Kobe Bryant would probably be smiling if he heard JJ Redick’s take on his first season as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.
On Friday, the Lakers beat the Houston Rockets 140-109 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, Calif. The win was Redick’s 50th as an NBA coach and secured his team the third seed in the competitive Western Conference.
The Lakers celebrated appropriately after the game. The players showered Redick with buckets of ice water in the locker room to congratulate their coach on the achievement. Redick’s hair was still dripping wet as he spoke to reporters during his postgame press conference.
When asked to give a self-assessment on his first season, Redick was not in a celebratory mood. He instead paid homage to Kobe Bryant by delivering a familiar quote.
“It’s not done,” answered Redick. “I spent all of three-and-a-half minutes on the flight back from Dallas just thinking about making the playoffs and thinking about the coaching profession. I think, as a coach, you’re obviously judged on regular season wins and losses and your ability to get to the playoffs.
“But I think the other things you’re really judged on are the way you’re able to handle the pressure of the playoffs. The adjustments, the in-game stuff. There’s still so much work that we have to do.”
Lakers reporter to JJ Redick
— LakeShow Highlights (@LSH_lakeshow) April 12, 2025
"How would you say your first season went?"
"Job is not done"
MY HEAD COACH HAS THAT MAMBA MENTALITY 💜💛💜
Kobe would have loved to have seen JJ and Luka Doncic on this team led by LeBron 😭 pic.twitter.com/Z8C8nUJ6KZ
With the Lakers up 2-0 during the 2009 NBA Finals, Bryant famously told the media during his Game 2 postgame press conference that “the job’s not finished.” Redick seemed to be channeling a similar mentality about his success in Year 1 as the Lakers’ coach.
The Lakers had failed to record 50 wins since the team won the title in 2020. The purple and gold had never finished better than seventh in the West during that span.
Some may discount what Redick was able to do this season, given that he was blessed with the midseason arrival of Luka Doncic. But the Lakers were on the rise and had a 31-19 record even before Doncic ever suited up for the Lakers.
Redick had never coached at any level apart from a brief stint as a volunteer head coach for his son’s fourth-grade boys’ basketball team. Now he has aspirations of lifting up the Larry O’Brien trophy at season’s end.
