Emmanuel Acho rips into Los Angeles Lakers, JJ Redick over head coach hiring

It looked like for several months that JJ Redick was jockeying to become the new head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Starting a podcast with LeBron James only helped to fuel that speculation even more. And now that he finally got hired, many people are furious with the hire. Former Texas Longhorn Emmanuel Acho was livid with the hire, since Redick has no sort of coaching experience.

Here’s his rant on FS1.

.@EmmanuelAcho: I can no longer take the Lakers seriously. pic.twitter.com/LuNq414AlM

— Speak (@SpeakOnFS1) June 20, 2024

“I can no longer take the Lakers seriously. Not only can I not take the Lakers seriously, I am viscerally upset with this decision. In life, we’ve been taught that hard work pays off. We’ve been taught that there’s a process and progress to getting where you want to get to,” Acho began.

“I started playing football at eight years old. Played in middle school. Played in high school. Played in college. Played in the NFL. I started on television locally in Austin–Fox 7 in Austin in 2016. Then I did a show for the Dallas Cowboys on Twitter. Then I moved up to another network. Then I moved up to now co-hosting this program. There are steps. There are building blocks. That is what we have been taught. Particularly in sports, that you eat what you kill. And if you don’t kill it, you ain’t eating it,” Acho continued.

“But with this JJ Redick hire, something is smelling far too much cronyism. You’re just getting hired because your friend is there. There is no track record of a coach of JJ Redick’s playing caliber and lack of coaching caliber having success in the NBA. Look at Steve Nash. And Steve Nash was an MVP, so how dare I disrespect Steve Nash and compare the two. But Steve Nash had no coaching experience at any level and Steve Nash went to the Nets. And y’all saw how that imploded within a season,” Acho explained.

“JJ Redick has never coached before at any level. Not with kids, not middle school, not high school, not AAU at any level. So you want me to believe that a coach that hasn’t coached at any level. A coach that hasn’t won at the highest level…So you haven’t coached at any level and you haven’t won at the highest level. And you want me to believe that you could both coach and win at the highest of high levels. How?! It’s quite literally irrational. The math has never mathed less in the history of mathing…So I can’t take it seriously,” Acho vented.

More information on JJ Redick and his playing career

Redick spent 16 seasons in the NBA. He shot 41.5 percent from 3-point range in his career, while playing for the Magic, Bucks, Clippers, 76ers, Pelicans and Mavericks.

The 39-year-old has previously talked about his desire to get into coaching down the line.

“You certainly miss the competitive side of professional basketball when you retire, and that’s probably the biggest itch,” Redick told Dan Patrick about potentially coaching last May. “I’m loving what I’m doing right now and I am in a very fortunate situation that I can kind of wait and just see if there’s anything that materializes that’s sort of a perfect fit.”

Redick also served as an on-air analyst for ESPN, spending time as a guest on ESPN’s ‘First Take’ and on the broadcast team of ESPN’s NBA coverage. He moved to the network’s lead team alongside Mike Breen and Doris Burke to replace Doc Rivers after he became head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks in February.

At Duke, Redick was the 2006 National Player of the Year, a two-time Consensus First-Team All-American and a two-time ACC Player of the Year. He ended his college career as the Blue Devils’ all-time leading scorer before being selected with the No. 11 overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft by the Orlando Magic.

On3’s Nick Kosko also contributed to this article.