As JJ Redick gets set to call his first NBA Finals series as part of ESPN’s lead broadcast booth featuring Mike Breen, Doris Burke and Lisa Salters presented on ABC, he reportedly could be elsewhere for the start of next season. The Los Angeles Lakers are reportedly “zeroing in” on the 15-year NBA veteran guard to serve as the new head coach of the team, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. While a final decision has yet to be reached, Charania expressed that the indications demonstrate Redick to be the leading candidate at the moment. Redick had a face-to-face meeting with the Lakers three weeks ago, the report claims, the first candidate in the process to do so.
Redick is preparing to broadcast the NBA Finals matchup between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks, a series that has drawn considerable anticipation and excitement from basketball fans around the country. Outside of his work with ESPN, which also includes appearances on studio programming such as Get Up and First Take, Redick also owns and operates his own company, ThreeFourTwo Productions. Moreover, he hosts both The Old Man and the Three with Tommy Alter and Mind the Game with Lakers forward LeBron James. On Wednesday’s edition of GoJo and Golic on the DraftKings Network, Redick was asked about the report and if he had interest in coaching in the future.
“My focus right now is on calling the NBA Finals,” Redick said. “I am so fortunate that I’m in this position and I get to call these Finals with Doris and Mike, and I mentioned the State Farm thing that I just did on YouTube. My day-to-day right now is consumed with calling games, the 19 different podcasts I feel like I have [and] my obligations to all of our partners, so my focus is on the NBA Finals, I will say that. In terms of Shams, that will be addressed once the season is over, so I’ll just say that.”
Mike Golic, co-host of the morning program and former ESPN Radio host alongside Mike Greenberg for nearly two decades, classified Redick’s answer as a traditional radio tease and commended Redick for a job well done. Additionally, he extended an open invitation for Redick to break any news about his future on the program when he was ready to address it, a sentiment that was backed by co-host Mike Golic Jr.
“We know you’ve got a lot of outlets JJ,” Golic Jr. added. “We know you’ve got your own podcast and stuff like that, but we really feel like when you want to break some news, we can be the platform to help you do that.”
“I don’t mean any job, I mean Shams,” Redick said. “After the season. We’ll wait on that one.”
The NBA Finals featuring the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks commence this Thursday, June 6 from TD Garden in Boston. Mike Breen, Doris Burke, JJ Redick and Lisa Salters will be on the call starting at 8:30 p.m. EST on ABC and available to watch on the ESPN App. ESPN will have four hours of pregame studio coverage before Game 1 of the NBA Finals airing on ESPN from 3 to 5 p.m. EST and on ESPN2 for the hour thereafter.
NBA Countdown will be hosted by Malika Andrews and feature analysts Stephen A. Smith, Bob Myers and Michael Wilbon, along with guest analyst and New York Knicks guard Josh Hart for the first two games. Senior NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski will also join the program throughout the NBA Finals series, which begins at 7:30 p.m. EST on ESPN and moves to ABC at 8 p.m. EST.
