Luka Doncic Dreams of Career-Long Future With Lakers HC JJ Redick After Recent Contract Extension

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Paul White | Last updated Oct 1, 2025 8:14 AM ET

The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the most storied franchises in sports history, but they will be entering the 2025-26 season in an unconventional way.

They have a newly acquired superstar in Luka Doncic who they are pairing with forward LeBron James, who is nearly 15 years older.

To accompany the unique duo, the Lakers have a second-year head coach in JJ Redick, who had no prior professional coaching experience and is only 41 years old.

This is the core of the franchise, and they are all expected to compete for a championship under a new ownership group, leaving the team in the hands of someone other than the Buss family for the first time in 46 years.

This new group was clearly impressed with Redick’s performance last season as they gave him a contract extension last week.

Doncic was asked about this during his media day press conference and had this to say about his coach, “The stability is amazing. It was great to work with JJ, hopefully we can work until the end of my career.”

Luka hopes to work with JJ Redick till the end of his career. pic.twitter.com/saipjAJ6yY
— Showtime Luka (@showtimeluka) September 29, 2025

The Lakers made a bold move to hire an inexperienced coach to lead the most famous team in the NBA, but the players seem to love him.

Doncic would go on to say that he appreciates Redick’s honesty, praising his players when necessary but also being blunt when there is something they need to fix.

“I just love him as my coach, he will tell you anything. He will tell you if you did something wrong, if you did something good… I’m very excited that he’s my coach,” said Doncic.

The second-year coach has been straightforward about his use of artificial intelligence to gather information and his reliance on analytics. Redick’s coaching style may be unorthodox, but so far it is something that players are responsive to.

The Lakers will host their season opener against the Golden State Warriors in a little over three weeks. They have a ton of expectations, but they have a great chance to make it far with all the important figures in the organization seemingly aligned.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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