They say champions are made in the offseason, in the quiet moments when nobody’s watching. For rookie Lakers coach JJ Redick, the offseason is for yucking it up with ChatGPT.
In a pre-season press conference held on Thursday, Lakers President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka made the surprise announcement that Redick had locked down a contract extension.
But Redick had an announcement of his own: he considers ChatGPT a “friend.”
After the conference, Redick — a former NBA sharpshooter who stepped into his current position just last year — was asked by an ESPN reporter about his mindset and drive to keep learning.
In the interview, the second-year coach said he’s “not really sure” where that mindset comes from, but that he “just [has] a general curiosity about stuff.”
“I’m the type of person who, y’know, spends an hour and a half going down a deep, deep rabbit hole on ChatGPT,” Redick said. “It used to be Wikipedia, but now it’s me and my friend Chat.”
Redick added that this summer was about more than just studying X’s and O’s, by thinking about the culture he wanted to build with the Lakers in the coming years. Evidently, that culture just might include an AI chatbot.
As SB Nation’s Jacob Rude pointed out, the freshly-minted head coach spent most of the press conference with Pelinka talking about seeking wisdom from other pros, like former NFL quarterback Tom Brady. Giving Redick the benefit of the doubt, ChatGPT could just be another font of knowledge for the relatively inexperienced shot caller to draw on.
It definitely wouldn’t be uncharacteristic for Redick. In 2016, he became the first active NBA player to host a podcast, “The Verticle,” where he regularly interviewed guests from a variety of backgrounds, like pro golfer Jason Day and quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
It’s also not hard to imagine Redick — whose only prior coaching experience came as a fourth-grade volunteer coach — coping with the stress of the job via long, sycophantic sessions with his friend ChatGPT.
“Redick spoke last season about how he handles losses, saying he goes to his basement in the dark and watches film,” Jacob Rude observed. “And now, all I can picture is Redick sitting in the dark, film rolling in the background, while he has a conversation with ChatGPT.”
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