Lakers already have a glaring reason to doubt the JJ Redick hire

JJ Redick's coaching tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers has been a mixed bag from the start. When the Lakers hired Redick, they'd already been rejected by their first choice, UConn's Dan Hurley. While Redick's youth, personality, and apparent X's and O's knowledge excited some fans, others were deeply skeptical about his lack of head coaching experience.

Redick's debut regular season (50-32 record) didn't give fans a ton to complain about, but his sophomore performance certainly has. That is especially true with it following an underwhelming 4-1 series loss in the first round of last season's playoffs.

To put it plainly, Redick isn't maximizing the talent on his roster this season. Meanwhile, other young coaches in the Western Conference are doing more with less, the prime example being Phoenix Suns' Jordan Ott.

Jordan Ott's success with the Suns is making JJ Redick look bad

Ott and Redick are nearly the same age (Ott is 40, Redick, 41), and their clubs are neck and neck in the Western Conference standings. This makes a comparison between these two head coaches very interesting, especially considering how different their roads to "now" have been.

We all know Redick's story. He's a Duke legend who's been famous in the basketball universe for nearly two decades. After a successful 15-year NBA career, Redick showcased his charisma in different TV roles before essentially watching one of the most desirable head coaching jobs in the sports world fall into his lap.

Meanwhile, Ott's story is far more Erik Spoelstra-esque in its element of basketball rags-to-riches.

Ott didn't play college basketball. He was a student manager at Penn State and then a graduate assistant (later, a video coordinator) for Tom Izzo at Michigan State.

After a half-decade under Izzo, Ott spent 2013 to 2016 as a video coordinator with the Atlanta Hawks before parlaying that into assistant coach positions with the Brooklyn Nets (2016-2022), and later, the Lakers (2022-2024) and Cleveland Cavaliers (2024-25).

It's clear that Ott's journey from the bottom of the coaching profession to his present status has made him a heck of a coach. It brings to mind the paths of guys like Spoelstra or Oklahoma City's Mark Daigneault.

Ott currently has a Suns team positioned for the playoffs. Phoenix was supposed to be a rebuilding/lottery situation. He's on the shortlist for NBA Coach of the Year at this point in the season.

Phoenix's roster is nothing special. It's Devin Booker and a bunch of role players, most of them unproven (although Dillon Brooks has been a revelation). One of Ott's most talented players on paper, Jalen Green, has only appeared in two games this season.

Nonetheless, Ott, in his first season as an NBA head coach, is doing more with the Suns than his predecessor, NBA champion head coach Mike Budenholzer, was able to do with both Booker and Kevin Durant in the fold. Ott is maximizing his roster in a way that reminds us how underperforming Redick's Lakers are at present.

Ott's already won a ton of games with a mediocre Suns depth chart. What do you think he'd be able to do with Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Austin Reaves, and even a guy like Marcus Smart? Surely, he'd have this team playing much better (and harder) than the lackluster defense seen under Redick.

Sure, the Lakers haven't been fully healthy this year. LeBron missed plenty of time, and Reaves has been out lately. But Redick is running out of excuses for the underperformance. Complaining to the media about his team not playing hard only exposes his own lack of capacity to motivate his guys.

Ott isn't the only young coach thriving in the wild West.

Denver Nuggets' David Adelman, 44, has kept Nikola Jokic and company on a championship track since taking over for Michael Malone. San Antonio Spurs' Mitch Johnson, 39, has harnessed the awesome young talent at his disposal and coolly navigated his team into a successful post-Pop era.

Redick has a top-five player in the world on his roster, plus two additional All-Star caliber guys in LeBron and Reaves. With young coaches like Ott doing just as much (or more) with far less, the Lakers front office has to be secretly doubting whether Redick was the best hire for this franchise.