JJ Redick interviews for NBA head-coaching gig

Former NBA sharpshooter JJ Redick interviewed for the head-coach opening with the Toronto Raptors, according to his ESPN colleague Adrian Wojnarowski. It appears that the Raptors are casting a wide net of candidates as the current ESPN analyst is part of a group that includes Golden State assistant Kenny Atkinson and Becky Hammon of the WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces.

Per Wojnarowski:

Redick is one of more than a dozen candidates who have talked with the Raptors in a wide-ranging search process, sources said. ESPN reported recently that Toronto had gained permission to interview several candidates, including Golden State's Kenny Atkinson, Milwaukee's Charles Lee, Phoenix's Kevin Young, San Antonio's Mitch Johnson, Sacramento's Jordi Fernandez, Memphis' Darko Rajakovic and Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon. Current Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin is also an interview candidate for the job, sources said.

Three weeks ago, Toronto dismissed Nick Nurse two weeks after the team lost its play-in game to the Chicago Bulls.

A professional team interviewing someone who has never coached before is nothing new, though actually hiring someone that inexperienced is another story, as evidenced most recently by Jeff Saturday's disastrous run with the Indianapolis Colts this past fall. However, there's something to be said for the phenomenon in the NBA, where some first-timers have gone on to have at least one good season to start their careers on the sidelines, with none having more success than the ninth-winningest coach in history, Philadelphia's Doc Rivers.

Also in Redick's favor, team governors and GMs aren't completely opposed to hiring a first-time head coach from a TV network. Rivers himself, who retired as a player in 1996, left Turner Sports to become the Magic head coach three years later. Mark Jackson was a commentator for ESPN and the YES Network before Golden State hired him in 2011, a tenure that ended in bitter fashion but led to Steve Kerr coming the Bay Area.

With a candidate pool featuring Atkinson, Hammon and Griffin, the Raptors seem to be looking for someone who balances having just enough experience that's not rooted firmly in a certain philosophy with recent interaction with the modern era of the game. Interviewing Redick, however, signals that the Raptors are open to someone who is a much more recent peer of the players in the locker room.