This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Goooood morning, folks! Welcome to the Morning Win. Thank you so much for rocking with us today. We appreciate you giving us a bit of your time.
So the Lakers actually went and did the JJ Redick thing, huh?
This felt inevitable from the moment Redick and LeBron James first turned their microphones on. The vibes had always been there. Of course, there were a few bumps in the path (looking at you, Dan Hurley) but, ultimately, the Lakers are where we always expected them to be.
The debate now is whether this is actually a good move for Los Angeles. The consensus seems to be that it isn’t — everyone is questioning this hire with his thin coaching resume being the reason why.
And, you know what? That’s fair. He’s got no head coaching experience. Someone with that little experience rarely gets to dive into a high-profile job like the one Redick just took. I mean, only five percent of the coaches hired in NBA history have had as little experience as Redick does, according to data from Sportico. It’s hard to guarantee anything here.
The track record with those coaches says things probably won’t be great. Compiling their records via Fansided’s N.B. Lindberg shows that those coaches have a 51.8 percent win percentage in their first jobs. That also includes Steve Kerr and Larry Bird, who are outliers with winning percentages of 65 percent and 69 percent respectively. Take them out and things get bleak.
The odds are Redick simply won’t be great at this job — especially not early on. He obviously knows the game and has thought about what he’d be like as a head coach. He’s been getting questions about potentially coaching for years. Thanks to his multitude of podcasts, we can see what makes him compelling as a coaching candidate.
But, man. Being out there at the head of that bench is different, folks. It seems to take a fortitude you don’t know you have until you see if you’ve got it. It’s one thing to question those decisions from the sideline, but when your decisions are the decision it’s a different ballgame. It takes experience to know what to do and Redick doesn’t have any of that.
There will be lots of bumps in the road early on. I’m not expecting much from Redick during these first few years with the Lakers. But if LA can ride it out and, hopefully, make it to a second deal with Redick, everything might be alright.
It’s on you, Oilers
It’s rare that a Game 6 ever feels like a Game 7, but that’s what we have in the Oilers-Panthers Stanley Cup Finals tonight.
Edmonton jumped out to an early lead on Florida in Game 5 and beat the Panthers 5-3 to force this Game 6 on its home ice. Now, Connor McDavid and company can get it to a Game 7. If Edmonton pulls this off? Whew, boy. All bets are off.
You can feel the Panthers slowly imploding. You’ve got Bill Zito chucking water bottles in anger. Meanwhile, Connor McDavid is playing some incredible hockey on his end, breaking Wayne Gretzky records and being the offensive engine on the ice we’ve always known him to be.
The walls are closing in on Florida. Luckily for the Panthers, they’ve got at least two more shots to close this thing out in Games 6 and 7.
We’ll see if they can get the job done tonight.
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Angel Reese is the Rookie of the Year
Caitlin Clark is coming on strong and a few other rookies out there are making some noise, but Angel Reese may have already sealed the deal on Rookie of the Year with this historic stretch she just had.
Reese put on a clinic in Chicago’s Camp Day game against Dallas, scoring 16 points to go along with a career-high 18 rebounds.
She’s been playing out of her mind lately and made a bit of WNBA history while doing it. Meghan Hall has more here:
“She’s seventh in the league for total rebounds and leads THE ENTIRE WNBA in offensive rebounds. If that wasn’t impressive, she made WNBA history Thursday, becoming the only rookie ever to have seven consecutive double-doubles. Angel Reese might have just played her way into Rookie of the Year conversations.”
The only thing I’ll disagree with Meghan on here is this: I don’t think she’s just played her way into ROY conversations — I think the conversation starts with her.
The general conversation surrounding Reese tends to be so unnecessarily incendiary. Everyone took the whole “bad guy” thing way too seriously.
But from here on out, here’s what the conversation should be: Angel Reese is playing incredible basketball. Tap in and see it.
Photo Friday: Reggie Jackson giving us history
This isn’t a photo — it’s a video. But you need to hear Reggie Jackson talk about what it was like for him to play baseball in the 1960s.
During a tribute to Willie Mays at Rickwood Field in Alabama, Alex Rodriguez asked Jackson what it meant to return to that field. His answer wasn’t necessarily what anyone expected. But, boy, was it ever needed.
Alex Rodriguez asked a question. Reggie Jackson answered it.
(Shouts to the producer and rest of the desk for staying out of Reggie’s way and just letting him talk. I doubt they expected this answer. But it’s a great few minutes of television.)pic.twitter.com/7WqjlppvF8
— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) June 21, 2024
“Coming back here is not easy. The racism when I played here … The difficulty of going through different places where we traveled. Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it. But I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. … I walked into restaurants and they would point at me and say the [expletive] can’t eat here. I would go to a hotel and they would say the [expletive] can’t stay here. We went to Charlie Finley’s country club for a welcome home dinner, and they pointed me out with the N-word and said ‘He can’t come in here.’ Finley marched the whole team out. Finally, they let me in there.”
That’s just the beginning of it. The entire video is worth a listen. It truly puts into perspective how far things have come, but also how much more work this country still has to do.
Shoutout to Rodriguez for asking the question and to Fox for not stepping on it. I’m so thankful we got this.
Quick hits: JJ Redick’s assistants … Olympic swimming trials drama … and more
— Here’s Bryan Kalbrosky with some good fits for JJ Redick’s staff in LA. Rajon Rondo, anyone?
— The 50 Freestyle at the Olympic Swimming Trials delivered us two incredible swim-offs. Here’s Michelle Martinelli with more.
— Here’s Robert Zeglinski on why Rickwood Field is so important to Willie Mays’ legacy and history.
— The NFL Comeback Player of the Year award is closing the Joe Flacco loophole and I’m grateful for it. Here’s Blake Schuster with more.
— We’ve got trade grades for the Alex Caruso-Josh Giddey deal from Robert here.
— Cory Woodroof has the details on Mark Cuban’s reduced role with the Mavericks here. He’s just a regular famous dude now.
That’s a wrap, folks! Let’s do this again next week! Until then. Peace.
-Sykes ✌️