Well here it is almost midnight and the one place I forgot to wish J a Happy Birthday is a site with his name on it.
HAPPY 24 ON THE 24TH J. AND MAY YOUR WISH FOR REAL PLAYING TIME THIS COMING SEASON COME TRUE.
Another band wagon Carolina run from its fan base. This past week the Tarholes made it to Omaha for the baseball world series. Fans Bandwagon fans came out of the wood work once again to cheer on the team they couldn’t name the lead off hitter for.
I think we know who you are. The bandwagon fan talks trash at work. The team loses. The bandwagon fans fails to mention or talk about the baseball team that lost this past weekend. They are indeed hillarious.
I do know one thing, they are 0-3 in their run for the title. Much like the basketball team thats gone 0-2 in the past 2 years. Now that they have their lineup back again, lets see if the basketball team can go 0-3 like their baseball team.
JJ redick is confident that he will be in Orlando when the next season starts and will be getting playing time this season. He has realized that he just has to be patient and he will get playing time. Right now J is at Coach K’s fantasy camp where he will be coaching one of the teams. This is Redick’s second time working as a coach at Coach K’s fantasy camp.
http://www.thetimesnews.com/sports/redick_14232___article.html/duke_orlando.html
http://www.gastongazette.com/sports/williams_21279___article.html/duke_redick.html
I guess a lot was made of an article written by Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel. The headline read: “Redick: Play me or Trade me.” However, I never said those words. And if you read the article there’s no quotes from me saying those words. But that’s how the media operates to make a story. I met with Stan and Otis two days after the season ended and talked about my future with the Magic. I definitely expect to be back when training camp starts.
This is a quote from JJ Redick’s website these are JJ’s words about what really was or was not said to Brian Schmitz.
As I have said before Brian Schmitz loves to lie and get his name in print and once again he is shown for the kind of writer he is.
Once again I say that the newspaper he works for should fire his sorry ass, because no one can respect that paper as long as that man works there lying about other people and calling it news.
Here is the link to Redick’s website where he posted his personal thoughts about this matter and other things.
http://www.redicklive.com/redick/blogDetail/482
Brian Schmitz
Sentinel Staff Writer
3:19 PM EDT, May 14, 2008
Orlando Magic shooting guard J.J. Redick expects to return next season, but he didn’t back off his request to be traded if he can’t find playing time.
Redick, the club’s 2006 first-round pick out of Duke who has played sparingly, requested in early January that the Magic deal him.
“I want to play. . .There were a lot of things that were said last summer and in the preseason, you know, and I thought I was going to play. It didn’t happen,” Redick said Wednesday after the team met for a final time this season.
“I’m certainly not going to sit there and hear the same stuff and think I’m going to get the same results. I’m going to put some of this on myself to get better, but there’s got to be an opportunity for me to get on the court.”
He has been playing behind starting shooting guard Mo Evans and his back-up, Keith Bogans. Redick’s trade request came shortly after the club acquired Evans from the Los Angeles Lakers in November.
“The thing I want to discuss is my future here and kind of what their plan is. As I said all along, I want to play here . . . . but I want to play,” Redick said.
“I can’t predict the future. I honestly think when training camp starts, I’ll be here —- that’s my gut feeling — but I don’t know.”
Magic General Manager Otis Smith still wants Redick to be patient. With Evans an unrestricted free agent and Bogans a restricted free agent (who is likely to return), Smith said Redick, “could easily go from the third guy to the first guy.
“We do think he’s a pretty good player, but he’s a backup 2 (shooting guard).”
Smith conceded he hears all the time from supporters of Redick, who remains a popular figure after his decorated career at Duke. “I don’t think that you reward playing time because I get an e-mail a day,” Smith said.
Redick has two more years on his contract and then the team can make him a qualifying offer.
Copyright © 2008, Orlando Sentinel
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Adding insult to Redick SVG deactivated him for game three of the playoff series between the Magic and Pistons. There sat JJ in his street clothes behind the bench instead of sitting at the bench suited up for action. There is little hope that JJ will see any action considering the way the Magic coach has been treating Redick.
Unless there is a major change with the teams makeup for next season this will be the only kind of action that Redick will see under this coach. The Magic either need to get rid of SVG (never going to happen) or they need to trade JJ so that he can finally get to show his stuff to the rest of the world. John Denton of Florida Today who took in a practice of the Magic said that Redick was fantastic and he could not figure out why SVG was not using this great player. So please Magic management use him or trade him don’t let this great talent waste on your bench because of some strange reason that only your coach SVG knows.
