With the majority of the free agency period now over, there are only a few big-name veterans left on the market with the potential to stick in a playoff team’s rotation. One of them is JJ Redick, though he isn’t coming off of a particularly productive season. The 37-year-old sharpshooter averaged only 7.4 points per game due in part to a heel injury and he publicly voiced his disappointment with the New Orleans Pelicans for trading him to the Dallas Mavericks at the deadline rather than buying him out and allowing him to choose a destination.
Now, Redick is a free agent and can choose a destination. However, as he recently indicated on his own podcast, The Old Man and the Three, he isn’t going to do so any time soon.
“My focus right now is just hanging with my family and enjoying the offseason. And we’ll make a decision on next season—what team, what city, etc.—probably sometime in the next two or three months,” Redick said. “But, you know, I would say, pretty much definitively, like, I won’t be in a training camp to start the season. That’s not gonna happen. So, you know, I’ll join a team at some point this season and finish the year and try to go get a chip.”
According to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report, though, multiple executives believe it could take even longer than that two-to-three month timeline and that teams would need to clear Redick’s heel injury before signing him. Most around the league believe that Redick’s preference is to join the Knicks or Nets, as his family lives in Brooklyn, and some executives have told Fischer that Redick may retire if he can’t get to New York. At the moment, neither the Nets nor the Knicks have an open roster spot, though that could change during the season.
Shooting is perhaps the most important skill in the modern NBA. If Redick wants to land with a contender and compete for a championship during the season, he’ll likely have a chance to do so. For now, though, it appears as though he is going to wait and see how the beginning of the season plays out.
Courtesy: CBS Sports
