There’s a faction in the NBA community that believes JJ Redick was set up to fail in his Lakers job. Critics can give a laundry list of reasons why Redick won’t be able to coach LeBron James. Someone who coached James before said nope. Mike ‘Coach K’ Krzyzewski has coached both the Lakers star and coach. Redick has a great blueprint in his old college coach and is a strong supporter too.

On Colin Cowherd’s show, Coach K gave his gold stamp of approval for Redick. “For me, JJ is amazingly competitive, and is prepared as well as any player I’ve coached at Duke.” That’s testimony of the time Krzyzewski coached the Blue Devils from 1980 to 2022, and developed several Duke products in the NBA including Redick.

While Redick’s inexperience is the biggest talking point, Coach K even said that he is the ideal person to handle the veterans on the Lakers squad. “He’s smart, he’s confident, and he understands the game and having 15 years of being a pro, he has empathy for the guy trying to make it when he’s trying to make and makes it, and for the veteran who is still trying to make it…I think he has empathy for what a roster would look like.”

It’s not as someone who mentored Redick before the NBA fame. He happens to know what it is like coaching LeBron James and a star-studded squad that needs to bounce back.

Krzyzewski was an assistant coach on the 1992 Dream Team. He was also the Team USA Head Coach for the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, which had LeBron James on the squad. 2008 is significant because it’s not only the Redeem Team, but Coach K was the guy who restored Team USA basketball supremacy with help from the team’s biggest stars.

Coach K had to gain what JJ Redick already has

The Redeem Team had Kobe Bryant at the helm and LeBron as his Robin. Regardless, the two main stars of the team deferred to Coach K. There was a lot of speculation about how then 23-year-old James would work under the Duke coach having skipped the college experience. But the coach spent the time before the Olympics traveling to Akron and building a relationship with James. He did that for Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and Jason Kidd too. By the time the Olympic training camp opened, there were no tensions between them. A significant instance proved it.

Krzyzewski held a roundtable of sorts with the team to ask what each one would do to win the gold. Kobe and Wade were the most moving orators at the table. But it looked like Bron was not going to speak at all. Some say he was nervous to speak after Bryant as the only one who had not won a championship on the team. The coach was close to ending the meeting thinking this was a sign that James doesn’t trust him. Then LeBron spoke and expressed his trust in Coach K. That was the high point of his Olympic career.

Coach K implies that Redick doesn’t have to work to gain Bron’s trust because he already has it. As soon as his appointment was official, he was there to say that the former Duke star is a “leader” and knows how to build players’ trust. He’s doubled down on it again. So, we know who Redick is calling if he needs advice.

Stay tuned for more such updates and join us in the exciting pilot episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and SEC All-Freshman Team Selection, Silas Demary Jr.