It turns out that Redick has tendonitis in one of his feet and was not able to play.
Still he has gotten a raw deal over the season by SVG when it comes to playing time. Lets hope this is corrected.
Duke associate head coach Johnny Dawkins has accepted the head coaching job at Stanford, multiple sources told ESPN.com.
Dawkins just completed his 11th season on the bench with his college coach, Mike Krzyzewski. Dawkins was in the mix for the Georgetown opening a few years ago when the Hoyas hired John Thompson III and is in charge of player development for the U.S. Olympic team coached by Krzyzewski.
Dawkins will succeed Trent Johnson, who abruptly left for LSU after leading the Cardinal to the Sweet 16. He inherts a team that will lose the Lopez twins, Brook and Robin, to the NBA draft, but will return its primary perimeter players in Mitch Johnson, Lawrence Hill and Anthony Goods, who will all be seniors next season.
You won’t find many players in the Orlando Magic’s locker room that are more popular than J.J. Redick. His female fans love his good looks, and many times they can be found arguing over them: is he more Tom Cruise or Luke Perry? His male fans love watching him shoot that dead-eye jumper that made him a legend at Duke. They stand to their feet in anticipation every time he gets the ball; it’s almost like watching Dwight Howard dunk in the open court. Unfortunately this year has been frustrating for both Redick and his fans, as he only appeared in 33 games, but over the Magic’s last two games he gave everyone a glimpse at what’s to come. He’s not there yet but when he gets there you better watch out, this guy can play.
Many people will dismiss Redick’s career-high 18-point performance as a non-factor because it came in a meaningless win. They would argue that he got hot towards the end of the game and made some shots against the Wizards’ bench warmers. That’s a shame because they’re missing a potential stud stroke a sweet jumper, something he does better than 90% of the league.
He doesn’t make shots because he’s hot; he makes them because he’s open.
He makes it rain, not in a “Pacman Jones” fashion, so you won’t see dollar bills falling from the sky. Redick’s rain storms come in the form of elbow jumpers and three-point shots - the type of rain that causes coaches to call timeout, slam down their clipboards, and stay away from the zone.
Something that many of his detractors neglect to mention when they talking about the young guard is how well he plays when he’s given the chance.
This season he’s averaging 12.7 points per game, (52% from the field, and 50% from three-point land) in games where he plays over 15 minutes. But he’s only seen those types of minutes four times this season; the opportunities to shine just haven’t been there. That’s the biggest hurdle for him to clear and everyone that knows him knows that’s going to start on the defensive end of the floor. He will get more time once he can defend on the same level as Keith Bogans, Maurice Evans, and Keyon Dooling.
Redick is a great shooter, but at this point of his career his shooting hasn’t translated into a great ability to score the ball. So if he can’t get defensive stops his shooting won’t help the Magic much – you can’t score 20-points and give up 23-points on the other end.
For that reason it would be surprising to see him get any play time during the playoffs; he hasn’t been in the rotation the entire season. But make no mistake about it; he could help the Magic’s playoff push.
Like Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu, he’ll create space on the floor and the team will need that. The Raptors are going to run all types of double-teams and traps at Howard. Redick’s shooting would serve as an incredible weapon for the team if the Raptors are having success with their defensive schemes. You have to respect his ability from the outside, so guys won’t be able to hover around Howard.
Seeing him in the immediate plans remains to be seen, so we’ll have to continue to wonder how good he could be if he played consistent minutes.
But Redick’s time is coming and it looks like he’ll be ready. He has been written off by many people before having the chance to prove himself. Judging what he’s done when he’s had the chance it’s safe to say the Magic made a good choice in grabbing the sharp-shooter.
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Jarrod Rudolph has covered the NBA for HOOPSWORLD for two years, powering HOOPSWORLD.COM and HOOPSWORLD Magazine.
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Each year the NBA draft produces a handful of surprise picks and some wheeling-and-dealing that GMs apparently get suckered into (see Thomas, Isiah). And sometimes those circumstances lend to fitting square pegs into round holes.
This seems to be the case for JJ Redick, the rarely-used shooting guard for the Orlando Magic.
For Redick, one of the best nights of his life quickly turned into a situation unlike any he has faced in his basketball career.
He couldn’t get on the court.
In fact, for two years, Redick has been sitting on the bench in Orlando.
And for two years, Redick has been asking for everyone to politely let him leave.
