without the ball touching the ground. Over the summer he sent each player a letter telling them how much he wanted them to weigh. He then weighed them publicly when they reported to training camp.
Riley especially knew how to get under Johnson’s skin. He showed him highlights of Larry Bird and Michael Jordan and said, “What are you going to do?”
“As soon as he did that, the switch went off for me and I got a triple-double,” Johnson said. “That’s all he had to do, just put those two guys out there and he knew I was going to go to another level.”
Riley led the Lakers to four championships from 1982 to 1988 and ushered in the Showtime era. Under him, Johnson became a three-time MVP. Johnson called him “one of the greatest coaches who ever lived,” as well as “the coolest guy to ever put on an Armani suit.”
Redick is now in his second season as coach of the Lakers.
He still gets his feet wet. Last season, he vowed to judge himself by growth rather than metrics. He led the Lakers to third place in the Western Conference at 50-32 before they were eliminated in the first round by the Timberwolves.
Afterwards, Redick was far from giving himself a pat on the back.
“I know I can get better,” he said. “And I know I’ll get better. I don’t necessarily take any satisfaction from how the year went. That’s not to say I’m not proud of what the group was able to do and how we were able to figure things out on the fly and put ourselves in a position to play at home in the first round. But there are always ways to get better. And I can get a lot better.”
This season, Redick has led the Lakers to fifth place in the West despite James, Doncic and Reaves playing just 12 games together due to injuries.
Redick is still going to be Redick.
But his potential is undoubtedly through the roof. His analysis of the game is incredibly sharp. When he co-hosted the “Mind the Game” podcast with James before being hired by the Lakers, he dissected players and their movements with surgeon-like precision.
Players respond to him. They respect him.
And he’s navigated the tough path of helping the 26-year-old Doncic become the face of the team, while the 41-year-old James remains the face of the league and one of the greatest players of all time.
Whether Redick can become a Riley-like figure is still unknown.
Perhaps it’s an unfair comparison, one that would leave any aspiring coach disappointed.
But for now, Redick will have a reminder of who he wants to be every time he shows up for work.
It stands tall among the bronzed figures of Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar. It has slicked back hair, a custom designer suit and is the ultimate example of grandeur.
“It’s a beautiful image,” Redick said.
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