The Los Angeles Lakers have made a change to their coaching staff by hiring the former Washington Wizards assistant coach Zach Guthrie to lead South Bay Lakers for the 2024-25 season. The Lakers parted ways with their former South Bay head coach, Dane Johnson, after a season in which they finished with a 26-24 overall record.

Guthrie has been an NBA assistant since the 2016-17 season, when he joined Quin Snyder’s staff at the Utah Jazz. He spent four seasons there, followed by two seasons with Rick Carlisle and the Dallas Mavericks, then the last three seasons with the Wizards. And now he’s joining new head coach JJ Redick and the Lakers.

Guthrie spoke about his excitement about joining the Lakers and what he thinks he can bring to Redick’s vision for the G League development team.

“I am extremely honored to take on this role as head coach of the South Bay Lakers,” said Guthrie. “Helping players reach their full potential is of paramount importance to me. I let the players know that this is a partnership and our collective mission is to help them succeed in every way possible. I couldn’t be more excited to work alongside Coach Redick and his staff to create a development program dedicated to excellence at every level.”

Redick and the Lakers have a brand new player development program in place for the entire season that they believe will be a game-changer for players like Max Christie, Dalton Knecht and Bronny James, and Redick has made it clear that it will be implemented at every level.

That’s probably part of the reason it took so long to find a coach for the South Bay, because Redick needed to be sure he could recruit someone who would preach the same thing he did at the G League level. Guthrie’s biggest early test may be James’ development. All eyes will be on him in the G League given the controversy surrounding his selection in the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft.

But Guthrie seems up for the challenge, because he knows exactly why he came to Los Angeles.

The Lakers never made an offer to Cedi Osman

It’s been a disappointing offseason for the Lakers, as they’ve had several of their top targets rejected.

First, they tried unsuccessfully to recruit Dan Hurley from UConn to be their next head coach. Then, they made Klay Thompson their top target as a free agent, but he opted to sign with the Dallas Mavericks.

And more recently, it was reported that Cedi Osman turned down an invitation to a Los Angeles training camp to play overseas. While this may not seem like a good idea at first glance, it made sense from Osman’s perspective given that the Lakers have no roster spots and he had no chance of making the team.

As it turns out, NBA insider Marc Stein is reporting that an offer was never even made to Osman.

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