JJ Redick is brave – or crazy – for taking on Lakers job

Dude really is a basketball sicko for this.

Because who in his right mind would want to begin his coaching career by taking over as head coach of these win-now-somehow Lakers?

JJ Redick must be mad or mad brave or way too confident, and probably all three.

This is a “Rookie of the Year” script, this premise that someone would jump from the BBA to the NBA; just your never-before-attempted Brooklyn Basketball Academy-to-the-National Basketball Association leap.

Imagine drawing up a play that takes the ball out of your fourth-grader’s hands and puts it in those of LeBron James. That is not an assignment for the faint of heart, the weak of will, the self-doubting.

That’s like racking up a few thousand dollars in speeding tickets and declaring yourself ready for the Indianapolis 500 – and possibly as dangerous for a person’s health.

It’s clearing a million frequent flier miles and asking to pilot the plane home because you know there’s turbulence ahead.

I’d say I hope Redick, 40, stays in a Holiday Inn Express before the season tips off Tuesday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves, but that’s highly doubtful – there’s a reason, after all, that he’s so relatable to the rich hoopers he’s leading.

Relatable and out of his depth? A natural-born maestro and smug son of a gun? A knockdown shooter and grade-A thinker who has never graded a paper in his life? A detail-oriented master of efficiency who is one losing skid away from being reminded he wasn’t his employer’s first choice? An inspired hire in a no-win situation?

Because where else – even in the cutthroat NBA – can you win a championship and be fired via tweet two seasons later? What other job can you so obviously wear out your welcome the season immediately after a foray into the Western Conference finals – while going about winning 47 games, a fine result most places but a fail in Lakerdom?

Who skips the line to get on this carousel that’s spinning so fast it’s flung off six head coaches since 2011, and three since Rob Pelinka was hired as the Lakers’ general manager in 2017?

Who presses pause indefinitely on a burgeoning personal media empire to step right up, test his luck and run into a fun house? Who signs up for this without taking a single class in the art of coaching as an assistant with any of the NBA teams who would gladly have had him?

Without even taking this head coaching gig for a test drive with another organization that would have given this world-class perfectionist a chance to practice giving himself necessary grace?

A self-diagnosed sicko, that’s who.

Someone who sees the history of NBA head coaches who were also first-time coaches – take away Steve Kerr’s 24 playoff series victories with Golden State and the nine fellas who fit this bill since 2000 have just three playoff series wins between them – and doesn’t give a …

There are multitudes within this dude Redick, who’s now in charge of bringing out the best in a flawed but familiar and possibly fun Lakers’ roster. It will be his responsibility to ring out every drop of potential from a team whose best offensive role players are inadequate defenders and whose best defensive role players are insufficient scorers.

His is a team that is short a reliable big man – a traditional center, let’s just say it – to play beside and behind do-everything Anthony Davis, the linchpin to the Lakers’ season.

A team that runs back the same cast of characters that fell short last spring, ousted in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.

The only real differences are that Taurean Prince and Spencer Dinwiddie – a pair of serviceable NBA veterans – are out. And that a couple of kids are in: The preseason-bucket-getting Dalton Knecht and LeBron’s son, Bronny.

Go ahead and factor in a finally-healthy Gabe Vincent after the guard missed most of last season and add more young Max Christie to the mix as well. At some point, put in still-injured defensive stopper Jarred Vanderbilt.

And hope that Redick can get those guys to do enough of the dirty work in support of the team’s heavily burdened stars.

Hope that they’ll do – in lieu of moves that haven’t yet or might not come – what the Dallas Mavericks’ marginal improvements at the trade deadline did for them last season.

While the Lakers stood pat, Dallas found a way to bring in power forward P.J. Washington and center Daniel Gafford in fair trades. Incremental, integral improvements for a Mavs team that went all the way to the NBA Finals.