Report: Lakers are hiring Greg St. Jean as an assistant coach
The Lakers continue to add coaches to JJ Redick’s staff and are bringing back Greg St. Jean as an assistant.
It was quiet for a few weeks, but the Lakers have been busy recently adding assistant coaches to JJ Redick's staff.
Vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka and Redick have been "completely aligned" on adding former head coaches to the staff.
They accomplished that goal by hiring Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks as top assistant coaches. Now, they are adding another assistant with connections to the Lakers.
As Michael Scotto of Hoops Hype first reported, the Lakers are adding Greg St. Jean as an assistant coach.
The Los Angeles Lakers are adding Greg St. Jean as an assistant coach to JJ Redick’s staff, league sources told @hoopshype. He won a championship as part of Frank Vogel’s Lakers staff in 2020 and has since been an assistant coach with Jason Kidd in Dallas and Vogel in Phoenix. pic.twitter.com/HKJvABm3Zy
— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) July 7, 2024
The name might not sound familiar to most fans, but St. Jean has a long NBA coaching resume.
He was an assistant coach for Frank Vogel in Phoenix since 2023, worked underneath Jason Kidd in Dallas from 2021-23 and was part of Vogel's staff from 2019-21, helping the Lakers win the 2020 championship.
Few understand this organization's intricacies better than St. Jean does.
With that information in hand, he is still willing to return to Los Angeles and take on the challenge of bringing the Lakers back to glory working underneath a first-year head coach.
The Lakers may not have executed a blockbuster deal this summer, but they are delivering in the coaching department.
The franchise has invested financially into the staff as promised and suddenly, they have decades of NBA coaching experience on the bench and people in the building with experience working under this ownership group.
The Lakers are not finished yet, as more coaches will likely be announced in the coming weeks.
Redick mentioned the Lakers are planning to hire a Director of Player Development, so that's another addition people should be looking for.
The Lakers might be a win-now team, but with a quarter of their roster 23 and under, the growth and development of their young assets will be critical to the team's success.
That's why Redick will be helping Lakers Summer League coach Dane Johnson develop young players like Bronny James, Dalton Knecht and Maxwell Lewis at the California Classic and the Las Vegas Summer League this July.
It will take an all-hand-on-deck approach to get the Lakers from the seventh seed in the Western Conference back to the NBA Finals. While we haven't seen a transaction that catapults them there, they are moving in the right direction.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.