Lakers coach JJ Redick properly represented in Coach of the Year voting

The NBA’s end-of-season awards voting is just as divisive of a time within the league’s calendar as any other.

And not just because of the actual outcomes, but the voting results for each award create arguments within themselves.

Lakers fans passionately defended franchise Luka Doncic, believing that he should’ve placed higher than fourth in the voting for league MVP that was awarded to Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for the second consecutive season. 

Or that Doncic should’ve unanimously been an All-NBA first team selection instead of receiving 91 first-team votes and nine second-team votes.

Voters defend why they made certain choices, such as Justin Termine of SiriusXM explaining why he was the lone voter to leave Victor Wembanyama off his All-NBA first team, voting him second. 

The debates about “snubs” are part of the NBA awards’s annual cycle. 

But when the voting results for Coach of the Year was announced on Tuesday, revealing that Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla received the honor, it also showed that Lakers coach JJ Redick finished seventh in voting after receiving three third-places votes. 

And was a completely fair spot for Redick to finish at. 

Redick finishing seventh wasn’t a snub.

While arguments could be made that he should’ve received more votes, Redick finished with the proper range in the voting.

Oftentimes, Coach of the Year goes to the coach who led the highest overachivers of the season. 

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And the Lakers were certainly one of the league’s biggest overachievers in context with their preseason expectations.

But the finalist for Coach of the Year – Muzzulla, Pistons’ J.B. Bickerstaff and Spurs’ Mitch Johnson – led each of their teams to even more overachieving seasons than Redick did for the Lakers.

Externally, the Celtics were expected to treat 2025-26 as a “gap” year after the Achilles tear Jayson Tatum suffered last 2025. The Celtics responded with a 56-win season for the second-best record in the Eastern Conference and fourth-best record in the league despite Boston’s roster turnover and Tatum only playing 16 regular season games.

The Pistons were expected to be a playoff team, but not the No. 1 seed in the East they finished the regular season at, winning 13 more games than their preseason over/under. 

The Spurs went from being viewed as a potential play-in team in the preseason to the second-best team in the league during the regular season, winning 18 more games than their preseason over/under. 

Similar cases exist for Hornets coach Charles Lee and Suns coach Jordon Ott, who finished fourth and fifth in the voting, respectively. They both led their teams to postseason play after not being expected to be a factor in those conversations during the preseason.

This doesn’t take away from the season Redick and his coaching staff had. 

Redick led the Lakers to a 53-win season despite his best players in Luka Doncic (18), LeBron James (22) and Austin Reaves (31) all missing a significant amount of regular season games.

Despite the depth of the roster lacking compared to the team’s around the West. 

Redick was just as big of a part in the Lakers’ success, which included winning seven more games than their preseason over/under, as any other party. 

But the finalists for the award had clear cut cases for being above Redick based on their teams’ overachieving seasons. 

Finishing in the No. 4-7 range felt like the best-case scenario for Redick.

And that doesn’t take away from what he’s achieved in his short time as a coach. 

He’s shown through back-to-back 50-win seasons that he’s one of the best coaches at scheming defensively, helping the Lakers outperform expectations on that end two seasons in a row. 

Redick has mostly maximized the roster in back-to-back seasons, getting the most as reasonably expected. 

He should be in consideration for Coach of the Year for years to come. 

There were just other coaches who had better cases.