ESPN’s Dave McMenamin on LeBron’s Role in the Lakers Hiring JJ Redick | The Rich Eisen Show

you're sit down with LeBron James uh how did you find LeBron um when you sat down with him well tell me tell me what you gleaned from a guy who's been around this guy for a while he's someone and you know this quite well Rich being around you know sports figures that kind of have an outside influence with their presence um he recognizes his ability to push buttons um if he's not NE really happy about his lot his situation he did none of that in my sit down with him on Sunday uh listen the Lakers are an imperfect team right now there's a lot of work to be done to really talk about them as a true Championship Contender LeBron chose not to express that to me when I asked him about it and to me that's an olive branch to Genie bus and to Rob pinka um there will be a time I'm sure if this Ross looks the exact same as it does right now and the Lakers aren't shooting up the Wester Conference standings that he has the Playbook and he knows the buttons to push in the public sphere to apply pressure to to try to coerce Rob pinka Genie bus and the Lakers brass to make some moves but he didn't choose to make that call right now and um you know Perhaps it is a sign of both sides looking forward to to having a less Rocky partnership over what could be the final stage of his career well I mean I'm glad to hear he's happy they they drafted his son they gave him $100 million over two years the coach that got uh hired one would think LeBron had um I don't know how would you term it you know approval um or you know handpicked or or none of the above Dave I certainly wouldn't use the term handpicked um approval for sure he put his approval online um through you know stamping that mind the game podcast with JJ with his endorsement that this is someone that speaks the game on the level that he does and LeBron's long been considered to have one of the greatest basketball cues we've ever seen in the sport and so of course the approval part was there listen I you know maybe I'm drinking the Kool-Aid too much here but I actually believe that LeBron and JJ did not have a discussion behind the scenes about what JJ should be telling Rob and jeie in the interview process and what he needs to know about coaching the Lakers when he was interested in the job just because LeBron knows that virtually everything that he does ends up getting back to the public sphere at some point and I I think he has become Savvy enough to know that he can sidp some stuff and it doesn't mean that JJ didn't speak to anyone else associate with LeBron I'm not reporting that but like that could have occurred and there could have been a surrogate for whatever LeBron's feelings were but you know I I tend to actually believe that they didn't have a discussion until after JJ was offered the job from Rob pinka and at that point you know just kind of let's let's get to work and the important thing and LeBron did make note of this when we sat down to bring it up they hired Scott Brooks and Nate McMillan and so JJ's not flying blind as a first-time head coach he has one guy who led the Thunder to the NBA finals and has een years of experience on the bench another guy who helped coach the US Olympic teams gold in Beijing and again plenty of experience on on the bench to Nate McMillan and and so I think that is as important as the team hiring JJ in order to get LeBron's Buy in going into the next year what what is the sense of what JJ re's goingon to bring to this team like what's the vision here that you're hearing about with reic Dave I mean the name excuse me the word that keeps getting thrown around is accountability um and then alongside that you thinking the game um and whether that be through what JJ brings to the table in terms of out of timeout plays uh in terms of their overall schemes offensively and defensively in terms of rotations and substitution patterns that's all one part of it but you know they really want their players to be kind of starting this culture of if you play on the Lakers uh you are a player that understands the game at a higher level um it sounds great in a press conference Rob pinka even suggested that they may develop some sort of app for the players to gamify JJ's offensive principles and so they could like on on some level be filling out questionnaires or or some sort of like video game on their phone in order to kind of reinforce the basketball knowledge he's trying to give to his players on a daily basis I mean maybe that's what basketball is in 2024 it sounded a little wonky to me personally but if the idea is pure as it is and you can find other ways to get your players to just become sharper in understanding the game I think it's kind of a noble uh first step in terms of what the Lakers aspire to be under JJ reic catch the rich eyes and show every single day on the Roku Channel 12 to3 Eastern for free