Lakers Rumors: JJ Redick Not Given Head Coaching Job Yet

After officially interviewing JJ Redick at the team’s practice facility last weekend, most expected the Lakers to hire their head coach as soon as the NBA Finals were over.

However, the Celtics have been champions – a vomit-inducing sequence of words – for days now and the Lakers still don’t have a head coach. And, for the moment, nothing is inevitable yet.

Wednesday night, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski appeared on Sportscenter with Scott Van Pelt to talk about the Lakers’ coaching search. Although he discussed a number of things, the most notable was that he revealed that the Lakers had not yet offered Redick the job.

“What’s really left for the Lakers and JJ Redick at this point is for the Lakers to make an offer that they haven’t made yet.”

Woj also noted that Pelinka has spoken to other candidates since this weekend’s interview. Here is the full segment of Woj speaking with SVP.

This is a bit of a formality because there will be no deliberation process once the Lakers offer Redick the job. But the fact that they haven’t done so yet means that there’s still some level of deliberation going on, which is surprising.

One would assume that almost two full months of research and deliberation would be enough to make their decision. With Redick now available to be hired, it appears the decision needs to be made now.

It is interesting that Pelinka spoke with other candidates. In hypothesizing who that might be, James Borrego is most likely considering how in demand he is. However, it would be a bit strange for them to contact candidates they haven’t officially interviewed yet. The only exception might be Monty Williams, who was fired by the Pistons on Wednesday.

It seems like we should be past the point of interviewing new candidates, especially with the draft in a week and free agency in 10 days.

Again, this is the very last step. All they have to do is offer the job and this whole thing is over. But for now, that moment has not yet come.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.