The Los Angeles Lakers are back to the drawing board after their reported No. 1 candidate for head coach Dan Hurley officially turned them down on Monday. Now, the presumptive frontrunner for the job is JJ Redick, who has been dominating the airwaves for weeks before Hurley’s name emerged.

Lakers fans might assume that Redick is a done deal at this point. But the latest reporting suggests they shouldn’t be too sure. Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports reported on Tuesday that there are league sources who think that Redick will not want to be “a second choice” in the Lakers’ “circus”.

This would obviously be another major blow for the Lakers. All the previous reporting suggested that the Lakers have been enamored with Redick for a long time and see him as a Pat Riley-like figure with a ton of upside.

If the Lakers fail to get LeBron James’ podcast co-host and good friend to be their next head coach, that is a damning indictment of how this organization is seen around the league.

It could also have devastating consequences for LeBron’s future in Los Angeles. Does he want to be with a franchise that fails to hire his preferred candidates?

Perhaps Redick feeling like a second choice doesn’t matter. Maybe his desire to make the jump to being a head coach is more important than the “circus” in Los Angeles. Let’s hope for the fanbase’s sake that that is the case. Otherwise, the rest of the Lakers’ offseason is about to get complicated and uncomfortable.