Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes
Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve had a great week with an even better weekend ahead of you.
Don’t look now, but the NBA Draft is less than a week away! The festivities will begin next Wednesday and Thursday. A new crop of players will begin their NBA journeys.
The best out of that crop might be Alex Sarr — the 6-foot-11 Frenchman with a 7-foot-4 wingspan. He is widely regarded as one of the best prospects in this draft class. He’s bounced between No. 1 and No. 2 overall on ESPN’s big board all season. He may be the closest thing we have to a consensus top prospect in a draft without one.
That’s why it’s so confounding that he wants to doom himself to a future with the Washington Wizards.
According to the latest from Yahoo! Sports’ Jake Fischer, Sarr has been dodging workouts with the Atlanta Hawks in hopes of angling himself to go No. 2 overall to the Wizards. Yes, seriously.
Here’s more from Fischer:
“The Wizards are likely to remain at No. 2 as well, where Washington has the league convinced its focused on selecting Alex Sarr from the Perth Wildcats. The Wizards, according to people familiar with the situation, invested the most time and resources of any NBA club sending various personnel to Australia to evaluate Sarr. This situation is also considered the preferred outcome from Sarr’s camp, as it’s become well known that Sarr has so far declined to work out for Atlanta.”
Alex, my guy, are you sure about this one?
I mean, look. As a Wizards fan, I love this. It’s endearing that he wants to be in D.C. We love that sort of thing here. It goes a long way — just ask John Wall.
But dude. We ain’t talking about Harry Potter here. The Wizards have been, uh, Wizard-ing for a really, really long time. Udonis Haslem just said that players get sent to Washington to “get your affairs in order” a few days ago. And, look, as annoying as that is, he’s not wrong! There’s a reason why so many players leave D.C. and become NBA champions. It just hasn’t been great historically.
To be fair to Sarr, this might be less about the Wizards and more about the alternative. Sarr reportedly wants a more advanced offensive role as a power forward instead of a rim-running center. He’s more likely to find that in Washington than in Atlanta.
Plus, Bill Duffy, Sarr’s agent, doesn’t have a great history with Atlanta players either. So it makes sense that Sarr might be trying to angle his way down a pick here.
But, man. Alex, buddy. I hope you know what you’re in for.
READ MORE: Here’s Bryan Kalbrosky’s latest NBA mock draft with Sarr going No. 2 overall to Washington.
A brilliant idea for JJ Redick
JJ Redick probably won’t be a very good coach for the Lakers early in his tenure with the team. That’s generally how it goes for head coaches without experience leading an NBA bench.
But, given a bit of time, I think Redick could be pretty good! He has the passion for it. He just needs the reps.
Some fans proposed a pretty clever idea to get him up to speed — have him coach the Lakers’ Summer League team in Vegas this year. It’s a good idea! And it’s not without precedent — some pretty good coaches have done the same in recent years.
Bryan Kalbrosky has more on it here:
“Last season, before first-time Adrian Griffin took over for as the new head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, he and his coaching staff got their feet wet in Las Vegas. While his tenure with the organization was ill-fated, it was still a wise move.
Steve Kerr, another former player who did not have any head coaching experience before he was hired, also coached the Warriors in NBA Summer League before his first official game with Golden State in 2014.
The previous season, Jason Kidd also made his head coaching debut during NBA Summer League for the Brooklyn Nets.
Redick should consider doing the same thing so he can have as many reps as possible before eventually stepping on the sidelines for his first game.”
The Lakers should tap in on this. Get JJ in Vegas this summer.
Shootaround
— We’ve got trade grades for the Alex Caruso-Josh Giddey deal here from Robert Zeglinski.
— Prince Grimes has eight Lakers bets you should take a look at now that JJ Redick is the team’s head coach.
— The Celtics’ victory cigars are so deliciously petty and awesome. Here’s Meg Hall with more.
— Tom Brady loved the Drunk Brady t-shirt Al Horford wore to the Celtics’ parade. Here’s Charles Curtis with more.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading today. We appreciate you. Have a great weekend! Peace.
-Sykes ✌️