In Redick’s first year, the Magic’s head coach was Brian Hill, who was brought back in to bring strong defensive principles, discipline, and “stability.” Unfortunately for Hill, nobody told him the plans had changed after they hired him.
Needless to say, Redick didn’t fit into Hill’s style of play—and other than a few games of mop up minutes, Redick rarely played in his rookie season.
So when Hill was run out of town (for the second time), and Billy Donovan was named the new head coach, Redick was beaming with optimism.
Just as Donovan watched Redick tear up record books at Duke for four years, Redick watched Donovan convert a lightly recruited six-foot shooting guard (Lee Humphrey) into one of the most lethal weapons in the nation—both as a shooter and on-the-ball defender.
It was the match Redick longed for, and playing time was right around the corner.
But the marriage didn’t last long, as Donovan had a change of heart and decided to head back to the college game.
Making matters worse for Redick was that the Magic’s Plan B was Stan Van Gundy, who does not exactly share the same playbook as Donovan.
And so the Redick saga continued.
Coming from the old-school Pat Riley lineage, Van Gundy—like Hill—preaches defense, defense, defense. And while the Magic have made significant improvements, Redick continues to sit on the pine game after game.
Listening to GM Otis Smith talk about Redick, it is clear (at least from a publicity standpoint) that the Magic are not interested in trading Redick. Smith and Van Gundy both say Redick has the qualities needed for NBA success: potential, work ethic, and—most importantly—that trademark textbook jumpshot.
But if the Magic haven’t committed to playing Redick yet, what exactly is going to change next year, or the year after that, to make them trust Redick?
I certainly can’t question Van Gundy’s approach. The guy clearly knows what he is doing and is a proven NBA head coach. But sometimes the idea of surrounding one of the most dominant centers in Dwight Howard with Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu, and Redick seems like a pretty good plan.
Magic fans seem to want the same thing, chanting Redick’s name in home games. Clearly, Orlando fans want to see if Redick can compete in the NBA.
If Redick stays on the Magic, however, that may never happen.
Playing in front of him are NBA-known commodities (aka Van Gundy favorites) and hustle guys or defensive specialists: Maurice Evans, Keith Bogans, and Keyon Dooling, who plays the point and shooting guard.
When the Magic beat the Cavs on April 5th, their playoff spot was locked in at number three. Since then, they have not been able to move up or down.
Yet Redick still sits.
In the three games since clinching their playoff spot, Redick has played a total of three minutes. Against the lowly Knicks and Timberwolves, Redick did not see the floor. In a blowout of the Bulls last night, Van Gundy gave Redick a whole three minutes of glory.
In 80 games this season, Redick has racked up 48 DNP-CDs.
Like the rest of the nation, I am not a Duke fan. But I want to see Redick get on the court. I want to see if he can succeed on the NBA level.
Play him or trade him, but in any case: Free JJ.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/17630-Memo-to-Orlando-Magic-Free-JJ-Redick
Article from the Orlando paper about JJ and getting some playing time before the playoffs.
There’s no excuse now.
J.J. Redick — you remember him — should play in these meaningless games down the stretch.
He should have some games here for the Magic when he plays 20-25 minutes.
If the Magic believe that player development has real meaning and is not an oxymoron, J.J. should play.
Because as embarrassing as it is for Redick to sit on the bench at home late in a lopsided game and hear the Rudy-like chants, it’s even more embarrassing for a franchise to see him collect mothballs.
What does that accomplish?
For the life of me, I don’t get it.
Redick should have played most, if not all, the game Sunday in New York against the lowly Knicks. Stan Van Gundy should have rested his starters and guys like Redick and Marcin Gortat should have been given so many minutes that they fell over in exhaustion.
The Magic have had a playoff spot clinched since March 15 and they solidified the No. 3 position Saturday with a win in Cleveland. They can’t move up or down. They can only make their record prettier in these last five games.
They want to win 50, and that’s a nice number. But they also shelled out a first-round pick for Redick in 2006, and he has had no extended run of playing time since he arrived. It’s not as if the Magic have had this terrific draft resume, either; they need to show fans something.
The clubnever has given an indication to me that they don’t they think he can play in this league.
Even if the Magic believe that Redick will have to be moved — J.J. asked to be dealt early this season — you still need to try to showcase him, don’t you? He is a shooter and they never lose their vaIue.
Practice is not enough. Everybody knows that.
Get Redick on the floor.
Now is the time.
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