“All those stories about Kobe being a psycho worker, they’re all true,” Lakers head coach JJ Redick said, doubling down on every tale that built the legend of the Mamba mentality. Redick explained that Kobe’s greatness came down to one thing: his relentless hunger to learn. He even shared how Bryant once asked him, then a college player at Duke, for shooting tips despite already being an NBA superstar. That same drive, Redick expected to see in the locker room when he took over last year as head coach of Kobe Bryant’s team. But a year later, he admits that the Mamba mentality isn’t for everyone.

JJ Redick, while addressing the press, opened up about a realization he had this offseason. He said, “I spent a lot of time this season with my performance coach and did a lot of journaling, self-reflection and all that stuff, worked through some things. I think the biggest thing for me is just having the ability to properly turn it on and off and also recognising — and I have always recognised this — not everybody is wired like Kobe. I am not saying I am wired like Kobe, but not everybody is wired like Tom Brady or Kobe, you know? You gotta kinda meet guys where they are. That doesn’t change the standard or expectation for them, but having a little bit of empathy for them.”

Even without any NBA coaching experience, Redick managed to turn what could’ve been a messy season into one of LA’s respectable contending years. He guided them to 50 wins and home-court advantage for the first time since their 2020 title run along with a top-3-seeded Western Conference.

JJ Redick spent the entire 2024–25 season installing a system built around Anthony Davis and LeBron James. But midway through the year, that blueprint had to be scrapped. With Luka Doncic arriving in a blockbuster trade, Redick was tasked with reinventing the Lakers’ identity on the fly — and remarkably, it worked.

Since acquiring Doncic, the Lakers went 20–7, outscoring opponents by 8.3 points per 100 possessions, a mark that placed them among the league’s elite during that stretch. Doncic quickly found his rhythm in purple and gold, averaging 28 points, 8 rebounds, and 7.5 assists across his first 28 games. The seamless fit not only reenergized the Lakers’ regular season but also positioned them as one of the NBA’s most dangerous teams heading into the postseason.

His smart moves even got him a mention in the Coach of the Year race—pretty impressive for a first-year coach! But now, things get tougher. With LeBron James still around but nearing the end of his career, the pressure on Redick to keep the wins coming is bigger than ever.

And to turn that pressure into commitment, the Lakers doubled down on Redick’s leadership, extending his contract by two more years on top of the three he already had. That locks him in with the franchise through the 2029–30 season, earning a hefty $45 million over the stretch.

It’s clear the Lakers are betting big on stability, locking in both Redick and Luka Doncic as the long-term pillars and faces of their future.

Coming back to his approach this season, Redick gave fans a glimpse of it during training camp  and it’s safe to say, the players definitely felt it. “I don’t know if they like me right now with what we just finished the practice with,” Redick laughed. He had the team running nonstop, six down-and-backs in 34 seconds, then ten in 60, and another six to close it out. It was brutal.

Gabe Vincent wasn’t exactly smiling through it but admitted it’s what the team needed. “I told JJ about a week or two ago, I said, ‘If we all hate you, we all hate you collectively, that’s great,’” Vincent joked. Even Luka Doncic summed up the grind in just three words: “Fun. Excitement. Hard.” And we know Kobe Bryant would have also “hated” Redick if he were here.

Did Kobe Bryant hate JJ Redick?

JJ Redick, once just a young sharpshooter fighting for respect in Team USA practices, is now the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, the very franchise Kobe Bryant built his legacy on. But nearly two decades ago, the relationship between the two was far from friendly. Carmelo Anthony recalled, “I remember Kobe couldn’t stand J.J. Redick.” Why, you ask? Well, Kobe just couldn’t stand seeing someone else get praised by a coach he deeply admired.

We can safely assume this story dates back to before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At the time, Redick was just two years into the NBA, while Kobe was already a three-time champion and 12 seasons deep. Coach Mike Krzyzewski who had once mentored Redick at Duke couldn’t stop praising his former college star during Team USA practices.

For Kobe, who deeply admired Coach K, that constant praise hit a nerve. The story gets even wilder when you hear how intense Kobe got in practice.

Anthony recalled, “Kobe took it very, very personal to the point where he was running through screens in practice, he was denying J.J. the ball, he was fouling the s— out of J.J. I’m like, ‘Damn, why are you treating the young boy like that?’” Kobe’s response to Anthony when asked why he acted that way? “F– that m—–.”

Ironically, Redick didn’t make the final Olympic roster that year, while Kobe went on to lead Team USA to gold in Beijing and then again in London four years later. Back then, Kobe’s intensity in practice was unmatched, and Redick felt it firsthand.

Though they clashed early in Redick’s career- Bryant once questioned Redick’s toughness on the court- Redick later acknowledged Kobe’s intellectual and creative influence on him. Redick has explained that his podcasting career was directly inspired by conversations with Bryant about storytelling and basketball analysis.

On The Old Man and the Three, Redick said, “Kobe was the one who made me think differently about the game and how to talk about it. The way he broke things down, the curiosity he had—that stuck with me.”

He also shared that after interviewing Bryant for an early project, he realized how powerful long-form discussion could be in exploring the “why” behind elite performance: “When I sat down with him, I saw that basketball wasn’t just sport to him—it was language, art, philosophy. That’s when I knew I wanted to have those kinds of conversations for a living.” Despite their initial friction, Redick came to see Kobe as both a challenger and a muse.

And while Redick can’t expect every player to match that level of obsession, the Lakers can still carry some of that energy this season maybe even channel it through a new motto: “OBSESS18N.”